The Argus filed a boring, predictable story yesterday on the elections. Even worse, this was a “subscriber only” story, so they’re posting on their main page that if you want to read it, you have to pay for it. (No switching your web browsers to private mode and reading it that way, you newspaper pirates!)
The lede for the story is as follows….
A wave of new Republican legislators will be headed to Pierre next year, with multiple incumbents already removed through the primary election process. And the Democrats are looking to build on their current super-minority status this November election.
And that’s supposed to set the tone for this story. …I guess.
I suppose you could say “multiple incumbents already removed through the primary process.” While it was the introduction of the article and was supposed to grab us, Argus political reporter Lisa Kaczke managed to muddy up the actual details.
Nine Republican legislators lost their primary election, and combined with a dozen races without a Republican incumbent, these elections could pave the way for a new group of Republicans at the Capitol.
The Republican candidate cohort includes Erin Tobin, a nurse practitioner who defeated House Majority Leader Lee Qualm by a large margin in Senate District 21, Jessica Bahmuller, the daughter of Rep. Arch Beal who had a narrow victory over Rep. Marty Overweg in House District 19, and former legislator Dean Wink, who led in the House District 29 race that saw the defeat of Rep. Thomas Brunner.
“Multiple incumbents removed?” Well, yes, but…
Kaczke did manage to describe the D19 race accurately, as well as the D29 race. But she drops the ball when she completely ignores the other races where an incumbent lost, the District 7 race in Brookings where State Rep. Doug Post was odd-man out when Larry Tidemann decided to make a comeback, and Tim Reed held his seat. And then we hears nothing about Gubernatorial appointee JD Wangsness being beat out in D23 House, nor Gubernatorial appointee Dayle Hammock in D31 House.
Yes, there were other elections such as the Otten/Latterell, Rusch/Rassmussen & Qualm/Tobin races where current lawmakers were involved – but the ones who lost were termed out of their current office, and lost the race for the new office they were seeking.
Tobin and Qualm were competing for an open seat – so there was no actual incumbent there. I mean, if someone is a Congressman running for the US Senate, we don’t call them “incumbent.” That’s just sloppy. I mean, if your premise is claiming that multiple incumbents were removed, you could probably use the ones who lost as examples instead of including a race where that didn’t happen.
For incumbents, it doesn’t seem as a major overthrow when you look in it at that context. It just seems more like the circumstance of a narrow loss, a couple of campaign vets returning, and you have appointees who don’t have the experience of running a legislative race before. (As I’ve written about in the past, historically they lose at least 50% of the time.)
If you look at the title ascribed to the article “Party dynamics, changes to status quo in play for South Dakota Legislature in 2021,” Having done work for a number of campaigns this primary season, I’d tell you that a concept such as ‘party dynamics’ had nothing to do with the results of the primary elections.
So many of the people who won did it through coalition building, their own hard work, and sheer will. If that’s the change they’ll be bringing to the legislature in 2021, South Dakota will be in good hands, indeed.
I will say there was one quote in the article that was amusing. Maybe not $32-a-month-for-Argus-on-line-access funny, but it still made me laugh, which came from Democrat Executive Director & former State Rep. Pam Merchant (now Pam Cole) describing her efforts with the Democrat Party:
We’re pacing ourselves with our party and building a bench over time.
Democrats are “pacing” themselves with their party and “building a bench over time?” Is that what you call it?
(OK. Maybe that was worth the $32 this month. That’s really funny.)
“Party dynamics” is the kind of vague meaningless terminology someone would use to sound informed and analytical.
10 years ago, it might have used the term “paradigm shift.”
The SD Dems have been pacing themselves in the legislature for a decade.
2009-10: 14 Sen. 25 HR (Heidepriem golden years)
2011-12: 5 Sen. 19 HR (2010 collapse. Thune unopposed, Daugaard and Noem win)
2013-14: 7 Sen. 17 HR
2015-16: 8 Sen. 12 HR (Daugaard reelected big and Rounds wins Senate)
2017-18: 6 Sen. 10 HR
2019-20: 5 Sen. 11 HR (Sutton kept it close but no coattails)
They look on track to drop another senate seat this year, falling to only 4 senators. HR is harder to predict; Dems could get as high as 16 or as low as 7. The current number of 11 is probably pretty likely.
The Democrats will lose 2 more House seats in Minnehaha this cycle. We have better candidates there and turnout will be higher.
They could easily be down to three senators this fall
Lee everyone I know and whom I have spoken with in the last three months doesn’t trust the media except for their local weekly newspapers. Thank goodness for me for that too.
The Argus and American News are now owned by liberal interests and for a SD Conservative having either of them badmouth us is a vote getter. In all honesty the daily paper’s flipping out liberal love only hurts Democrats in SD probably undeservedly. I don’t know anyone who approves of what is happening in Democrat stronghold cities today across America.