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In the middle of all the primary elections, I did hear word that the Yankton County GOP had action taken against them by the South Dakota Republican Party’s Executive Board in an emergency meeting last night.

As I was told, they were summarily removed from the roster of active Republican County groups. Coming after their passage of bylaws where they declared themselves to be independent of the GOP, I’m not sure what they thought was going to happen.

Guess they fooled around and found out. And deservedly so.

Again, if you’re wondering why there was such a wild ride last night, here’s the difference that turnout makes:

In 2022, we had US Senate, Congress, and Governor at the top of the ticket for 32% turnout.

 

Last night, legislators were at the top of the ticket. And we had 17%, culminating in wildly disparate results in the lowest turnout primary election of the last decade thirty years!

*Update* I checked the turnout, and it was lowest as long as they’ve recorded it – in 3 decades. (I made a chart)

YEAR	TURNOUT % OF REG.
1994	42.10%
1996	28.80%
1998	20.10%
2000	19.00%
2002	42.00%
2004	56.70%
2006	18.96%
2008	37.20%
2010	20.00%
2012	19.02%
2014	19.22%
2016	21.27%
2018	26.57%
2020	28.22%
2022	32.09%
2024	17.09%

And what does that give you? You have candidates who literally did absolutely nothing, such as Jeff Struwe in D7 House and Rick Weible in D8 Senate with 27% and 28% of the vote:

As I noted last night – the dead cat bounce was wildly inflated in the contest by the low turnout. About 10% higher, by my reckoning.

West River felt this effect the strongest in a near massacre of conservative Republican candidates being turned out by the far, far right.

Senator Erin Tobin was squeaked out by self-declared end-time army member Mykala Voita.  If Democrats had any smarts, they’d look to replace their multiple contest losing candidate on the ballot, Dan Andersson, with a known candidate, such as one of the Suttons, because they could take this. This went from being a safe seat for the GOP into one in play.  Alternatively, I wonder if Erin could run under the Libertarian banner for a rematch contest in the fall. Hmm..

*Bright spot here* – Lee Qualm doesn’t get another chance to bring his style of ethics back to Pierre, and instead D21 gets good guy Jim Halverson.  That was a win.

District 28 brought us some killing fields. 3 solid Republicans Susan Peterson for Senate, Ryan Maher for D28A House, and Travis Martin for D28B House all fell.  Belle Fourche is going to be represented by Travis Ismay?  That’s what you get when people don’t show up.

District 29 turned out both incumbents. Well respected Kirk Chaffee was turned out by Californian John Carley?  South Dakota Hall of Fame member Gary Cammack was turned out by Kathy Rice?

*Huge bright spot in D30* – Eventually people did get tired of the antics of goofball Senator Julie Frye-Mueller, as she got schooled by not-crazy newcomer Amber Hulse.

D31 remained stable, returning Randy Deibert to the Senate, and returning Fitzgerald & Odenbach to the house. But again – the dead cat bounce was crazy high. There’s no way in a normal environment that red-baiting goofball Kate Crowley Johnson should have gotten 41%. Same with Mark “election conspiracy” Mowry at 27%.  These are 18-20% candidates, tops in a normal environment.

D32 was another port in the storm, rejecting John Robert James, the BDubs guy, for Steve Duffy and Brook Kaufman.

However, the remaining districts were a slaughter house.

In D33, we lost David Johnson to Curt Voight in the Senate. In D34, Taffy Howard managed to barely squeak out a win against a solid Jason Green.  AND how on earth did we lose the always hard-working Becky Drury to Heather Baxter in D34 House? 

And the carnage wasn’t complete yet, as in D35, Michael Walsh fell to Greg Blanc for Senate.

What does all this mean for the GOP?

Statewide, both the House and the Senate offering to the public in the fall took a lurch to the right, and some seats that were safe going into the fall have turned into possibilities for the other team where there are Democrats available to contest them.  With the division in the party, this could be the where the SDGOP’s exclusive lock on offices starts to crumble.

Also moving towards the fall, I think you might watch for the top-two primary effort to find some boost to their efforts to move South Dakota to a jungle primary, as the shockingly low turnout has given credence to their arguments that the current system gives us the most extreme choices.  It makes it more challenging to argue against that point.

This fall will also be a much different election as well; instead of a low-turnout primary, it will be a high-turnout presidential contest with everyone voting… and coming off of the textbook example the exact reason why they are arguing for open primaries.

Add to that mix of the political environment that the surge in facebook populist candidates taking over the GOP has literally strangled the party for fundraising.  It’s hard to contest a ballot measure when no one is donating.

Pull up your folding chair for the fall elections. After this bloody primary battle, you may have a seat to watch a sea change in South Dakota politics this fall.

