Aberdeen man announces he’s exploring race for Congress, while Congressman Dusty Johnson is conducting campaign.

Yesterday afternoon, an e-mailed survey went out to a number of South Dakotans asking them to respond to the question they were dying to know the answer to…

They recognized the first name.. but when it came to the other one..

A few hours later, the same Toby Doeden in the poll was announcing that he was forming an ‘exploratory committee’ regarding a congressional run..

Toby Doeden of Aberdeen is announcing his intentions to challenge Johnson, who has been in Congress for three terms.

and..

Doeden tells The Dakota Scout that his status as a political outsider is what he believes could make him an attractive alternative to voters.

Read the article here.

Doeden started right out of the gate going hard negative on Congressman Johnson in the video announcing his exploratory committee, without making any case why people should support him, aside from being a Trump supplicant.

Where have we heard all this before? Exploring the race for Congress against Dusty, while going hard negative.. It IS like the Taffy Howard effort, without even Taffy’s limited name ID, and starting fully 6 months later than Taffy was in the cycle.

Doeden claims his outsider status will make him attractive to South Dakota voters. The problem with that assumption is believing Dusty is somehow not popular. Basically ignoring polling showing that Dusty ranks as high as the second most popular politician in South Dakota among Republicans, and overall the most popular politician in the state.

I would say that it’s going to be a long campaign, but it really isn’t.

We are in the hot campaign NOW, and anyone thinking an ‘exploratory committee’ in mid-January is a good gimmick or idea is listening to bad advice. Dusty has had the best ground game among the state’s political campaigns for at least the last four years, and he’s already out collecting petition signatures with an established volunteer team.

Doeden joining the contest along fellow wannabee candidates Patrick Schubert & Justin McNeal might add more flavor to the race, and Doeden might be better funded than the other two. But he is a long ways off from showing he can run a real race.

18 thoughts on “Aberdeen man announces he’s exploring race for Congress, while Congressman Dusty Johnson is conducting campaign.”

  1. Rich people are eccentric. If he spent a couple million I doubt he wouldn’t notice it. He owns half of Aberdeen.

    In the Trump era a primary race can change on a dime. Trump will get over 60% of the primary vote in SD. We’ve never really seen anyone go all out with an ad like this. It doesn’t look like he’s exploring much.

  2. We are celebrating! Our neighbors, friends and co-workers laugh at us when we tell them we follow QAnon but Toby is one of us and he knows the truth!

    South Dakota’s first QAnon candidate for Congress is Toby Doeden! Toby is one of us and we are growing!

    1. You are “following QAnon” in 2024? How delusional are you? No wonder your friends, neighbors and co-workers laugh at you. You and Toby deserve each other

    2. If you think Q is a thing in the year of our lord 2024 you are either a troll or have a room temperature IQ.

  3. What are his accomplishments and values? Whatever they are, prove it with a voting record or record of accomplishing some good things. We don’t need more negativity, gimmicks or ‘anybody but Dusty’. I’m willing to take a look and a listen if he’s vetted well. But he’s going to have to prove he would be better, not just someone who thinks he can get elected just because he hasn’t served in public office. Nor do we need another ‘celebrity wanna be’. We need candidates who run because of what they can do for South Dakota and more so for the country if running for Congress.

    1. He is another crazy Libertarian running with an R behind his name. He had his facebook scrubbed from his long history of full tilt nutty posts but they have been copied and saved. He is well known in the area but not for good reasons.

      Toby would fit in perfectly with the Chaos Caucus in Washington and be a national embarrassment for South Dakota.

  4. The QAnon is real. This fellow, Mr. Toby, will bring much entertaining information forward. The fellows over on the out-of-state name-calling blog will mock him, but he will be more resilient than grudznick’s good friend Bob, who also has run such races. And during his races Bob was hobbled by court gag orders and big sacks of the demon weed shackled to his ankles with white plastic garden chains.

  5. Toby is a fool. He’s anti-everything. A complete nihilist. But he’s smarter than you and he will make sure you know it.

    1. Toby never includes sources and if you challenge him on his posts he blocks you or he has a history of publicly trashing locals on his facebook page with his family and a number of his employees being the majority of those liking his posts. Are they paid to like his posts? It would not be surprising.

      [guys, I’ll snip this here, and ask you to post a link if you are going to veer from your own opinion and be accusatory. – pp]

  6. Why would he run a poll testing himself against Dusty before anyone knows who he is?

    Sounds pretty stupid. Not exactly a quality I look for in a congressman.

  7. Well this is good news IMO. Our state leadership doesn’t care about South Dakota anymore. They vote against the will of the people in South Dakota. How is that a good thing? Don’t know toby at all but i watched his video and he pointed out facts about Dusty’s voting record in Washington. Why can’t South Dakotans just listen to everyone and make an informed decision? If anyone is jumping to conclusions a this point you know what their true intentions are. I voted for dusty in 2020 and 2022 but hate his voting record. South Dakota should want leadership that doesn’t need anything from anyone and will make decisions that are best for the state.

    1. when dusty wins by the margins that he has historically won by, it’s hard to argue he violates the “will of the people.” he does evidently violate the will of the angry people. primary him then and see what that will is.

    2. I just love hearing people say Dusty is against the will of SD. How in Gods name is being represented by the most effective representative on agricultural issues a bad thing? Are you having a three year long hissy-fit that he voted to certify election?

  8. Objectivley: The difference between Taffy being a congresswoman and Dusty being a congressman was 11,042 votes. That’s the margin someone needs to close to get 50% plus one. I don’t know anyone who even knew who she was but they are mad at Washington.

    People will come out of the woodwork for Trump in 2024 and that’s the wild card. If a primary voter is voting for Trump this guy needs to get them to vote for him. That doesn’t seem that hard but it will take a strong message and money which he seems to have.

    1. If this QAnon congressional candidate pulls it off it will be fun to watch and open up a prime opportunity for Dems and maybe a new political party composed of former Republicans in South Dakota and nationally. The more extreme the better and it looks like this guy craves attention with his posts and youtube videos. Looking forward to his new youtube videos claiming to be the smartest guy in Washington. Just ask him!

      The Crazy Ones by The Lincoln Project.

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