It has been an annual feature for a number of years at SDWC, and I’ve even had people drop me a note asking me when I was planning on running it. So, who would I be to deny them any further?
I’ve reviewed the archives and taken the pulse of the state over the last year. And if I was to assign any theme to it all, it might be one of general unsettlement. Or maybe “change” or “chaos” is a better word, whether it was abrupt or not. And so many of the top political stories of the year go along with that theme.
Top Ten SDWC Political Stories of 2023 – Part 1
10. The employment line; comings and goings.
It seems that 2023 brought the South Dakota political scene a lot of changes in employment for people in the public view. We can hardly get through a month without something rising to the level of the public eye. I won’t get into the revolving door of employment at the Secretary of State’s office (as *spoiler* that will come later). There was the usual changing of the guard in the Governor’s office as people moved on after their time in high-profile/high-pressure jobs in the cabinet. But those changes are a given, and happen with every administration. It just seemed that in addition to those, we saw a number of other changes that we didn’t plan for.
Early on in the year had an abrupt change for former Dakota News Now reporter Austin Goss, who was identified by a criminal investigation as the culprit behind a prank phone call which spoofed the Governor’s telephone number. No one knew who did it when it was reported, but when one of the state’s highest profile political reporters was ID’d as the person behind it by law enforcement, despite Goss’ claims of it being a joke, no one really found it funny, including the victims of his so-called joke and his employer. Goss managed to land on his feet with employment at the Dakota Scout newspaper shortly thereafter.
We also had the ouster of Reed Holwegner as the head of the Legislative Research Council after several years. Holwegner, who stood alongside the House Speaker in the rebuffing of media for asking about public information in the case is remembered in claiming that LRC was being “pestered.” The ouster came in late October, and from the sounds of it was a long-time in coming with dissatisfaction expressed by some legislative leaders.
And of course we can’t forget former SDGOP Political/Finance Director Dave Roetman who might hold a national record, and certainly holds the North Dakota record for the shortest tenure as the Executive Director of the North Dakota Republican Party after holding the job for about 8 days. It took that long for North Dakota Blogger/Reporter Rob Port to write about Roetman’s twitter account which included such gems as suggesting a black woman “Go back to Wakanda.” After which Roetman noted that he believed “that the best path forward for the NDGOP is for me to take a different path.” No kidding.
In a bit more of a happy departure, SDGOP Executive Director Madison Sheahan is departing after 10-11 months on the job to a new position after being appointed to Louisiana governor’s cabinet, serving as that state’s Secretary of Wildlife and Fisheries. Huge job, and reminiscent of the positions that many SDGOP Executive Directors departed and ended up as agency heads, such as former ED John Thune leaving to be the director of the State Division of Railroads, former ED Jeff Stingley leaving to head up South Dakota Game Fish & Parks, and former ED Lucas Lentsch moving from the party to lead the State Dept of Ag. And that’s just a few, as several others in the past have left to take up high ranking positions elsewhere.
2023 was about change – expected or not!
9. Governor Kristi Noem and the 2024 veepstakes/Trump Rally.
Governor Noem has been attacked and maligned constantly by the other side of the political aisle. But there has also been some fire coming from factions on this side of the aisle. Why? You might attribute a chunk of it to other Republicans attempting to derail the locomotive coming down the tracks as Governor Noem is often cited as one of the top potential candidates for Vice President on a Donald Trump presidential ticket in 2024. And this speculation was cemented at a rally that was pulled off by the South Dakota Republican Party in Rapid City in September.
Love Trump or be not so enamored with him, for the SDGOP the event was a huge get as they packed the Rapid City Civic Center for a rally with the former president, which would not have happened except for Noem’s assistance. Kristi had the cachet with the Trump campaign to make it happen, and there were not just huge payoffs for the party, it also very publicly propelled her name to the front of the veepstakes in conjunction with her very public endorsement of his candidacy.
Since then, Noem has been recognized as the front-runner for the job, and is a notable name on the short list for many in the Trump universe. A profile in an article just before Christmas has her name included again in that short list by USA Today. No matter who is writing about a potential running mate, it has been a constant all year that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem might be “the one” chosen by Trump to serve as his second, and a hair’s breadth away from the most powerful elected office on the planet.
Governor Noem is currently slated to speak at a presidential campaign rally for Donald Trump on January 3rd in Sioux City, Iowa, and will likely continue to be a top surrogate for the campaign.
Keep watching.. Because Kristi may get the nod.
8. Freedom Works Here helps drive influx of workers to South Dakota.
Another Kristi Noem item on this list is the Freedom Works campaign to bring workers to South Dakota, which to date has had more than 8,000 people apply to move to South Dakota through “Freedom Works Here.” And over 2,000 applicants advanced to or are in the final stages of moving. Which has been one of the most wildly successful advertising campaigns to recruit workers to the state. It has taken the form of popular TV commercials, one of which aired during the Republican Presidential debate, a NASCAR stock car wrap, and other media, and is now preparing to move into a second round.
South Dakota’s freedom and opportunity has been highlighted since COVID hit the country, which locked things down for the nation. But South Dakota’s remoteness and red-state values allowed the state to largely stay open without the restrictions that the rest of the country suffered under. And we’ve been reaping the benefits of that image ever since, with our state’s chief executive making a major push this year to capitalize on our freedom as a selling point in the popular ad campaign.
It has garnered a lot of attention, and some criticism and questions, but there’s no denying that the campaign over the last several months has been a big win, including spawning other individual efforts from communities such as Mitchell who have dovetailed the campaign into their own efforts to fill 600 job openings, with their “Move to Mitchell, get $1000” effort.