Have you ever wondered what kind of election you would have if nobody was on the top of the ticket, and nobody really cared?

That would be what we ended up with tonight for the 2024 primary election campaign. As we wait for many results to roll in from West River, it’s 11 o’clock at night, and we have yet to hit 13% voter turnout.

It’s bad. Not just a little bad, but really distorted from what we might logically expect from election results.  Let me show you one of my bellwether elections that I’ve been watching;

This is the race where election conspiracy fetishist Rick Weible ran against Senate majority leader Casey Crabtree.

Senator Crabtree ran a reasonably strong and effective campaign in his race as an incumbent to return to the leader ship of the State Senate. Rick Weible didn’t.

In fact, Weible literally did nothing except run an bad joint ad in the local shopper paper that never changed, and the highlight of his campaign was him talking about how his life was in danger from knowing secrets about election equipment.

Yet somehow, in spite of his doing nothing but occasional goofiness, Weible achieved 28% of the vote. The previous ‘dead cat bounce’ in typical years, where a candidate could run against a dead cat, and the dead cat would receive 18 to 20% of the vote, has been elevated closer to 30% because of the unusually low turnout, amplifying the influence of the hard hard right.

And it is playing some electoral chaos so far this evening with no fewer than six incumbents unseated with shocking results in other races as I write this.

These results would not be happening two years from now with possibly three major primary contests ahead of the legislative races. But in a year when most people didn’t even realize there was an election, the unexpected is status quo.

Keep watching the results. Because I’m sure the ride isn’t even close to being over.

Remember my post of June 1, where I noted that the Yankton County GOP had bylaws on deck to charge dues to Republicans to be in good standing?  I’m informed today that the Yankton County GOP group passed the bylaws last night on a vote of 18-7.

Why should it matter to the rest of the Republican Party? Let’s go back to paragraph 1 of their new bylaws:

Yankton County proposed GOP Bylaws by Pat Powers on Scribd

1. Purpose:  Yankton County Republican members desire clarity in the Republican Party Yankton County operations.  While seeking to generally conform with South Dakota Republican Party Bylaws, these bylaws govern Yankton County Republican operations and responsibilities to its members first, and then to state and/or national organizations subordinately.  Should any challenge arise on any matter due to alleged and/or real discrepancy/difference between the Yankton County Republicans Bylaws and the state and/or national Republican Party bylaws, these county bylaws shall take precedence.

The group has fired a shot across the bow of the SDGOP, and while they will generally conform to the SDGOP bylaws, they have declared that they are responsible to their own members first.  In other words, they’ve separated themselves from the SDGOP, and created their own group.

If they’re not following the bylaws of the parent organization anymore, then it appears they’ve managed to declare themselves null and void.  While the precinct people would generally have standing to attend the SDGOP convention, as they’ve filed the paperwork with the county auditor as provided in the State GOP bylaws, in one fell swoop the County group appears to have created a situation where there literally is no Yankton County Republican Party organization anymore.

I mean, if the local Elks Club declares they’re the Independent Yankton County Elks Club, and passes bylaws declaring they’ll generally be Elk-y, but not full on Elk, that does not necessarily confer standing for the group to be part of the national group, and demand the same rights as a member organization.

So for the Yankton County GOP, That leaves the state Republican Party with a Yankton County GOP group that does not exist anymore, and no official County Republican Party at the moment. They will have to go in and reorganize when they have a chance to get around to it.  So, no Yankton County Chair, Vice-chair, Committeeman, Committeewoman, etc. to represent the county. The SDGOP may even have rights to go in and seize the checkbook, but that’s for the lawyers in the group to figure out.

All of this might not have been the best decision on the part of the Yankton people coming the week of the Republican State Republican Party Convention.

It appears that the Yankton County GOP has voided themselves. In almost every sense of the word.

From Facebook:

Rounds, Cassidy, Foxx and Colleagues Urge Biden Administration to Withdraw Latest Student Loan Plan 

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Representative Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, recently sent a letter urging the Department of Education to withdraw its latest student loan forgiveness plan. This proposed rule will cost hard-working Americans an additional $147 billion and bring the total student loan debt transferred to taxpayers to as much as $1 trillion.

“The latest Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) proposed by your Department of Education (Department) on April 17, 2024, represents the latest in a string of reckless attempts to transfer as much as $1 trillion of student loan debt from those who willingly borrowed to those who did not or have already repaid their loans,” wrote the lawmakers. “In addition to the fiscally irresponsible nature of this backdoor attempt to enact ‘free’ college, the administration continues to use borrowers as political pawns knowing full well these proposed actions are illegal. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that there is zero authority to write-off federal student loans en masse last June when the Department’s ‘Plan A’ was ruled unconstitutional.”

