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Toby Doeden is one of those candidates who will just say anything (Especially if it’s written on his hand).  And that was in evidence last night, as he tried to pretend he supports for our State Universities:

At around 1:23:45 in the video from the debate last night (watch the replay here), Doeden claimed…

“I love our 4 year State Universities. I attended Northern State…”

Yet, this would seem to be a different opinion than the one he expressed at the beginning of the campaign in an interview with Stu Whitney:

In a household where neither parent attended college, higher education was a goal. Doeden’s three older siblings had all completed college and started careers by the time Toby graduated from high school in 1993.

Feeling outside pressures, he accepted a football and track scholarship to Minot State University in North Dakota, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“I remember unloading my little hatchback car, getting everything moved into my dorm room, and the very night I moved in thinking I should not be here,” Doeden said. “My feeling was, ‘This is an utter waste of time.’”

He qualified for the national track meet as a freshman but had already transferred to Northern State University in Aberdeen, where he lasted about a semester before proposing to Liz and moving to nearby Groton to put business plans in motion.

Read that here.

Telling a reporter that college was an utter waste of time versus his claim last night of “attending” Northern, and claiming to love our 4 year universities seems to be somewhat discordant.

A definition Toby probably would need to add to his hand list.

NOW we know what he had written on his hand!

I laughed out loud when I read this:

I think everyone saw Toby’s notes.

Is there someone who went to the Dakota Scout debate tonight with a tin can on a string? Wondering if I can hook in to your feed to improve the sound quality?

Is it really a debate if no one outside the theater can tell what the candidates are saying? The sound was largely indecipherable from Hansen and Rhoden.  Not much better from the other two, either.

The sound was good from the moderators.. but I didn’t tune in for just the questions. Like several who are texting and emailing, I might try the replay.

Update…

Go here: https://www.newscenter1.tv/watch-now

Much better sound across the board.

Another Update..

How many notes did Toby plan on writing on his hand?

 

Senator Tamara Grove is clearly feeling the heat from State Representative Rebecca Reimer’s challenge in her race, as this weekend, Grove took to social media to insinuate – without directly naming her – that Reimer was was not supportive of rural health care.

And Rebecca wasn’t going to hear any of that nonsense, as she was quick to fire back on social media, with receipts:

The original post from Grove was then edited on facebook… Which I would interpret to guess that Tamara is double checking things, because Rebecca is ready to bring it.

Check it out on Facebook.

UPDATE: I missed this earlier. An Army of colleagues current and past of Rebecca’s came out in droves to put down Grove’s claims of Reimer not supporting rural health:

That’s a pretty long list!

From Facebook, Toby Doeden might be endorsing Marty Jackley for Congress as he should, but Marty is not getting into it in the Governor’s race.

WOW. That was not something I was expecting.

The property tax plan that was passed by the South Dakota Legislature to reallocate some existing sales taxes, and to create new sales tax revenue to offset property tax is apparently not popular in the state. As in wildly unpopular by half or more, depending on your subgroup according to SD News Watch, via the Argus Leader:

The survey of 500 registered voters across party affiliation conducted April 7-9 by Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, found 49% of respondents opposed the swapping of lower property taxes in exchange for higher sales taxes, while 33% approved and 17% were undecided. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.5%.

and..

Republicans were close to evenly split, with 45% opposing the new legislation, 42% supporting the measure and 13% undecided.

A majority of Democrats and Independents disapproved of the new laws, at 56% and 51%, respectively.

Read the entire story here.

In the Governor’s race, that’s probably not good news for Governor Rhoden and Rep. Jon Hansen, who both have been touting the sales tax shift plan, while Dusty Johnson has been critical of it.

(Toby Doeden is still clinging to the claim he’s going to eliminate property taxes without having any plan besides magic tax-eliminating fairy dust.)

Noting the unrequested endorsement(s) from Doeden PAC, it can always be worse. Like that that other endorsement for Congress, from all around awful person Phil Jensen:

Phil must be part of the very, very small subset of South Dakotans who join Bialota in applying “stand your ground” laws to 12 year old on the playground. (Not that the jury ended up agreeing.)

In case you’ve forgotten about Gubernatorial wannabe and car dealer Toby Doeden’s Political Action Committee, Dakota First Action, which he loaned hundreds of thousands to try to dump experienced lawmakers, causing the mess of a legislature we have now, the group is back with the text blasts. And in a shocker, Toby Doeden has apparently endorsed himself:

Now, I don’t think there’s any need to give Marty static, because this is kind of modus operandi for Doeden’s PAC, where they will go in and endorse someone who nether wants it, nor asked for it.  Like in Brookings last election when Doeden’s toxic PAC jumped in – uninvited and unwanted – and the PAC attention caused them to lose.   But they try to tie themselves to people they believe might win.

Except this time.

Because Doeden’s PAC has come in and endorsed Doeden. Which, if you’re coming in with your own PAC, and endorsing yourself.. well, that’s a new and novel kind of self-love.

Keeping Taxpayers Top of Mind
By: Gov. Larry Rhoden
April 24, 2026

Every taxpayer dollar belongs to the people. It’s our job as elected leaders to spend the people’s money as efficiently as possible to keep South Dakota strong, safe, and free. In recent years, South Dakotans made one thing very clear that they wanted property tax cuts – and this session, we delivered the largest property tax cuts in South Dakota history.

Since session ended, though, there’s been a lot of misinformation about those property tax cuts. Recently, I celebrated Administrative Professionals Day by having some of my team over for breakfast. They answer countless phone calls, letters, and questions from South Dakotans. And they mentioned a recent uptick in questions about taxes. A lot of the calls were driven by misinformation that the Legislature raised sales taxes this session. So, I’m here to clear up the facts.

This session, most legislators agreed with me that South Dakotans deserve real, meaningful property tax relief. But there was a lot of division – about 50 different bills to address property taxes. So, we put the work in, and by the end of session we accomplished the largest property tax cut in South Dakota history. It wasn’t easy. It took grit, hard work, and good ‘ol fashioned negotiating. Here are the facts behind that tax cut:

Next year, the sales tax holiday is due to expire, meaning the state sales tax is set to go up by 0.3% next July. The Legislature tried to make that tax cut permanent and wasn’t successful, and some legislators were chomping at the bit to spend those new tax dollars. So instead, we redirected that into a statewide property tax cut for homeowners. And you’ll see that tax cut next year on taxes payable in 2027. That’s not a new sales tax increase – the tax was already going up, and we’re reinvesting it in a statewide property tax cut.

On top of that, we passed my bill to give the people in each county the option to cut property taxes further. Each county will have the option to replace some or all of their homeowner property taxes with a local half-cent sales tax. It’s not a mandate – it’s a choice. Local leaders and local voters will decide whether it’s the right opportunity for their community – and I’m a big fan of local control!

There was one other bill that promotes local control: HB 1245. I received countless messages of support on this bill from mayors, city councilors, and business leaders from all over the state. They wanted their communities to be able to avoid bonding for projects (and avoid future property tax increases) by instead passing a penny sales tax for up to five years – and only if 60% of the people in their community were supportive.

I was initially skeptical of this idea, but I studied the bill and all of its safeguards. I recognized that it could be a good tool to keep our communities Open for Opportunity. As Mayor TenHaken points out, if Sioux Falls had this local option years ago, the city could have saved over $50 million on the construction of the Denny Sanford Premier Center.

We do a lot of things right in South Dakota. We have the 2nd lowest taxes in America because we always keep taxpayers top of mind. So, if you’ve called our office or stopped in and asked questions, thank you. It is important for me to understand your concerns and your questions. I hope I have answered some of them for you.

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