I caught a bit of interesting chatter last evening. The word is that after South Dakota Democrats highlighted their dysfunction this past election by failing to field a candidate for Congress, a few have banded together to promote a candidate to run in 2022.
A Facebook group has recently been set up to promote Democrat Remi Bald Eagle for Congress. The same Remi Bald Eagle who unsuccessfully ran for the Public Utilities Commission in 2020.
Scratching your head yet? You have to wonder what the thought process is in the Democrat Party as they search for someone to place on the bench for the next Congressional race. Do they look for a fresh face? Oh heck no – they look for those who were completely knocked off the bench.
Nevermind that last election, Bald Eagle had received 26.8% of the statewide vote to Gary Hanson’s massive 68% landslide, marking him as having the worst showing of any Democrat on the Statewide ballot (after Joe Biden’s 35.6% and Dan Ahlers 34.3%).
And from the sounds of it, they’re setting their sights on placing Bald Eagle up against a Republican who has polled more popular than Donald Trump among South Dakotans.
Johnson’s last race had him running in the lopsided Congressional contest where there was no Democrat opponent, giving Dusty a 81-19% win against a Libertarian. And that came after a GOP Primary which saw him crushing GOP competitor Liz May 76.7% – 23.3%.
That’s a lot of voters across the spectrum who made the incumbent Johnson their choice in the last election. Making it all that much harder for Democrats to convince voters to choose someone else.
Ultimately, for Democrats the game is about actually fielding a candidate at all, so as to avoid the embarrassment of failing to get sufficient signatures for not just one but two candidates on the Congressional ballot this last election. So if they can manage to get behind one candidate, albeit someone one candidate who got their butt kicked in a down-ticket race last election, more power to them.
I’m sure Republicans will be happy to face those odds.
Dusty still enjoys his freshman congressional honeymoon with the voters. That will end in 2024, however, when the entire focus will be on him since there will be no senate or gubernatorial race that year. Plus, forces within the Noem camp will encourage a weakening of Dusty at that time in their hopes that Noem can beat Dusty in the 2026 SD Republican senate primary.
That’s not how it went the last couple of times. The House seat is the “top of the ticket” (meaning no US Senate or Governor’s race) once every 12 years.
In 2000, Thune sailed easily to a third US House term as speculation centered on whether he would run for governor in 2002 or challenge Senator Johnson. (He initially explored running for governor and then changed his mind).
In 2012, Kristi Noem handily won a second term in the US House against Matt Varilek. At that time there was speculation that she would run for US Senate in 2014. (She didn’t, and Mike Rounds won the seat.)
Maybe it will be different for Dusty – who knows. I also wonder if he would look at an open governor’s office rather than a Senate primary with Kristi.
South Dakota needs to live-up to its reputation of conservatism. Having Republicans running everything does not a conservative state make (although it’s a nice start and perhaps a necessary condition).