2025 EOY Reports: House GOP Caucus PAC raises HALF of what they raised at this point in prior cycle.

@SoDakCampaigns

I’m not sure that the House GOP Caucus was exactly on time when they turned their report in for 2025.

According to the SOS,  it came in at 2/1/2026 9:22:00 PM, when they had a due date of 1/30.  But less about being late is comparing the report to the 2023 EOY report for the same time last cycle, there’s a big difference between the reports.

In the 2024 cycle when the GOP Caucus was led by Rep’s Will Mortenson & Taylor Rehfeldt, the 2023 end of year report noted $80,350.00 in income to help Republican House candidates in the fall.

Fast forward two years under Representatives Scott Odenbach and Marty Overweg, the total raised on the 2025 End of Year report? Slightly less than half of the prior leadership team’s total at this point with $39,836.82.

You can read the report here:

House GOP 2026 YE Report by Pat Powers

Biggest donors to the House Republican Caucus included Steve Watkins, the President & CEO at LifeScape, the SD Manufactured Housing Association, and the local South Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

Side note – Coincidentally AFP is also partnering with Governor Rhoden and traveling the state for events promoting his property tax replacement plan this weekend:

Regardless of the source is how badly the caucus took a hit in their fundraising efforts.

Anymore, House candidates are on their own without Republican Party support with fair fundraising winds having shifted against the party at large.

So what they have in their account is the kitty is for House candidates seeking help from the GOP. Having less could be an issue, depending on how much momentum the other side has in this mid-term election for Republicans.

12 thoughts on “2025 EOY Reports: House GOP Caucus PAC raises HALF of what they raised at this point in prior cycle.”

  1. To be fair, the drop in donations could be the result of the real-world upward COLA induced by the tariffs. Less discretionary income is a hard reality.

    1. The donor class has plenty of money but they are not going to give it to the crazies who have taken over the Republican party.

  2. grudznick wonders what the bejebusbuttocks is the matter with the Messrs. Watkins, Duncan, Olson and Van Camp?

    Oh, yeah, they are the only lobbists too chicken to tell those fellows insaner than most to pound course colored sand from the Bennet County Sandhills. Or perhaps…they are just fellows who know a buck is a buck and the free meals at the legislatures are getting scarcer and scarcer. Those guys gotta eat too, so bolstering any diminished lobbistism is probably in their favor.

  3. I would suggest complacency. The SDGOP is in a commanding, super majority position , so why contribute?. DEMOS may pick up a few seats here and there but in the lifetime that most reading this, it doesn’t matter.

  4. People are not giving to the GOP because they know it supports the irrational radicals like Jordan.

  7. There’s a growing disconnect in South Dakota between voters and donors. State legislative candidates are more closely aligned with voters. Statewide office holders are more closely aligned with donors.

    1. I don’t know who the voters are who are aligned with the state legislators.
      I went to a legislative forum yesterday to see what people are concerned about and not one single question was asked about ivermectin, chem trails, vaccines, or vote counting methods.

      There was some discussion about how school districts are spending their capital outlay funds, education funding, teacher pay, property taxes, that sort of thing.

  8. The state party has been taken over by wackadoodles who will use party funds to undermine the slate of Republican candidates.

    They almost had the votes they needed at the 2022 convention to (1) drain the party’s treasury, take the money for themselves, and stiff the convention venue for the bills, and (2) deny the party’s endorsement of the candidates, Noem, Thune and Johnson, who had just won their primary races. These voice votes were so close they had to call for division. It was too close for comfort.
    They did have the votes to defeat the resolution thanking the outgoing chairman for his leadership, showing that they have neither brains nor class.

    Knowing that they might try to do the same things, take the party money for themselves, not pay their bills, and refuse to endorse the party’s candidates, nobody in their right mind is going to give them any money. Direct contributions to the candidates or Political Action Committees are going to be where the money goes now. Watch for the individual filings and you will see the money is flowing, just not to the party.

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