South Dakota has jobs, and in the last year, and according to the census, an estimated 34,859 people moved to the state, giving us a net increase in population.
South Dakota has always needed jobs and people. And you can’t deny that this one is a definite win.
7. John Wiik becomes chair of the South Dakota GOP in the face of a headwind working against him.
The job of chair of the SDGOP might be one of those things where one should be careful what one wishes for, because they might get it. And starting in February, rolling in with over 100 endorsement of the GOP faithful, State Senator John Wiik has been the holder of the hot potato, after 3-term chair Dan Lederman decided to take a pass on giving it another go. During his six years at the job, Lederman had occasional internal flare-ups from such as a Lora Hubbel/CFL led petition against him in his earlier tenure, which garnered about 20-30 signatures, and a group at the last convention that wanted the last convention to be free. But as the state and the country has recovered from COVID, and a wave of anti-vaxxers, election truthers, and trumpy-populists have swept the country, the temperature of the swamp water around these groups in the state has increased as they display an eagerness to burn down the big tent of the GOP in their attempt to take it over.
As the prior chair was faced with in his early tenure, Wiik has had to contend with a similar splinter faction who doesn’t really exhibit any interest in the GOP’s actual mission (the election of republican candidates), and instead seems more focused on policy statements and burning down the GOP’s big tent to remake it, with one of the leaders of the anti-Republican breakaway groups actually writing in the Epoch times of his desire to “replace “establishment Republicans” with grassroots conservatives who reflect the concerns of the Republican base.“
This same group includes the Minnehaha County GOP whose activities included skipping their regular booth at the state’s largest county fair (250-300k attendance), and hosting a yard sale. When they weren’t actively ignoring the GOP’s Trump Rally in Rapid City. In fact, speaking of the wild success of the State Party’s Trump event in Rapid City, it actually sparked a backlash from this anti-Republican splinter group. While the State GOP sold out the event, they mustered as much toxic indignation as they could and actually fought the event. In the face of the event completely selling out, election truthers SD Canvassing declared “the SDGOP does not stand for the average American…. Buying a ticket to the Trump Rally is funding their agenda.” Losing Congressional primary candidate Taffy Howard declared to her followers “..I don’t want to help in any way.”
Despite the best efforts of the anti-Republican splinter faction, Wiik has managed to chalk up victories, including successfully holding off passage of 2023’s Senate Bill 40, which proposed to put Constitutional Officers to a primary vote. Going back to that Trump rally, it was one of the most successful and largest political rallies in modern state history with the sheer number of people attending. Behind the scenes, under Wiik, the party has secured higher tiers of participation for the next election in cooperation with the National GOP.
I’ve always quipped that the problem with wanting to be the Chair of the Republican Party, is that you actually have to do the job. You have to do the work, herd the cats, raise the funds, and you have to get people elected. It’s a thankless task, but Chairman Wiik has done a noteworthy job and delivered some big off-year victories despite the best efforts of an anti-Republican faction who seems determined to undo the work and create a headwind for the GOP.
6. SOS: Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Secretary of State Monae Johnson started out the year with gaffes such as “When it comes to elections in the state, Johnson said some people think everything is fine, and some think elections are rigged. Johnson said she’s somewhere in the middle,” not exactly starting off on a good foot. And while she’s moderated her message, and significantly moved away from the election denial/trutherism that marred her tenure from the start, despite the repairs to her image on that front, there have been some issues that have kept the SOS at the top of newsfeeds.
As alluded to earlier in my top 10, one of the most significant issues facing the Secretary of State has been heavy, heavy turnover in the second floor office. Unfortunately, this has been self-inflicted, and has even led to her Deputy admitting that “the secretary of state’s staff lacks expertise in election technology.” But the office hasn’t just lacked election technology expertise, as they suffered a major screw-up in the petition approval process in September when they approved a medical marijuana repeal petition with faulty language, despite petitioners not following LRC drafting advice that was posted on their own website. That error has legal ramifications for the state that really hasn’t been discussed since it occurred in September.
Unforced errors seems to be a theme here. The SOS dinged up their image even more they started meeting on a study they initiated on election integrity, and barred the public. It went even further with KELOland news reporting that all three of the meetings they would be holding were to be considered “non-public.” The SOS released a final report, but the story that’s most prominent in the process is not the result, but the lack of access and barring the public from the discussions.
Getting back to the issue of Johnson trying to repair her image, As Dana Hess with South Dakota Searchlight wrote this month,
In the meantime, something happened to Johnson. According to the News Watch story, she broke off her association with Weible, the election integrity advocate. Once safely in office, perhaps Johnson realized that the road to reelection would be tougher if she kept up the drumbeat that South Dakota’s elections weren’t as safe as they could be.
In late November she released a brochure: “A Guide To Understanding Secure Elections.” The brochure talks about the security of using paper ballots and the lack of voting online, offers assurances that tabulation machines are not connected to the internet, touts safeguards in voter registration and voter ID requirements and seeks to recruit poll workers.
and..
Perhaps the ultimate irony isn’t that South Dakota voters chose an election denier to run their elections but that it looks like what they got was someone who’s acting quite a bit like a secretary of state.
Read that here.
Questions of turnover, competence, and election denial dogged the SOS over the last year and caused issues with her image among the public at large. But as Johnson attempted to repair her image, and move away from the election denial issue, she’s also drawn fire from the people who put her in office, and their allies.
As noted, damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Stay tuned for Part 2, and the rest of the top 10 SDWC Political Stories of 2023
