2026 Update: Secretary of State Monae Johnson spruces up website, now telling people she’s running. Will Leah Anderson be her opponent?

Well, here’s another one for your bingo card of “things I wasn’t expecting.”

Recall a week or so back, when I was giving a rundown of what was happening in the constitutional office races for 2026? I had mentioned the scuttlebutt in the Secretary of State’s contest where everything I’d heard from my spies indicated that current Secretary of State Monae Johnson was not going to run, given the constant state of chaos and screwups that flow from her office, and the fact she’s the most embattled Secretary of State in State History.

Surprisingly, that talk is now being tamped down. In more recent weeks, apparently the Secretary of State has found the money to update her campaign website:

And now I’m hearing from several sources that Secretary of State Monae Johnson plans to launch her “re-election effort” at the upcoming South Dakota State Fair.  It might just be releasing updated materials along the looks of her campaign website, but she’s launching something in Huron in a few weeks, and I’m told it’s related to her run in 2026, under a theme of “experience.”

Why the proactive investment of effort into an election we all thought was being abandoned? Especially in the face of the fact that she has caused a lot of her support to evaporate?

I’m also hearing that Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson of all people – despite her record of complete awfulness and attempts to deny people the right to vote – sees herself in the role of Secretary of State.

Yes. God help us all. I’m actually being told that she has her eye on the Secretary of State’s office.

It does make sense, considering that Monae Johnson is now utterly hated by the people who put her in office, that they might be looking for a new candidate to hoist their pitchforks behind. And considering that Leah does the bidding of the “election integrity” conspiracists, including putting them in charge of county elections, she might be what fills the bill for those who claim that elections are being controlled by outside forces.

While Monae Johnson distanced herself from the election conspiracy crackpots after being elected, Leah puts them in charge of elections, and serves as the figurehead of the office.  Of course, that’s going to be someone that the election deniers want in charge of elections on a statewide basis. And tossing out the person who wouldn’t play ball with them has to be at the top of their agenda for the 2026 Republican State Convention.

Because, despite several attempts, in this potential matchup, Republicans on a statewide basis don’t get to choose. It will be party insiders who attend the South Dakota Republican Party’s next convention who will select the horse the GOP is going to run behind.

And if these are our options, running behind may mean running far behind. Far, far behind.