“Instead of exacerbating the problems of inflated college costs and low-value degrees, we urge you to withdraw this NPRM and work with Congress. It is past time that we fix our nation’s broken higher education financing system,” continued the lawmakers.  

Rounds, Cassidy and Foxx are joined by U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), John Kennedy (R-La.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), John Thune (R-S.D.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.). They are also joined by 90 lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives.

Read the full letter HERE or below.

+++

Dear Secretary Cardona:

The latest Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) proposed by your Department of Education (Department) on April 17, 2024, represents the latest in a string of reckless attempts to transfer as much as $1 trillion of student loan debt from those who willingly borrowed to those who did not or have already repaid their loans. We strongly urge you to withdraw it.

The Biden administration describes this regulation as “targeted relief,” yet the Department’s own estimates show the opposite. This is even broader than the Department’s first attempt: at an estimated price tag of $147 billion, taxpayers are being forced to take on the debt of nearly 28 million borrowers. Moreover, while the Department likely does not wish to highlight how much their proposal would help the wealthy, outside estimates show that borrowers eligible for “relief” under certain provisions in this proposal will have a typical income of over $300,000. Unfortunately, the Department did not include its own analysis of the distributional effect of these regulations.

In addition to the fiscally irresponsible nature of this backdoor attempt to enact “free” college, the administration continues to use borrowers as political pawns knowing full well these proposed actions are illegal. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that there is zero authority to write-off federal student loans en masse last June when the Department’s “Plan A” was ruled unconstitutional.

Further, this regulation is only part of the Department’s “Plan B.”  The Department notes that the long-anticipated regulation to “cancel” loans for borrowers facing “hardship”—a broad term defined under the NPRM to grant the Department full authority to cancel any loan it pleases—is still forthcoming. According to budget experts, those additional changes would bring the total cost of the Department’s “Plan B” to nearly $750 billion, at almost double the cost of “Plan A”.

“Plan B” hinges on creating these extensive regulations based on scant statutory text written in 1965. That text, which describes how the then Commissioner of Education at the Department of Health Education and Welfare could “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right or redemption” under the Federal Loan Insurance Program.[8] It is certain that drafters in 1965 through the last reauthorization in 2008, did not contemplate that these words would be used to cancel massive portions of student loan balances. This statute has no history of broad use by any previous Secretary and was previously deemed by this administration as less likely to hold up in court than “Plan A.”

While the administration dedicated resources needed to draft this proposal to benefit those who already were able to attend college, it simultaneously failed to competently implement the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA is a simple 36-question form that helps the nation’s neediest current and prospective college attendees understand what federal financial aid is available to them. Failure to make the FAFSA available to these prospective students on time will have life-long consequences for many young Americans. We already know, as of March 29, FAFSA completion for seniors in high school is down by 40 percent. Those who do not file will likely not attend college next year and maybe never will.

Instead of exacerbating the problems of inflated college costs and low-value degrees, we urge you to withdraw this NPRM and work with Congress. It is past time that we fix our nation’s broken higher education financing system.

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I want to thank Tim Reisch and the Minnehaha County Commission team of Karsky and Kippley for their support and advertising in the run up to the primary election, which will end after tonight.  I would also be remiss if I did not thank SDGOP Chairman John Wiik and the South Dakota Republican Party’s leadership team for their long-time advertising spot which has now come to an end, further opening up one of my prime advertising spots.

So, as we wind down the hours until the election, once again we find ourselves with advertising space on Dakotawarcollege available for groups and individuals to promote their messages to opinion leaders in South Dakota as we move into the the 2024 campaign season.

Interested in advertising? Have a ballot measure, cause, candidate or campaign related business? There are limited advertising opportunities left for reaching South Dakota’s opinion leaders. Advertising on the Dakotwarcollege.com website is based on a first-come, first-serve basis for available positions.  As of this writing, we have several spots open now, including the #2 and #3 spots on the right, along with the #1 spot on the left.  Monthly spots are available, and I do provide discounts for longer ad commitments.  Information on ad prices, ad positions, and ad commitments may be directed to the webmaster by clicking here.

Please take a moment to visit our current advertisers such as Summit Carbon Solutions supporting the ethanol and biofuel industries in South Dakota. South Dakota’s chief executive Governor Kristi Noem, our friend South Dakota Senator John Thune, our undisputed and undefeated Congressman Dusty Johnson, and the equally undefeated Republican United States Senator Mike Rounds. Our friends at South Dakota Ag Alliance are also here to fight for landowner rights and common sense ag development.

Of course, at Dakota Campaign Store, down on the right, you’ll find me already busy in 2024 with yard signs, postcards, and all the things a professional campaign needs to make an impression.

Thank you to our advertisers for your support, and please reach out if you’d like to join them!