SDWC Top Ten Political stories of 2022 (Part 2)

Repeating what I noted in part 1, If we could assign any broad overall themes to the top ten political stories of the year, I would argue there are two that are obvious.  The first and more prevalent theme I would apply is simply “conflict.” There was conflict within the GOP. There was conflict between the GOP and Democrats. There was conflict between branches of government. In a time when things were getting better, there was still a lot of bickering. The second theme would be that of “law and order,” with not one but two accusations of rape against legislative candidates, but the entire gamut of Jason Ravnsborg impeachment surrounding the trial and the penalty for his actions in the September 2020 accident which claimed the life of Joe Boever.

Top ten SDWC political Stories of 2022 – Part 2

5. All out legislative primary war.

In the past, the State Legislative primaries have proven to be lively affairs. But in 2022, on the Republican side of the aisle, the battles that were waged were all-out war, fueled in part by out of state dollars dumped into South Dakota.  In 2022 as in the past, State Senator Lee Schoenbeck worked to encourage good people to get involved in state government, and was willing to raise money to get behind those people. And maybe to point out why there were some running who should not be back. But other forces came into play in 2022.

Led by the Convention of States, an all-out assault via postcard was made in the primary election against a number of sitting legislators as well as candidates to attempt to portray them as offensive to the electorate. Calling several of their opponents “Sex-Ed Radicals” they recklessly went after their opponents, no matter how hard they had to stretch the truth to do so. Other groups entered the fray to support their candidates, including the political arm of the free-enterprise promoting group Americans for Prosperity, who took to mailboxes as well as facebook to promote their candidates, many of whom were in contested primaries.

Other candidates raised and spent money to attack candidates through Hillary-Clinton donor and State Legislator Liz May’s political action committee, Kevin Jensen created a PAC to spend Karla Lems’ money in the Haugaard/Noem race, as well as to support Schoenbeck’s opponent.

It was an all out war on all sides. Ultimately at the end of the day there was only a slight shift in the power structure among Republicans.

The Senate picked up a slightly more conservative bent, but not enough to shift the power structure. But in the House, it was more evident. The House shifted just enough to bring a younger element to the power structure for the chamber, and shed some of the people anchoring it down. People such as Enough so that they wanted a change in direction.

In a historic change, they up-ended the existing power structure, passed on giving the Assistant Speaker a promotion, and put a whole new team in place so they could actually accomplish something moving forward.

We’ll see if it takes.

 

4. Collapse of Media stalwart and the rise of new media.

I think one of the biggest stories is one that we hadn’t heard much about. Because the Argus Leader isn’t going to point out how their news department has utterly collapsed. But it has, and at the same time it has spawned new outlets for media that hadn’t been there 2 years ago.

In 2019, the Argus Leader’s parent company Gannett gobbled up the Aberdeen American News and Watertown Public Opinion to go with several weekly newspapers it had procured earlier, further consolidating their hold over South Dakota’s media. But then things started to happen in late 2021. In November of 2021, the announcement was made that the Argus Leader, Watertown Public Opinion, and Aberdeen American News were moving their printing to Iowa.  Shortly thereafter in Mid-December of 2021, the announcement was made that they were selling their building on Minnesota Avenue.

They’d consolidated ownership, and consolidated their printing operations.. So, what big expense items were left for them to trim to try to improve profits in the region for the Gannett media empire?

First in 2022, they went to being a 6-day a week newspaper. And after they started shrink-flation on the amount of product they were putting out, they started reducing the number of people producing the product.  They started getting rid of people via buyouts, firings, furloughs, retirements, etc.

But, interestingly, many of those people didn’t go away. In fact, a few of them went into competition in both competing print publications and new media.

After leaving the Argus, two of the significant members of the Argus’ political news team, Jon Ellis and Joe Sneve, left and started “The Dakota Scout,” bringing their political content more directly to readers (as well as covering the popularity of Dog and Cat names.)  After leaving the Argus in 2018, John Hult found his way over to South Dakota Searchlight. A couple are part of South Dakota News Watch, and several others have popped up publishing their own websites and producing content.

It will take some time to determine how many are able to turn their ventures into continuing and profitable concerns.  But as the Gannett continues to consolidate their operations, people may be turning more and more to websites to find out what’s happening in their local community.

And if you think about it, the massive media conglomerates kind of did it to themselves.

 

3. Dusty Johnson challenged, but victorious as always.

The Dusty Johnson story in electoral politics is one where he is continually underestimated by those on the hard-right, but he is consistently well-liked by everyone else, as shown in his sustained popularity rankings. Congressman Johnson chooses to be more thoughtful, and this style might be to his detriment with the hard-right who seem fixated on Trumpian bombast. But it seems to have done him no harm with the electorate at large.

Across the aisle, a Democrat candidate had emerged early on in the Spring, only to find himself quickly vetted out of the race within days of announcing.

