Governor Larry Rhoden filed his campaign finance report for 2025 this afternoon, showing his cards on the campaign effort he’s been able to run to date in his pursuit to keep the job he’s doing now. It’s an interesting mix of funding, and well worth the time to go through the report:
Larry Rhoden 2025 EOY Report by Pat Powers
The Governor reports having 1/2 a million in his Gubernatorial campaign account; showing $491,285.87 in income against $70,593.75 in expenses, leaving him an ending balance of $511,815.93. But something caught my eye on this report. It is showing income from Rhoden’s other committees transferred in to increase what his main committee has in it’s account.
In this report, they pulled in and used the $142,500 that the Strong, Safe & Free PAC raised,
AND $85,500 that his super PAC Raised..
..totalling $229,000.
so the main Rhoden for Governor committee actually only raised $282,815.93, and these separate arms of the campaign raised the rest.
Nothing shabby, but to get the true picture of what the Governor has to invest in campaign 2026, we need to review those other reports and see if they have any remaining funds.
In comparison to Safe, Strong & Free, Congressman Dusty’s PAC has $1 million on hand. And to Rhoden’s Gubernatorial report, Dusty for Governor has 1 million on hand (with some moved from Congressional campaign), Plus everything in his federal accounts, which with his state fundraising has him running at about $8 million all in, with a long runway to raise more.
Governor Rhoden has a reasonable start with this seed money, but he’s going to have to invest this to build his kitty much further.
Embarrassing for a sitting Governor.
Pathetic
I think Rhoden is too boring. And I say that as someone who wants less excitement in politics.
To be fair, Larry has been fundraising for 2 months out of 2025. Dusty has been fundraising 12 months of 2025 and building his network for the last 10 years. Larry is never going to raise as much as Dusty, but this is not really apples to apples.
Larry has leveraged most every conceivable gubernatorial advantage in the last year, and this is what he has to show for it.
Honestly, I expected $1.5 million.
Apparently the Noem donors want nothing to do with South Dakota’s Joe Biden
OMG, these comments made me LOL (except for one). The guy announced with what, 40 or so days left in the year? No doubt Dusty has more $$$ (Doeden likely does as well). That’s more of an obvious statement than listening to Magic narrate an NBA game… And getting contributions in about ONLY December (Christmas). Find a comparable comparison (money spent, moving the needle with the voters, etc.); that will be interesting (vs. zero change from the April poll to the October poll with the exception of Dusty spending a WHOLE lot of money and Rhoden $0 and not having announced).
Time will tell but let’s just protect ourselves from the worst. When is the next poll due?
It is ever Larry’s way to sit long in the high seat, speaking of the work of the year, yet stirring himself to gather aid only when the final moon draws near. Such slowness and want of foresight are no strange thing in the house of Rhoden.
Don’t make me laugh. Larry decided to run the second the ink was dry on Kristi’s resignation. He grabbed Tony to do the thinking and the race was on.
Larry can only blame himself if he is coming off as well as Walt Miller did. This contest is Dusty’s to lose.
The good news for Larry is that his campaign staff is all on the state payroll and he has the state plane for travel expenses. AFP is apparently hosting a bunch of his events. So he can just sit back and wait for the teleprompter to be loaded with his next speech.
State plane for campaign after all of the scrutiny Kristi unnecessarily underwent? Not a chance.
Tony, please blink twice at the next press conference, if you are being held against your will.