“It is pretty exciting, it kind of came together quickly,” Ryder said in an interview shortly after his announcement. “I think we can reach out to a lot of people that I am not normally in contact with about our common goals for making South Dakota better.”

But just hours after his announcement, concerns were raised about several questionable tweets from Ryder’s personal Twitter account.

and..

In one, Ryder suggests that he should make an animated video of Johnson’s family getting killed.

Or in another, Ryder makes jokes about performing sexual acts to a picture of Governor Kristi Noem.

Read that here.

And Ryan Ryder’s candidacy ended in a matter of hours.   With the implosion of the Democrat, that left Dusty with a Republican challenger.   In 2022, we found ourselves with a second election in a row where Dusty was challenged from someone in the legislature who allowed themselves to come down with a full-blown case of legislatoritis, marked by an over-inflated ego and gullible enough to be talked into running for a statewide office.

This years’ sacrificial lamb in the primary was Taffy Howard who jumped into the contest in late 2021. And predictably, her participation in the legislative session didn’t end up being an asset, but a liability. Despite her bravado in campaigning, Johnson’s opponent found herself bound to Pierre during session, and her fundraising was hampered for it. But even worse for Howard was her voting record.  Handing her opponent one of his biggest issues was Howard’s abysmal legislative record, which in 2022 had an overly cautious Howard ducking off the floor whenever any controversial measure would come up. She ducked off the House floor so much, she ended up skipping 14% of the floor votes.

Predictably, with Howard running an almost exclusively negative campaign, she found herself gaining little traction among Republicans, finding herself defeated on a 60-40% basis in June.

From there, Dusty moved towards the fall facing no Democrat, but a Libertarian who managed to achieve better than many Libertarians had in the past. Colin Duprel managed to get his name out enough he was capture the anti-incumbent vote, giving him 21% against Congressman Johnson who won handily.

Johnson’s next campaign may begin in 8-10 months, so it’s a good lesson for whomever else is feeling a swelled sense of self-importance. Congressman Johnson has managed to dispatch all comers to this point. So if you’re going to think about it, you’d better consider what you bring to the table that the previous candidates haven’t to date.

 

2. Kristi Noem smashes all opponents. 

Some of you out there might not care for Kristi Noem. Especially considering the amount of trash generated by those attacking her.  Opponents. The media, the former Speaker of the House. The former Attorney General.  In 2022, there were a lot of people throwing flak her way. But the Governor has never been one to do what is easy. She walks the walk.

Governor Kristi Noem has been tested by fire (and COVID), and she is not going to be bowed.  Not the least of all by her detractors.

2022 started out with a Republican Challenger in Steve Haugaard believing he challenge Noem at the ballot box.  Not even close. The Haugaard campaign showed less fire than fellow hard-right candidate Taffy Howard.  The future was not in doubt.  Haugaard lost 23 to 77%.  Her opponents fared almost as poorly in the fall.

Democrat Jamie Smith spent much of the year going through the motions of a campaign. He pretended that the odds might be in his favor, and was emboldened by an October poll conducted by South Dakota State University. But few besides Smith took that measure of his popularity seriously.  Especially when a month later when he was badly beaten on a nearly 2-1 basis with a 63-34% vote.

Governor Noem has her critics in politics, the press, and let’s not even talk about social media.  But despite their volume, the ballot box shows the extent as to Governor Noem’s popularity. She has cemented her place in South Dakota history as our first female Governor through strength of character. And she has used that same strength to defeat all opponents, no matter from which corner they come at her.

 

1. The Impeachment of Jason Ravnsborg

This was the overarching shadow above everything this year.  It dominated the last legislative session. It came up in legislative races. It was part of almost every political story until it finally came to fruition.

It generated headlines and had questions of secrecy.

Many have been wondering why it had to go to that point, as the outcome was not in doubt once it was narrowly passed in the House when enough members put politics aside and voted to send the matter across the building to hearing in the Senate.

But, Attorney General Ravnsborg stubbornly thought he could play it out until the end. Despite the fact that many elected officials over the last year were ready to be done with the whole affair months ago.

In the run up to the June primary, a poll conducted by South Dakota State University noted that 70% of voters wanted Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg impeached and removed.  But, from other sources, I had heard that the SDSU poll was off. Way off.   But not in a way that would benefit Jason. I’d heard that more accurate and recognized polling was out there which had the total number of South Dakotans who wanted to be done with it sitting closer to 80% of voters.

Candidates out in the field reported that the issue of the impeachment of the Attorney General was THE single most common issue that people were talking about.  But they were not expressing sympathy towards the AG. They wanted it to be over.  The issue of impeachment came up in candidate questionnaires with the media, and it was the subject of harsh attacks against at least one legislator.   The longer it had gone on, inertia behind this never-ending controversy which drug on and on only drove an ever-increasing resolve for people to just want it to be done.

And impeachment moved forward, and played out as expected.

 

And that’s rounding out the top ten SDWC political stories of 2022!