A reader pointed out to me today that Dems are already spooling up one of their 2014 losing candidates for a re-run.
If you recall, Ellee Spawn didn’t exactly ring the bell with her candidacy when she ran for the house in 2014 in the Sioux Falls’ area Legislative District 12.
Placing 4th out of 4 candidates, she trailed her fellow losing candidate Susan Randall by over 1100 votes, leaving her with a vote percentage of roughly 16%.
Spawn’s most notable contribution to the race last election came in the form of a bit of over-sharing on Facebook (which we noted here). Otherwise, she tended to run silent.
So, what’s a Democratic candidate who was absolutely shellacked last election to do? Apparently, run for higher office.
According to her Facebook page, Spawn decided and announced back in April that she was going to be a candidate for the State Senate in District 12.
Well, good luck with that. She’s going to need it.
If he runs again, this would tentatively pit Spawn against Republican State Senator Blake Curd, who most would argue boasts a much more conservative resume’ than one of last election’s liberal darlings of the SDDP.
In addition to his conservative bona fides, Curd is not exactly a slouch when it comes to campaign finance or campaigning. Spending a minimal amount, he defeated his last Democrat opponent nearly 2-1, and ended the campaign with over $7500 in the bank. Comparatively, Spawn raised $2500 in PAC money, and only managed to finagle $500 from Paula Hawks.
I suspect it’s going to take much more that that to make a race against Curd competitive, much less stand a chance to defeat him.
Going into next years’ election, it would seem that Spawn’s strategy hasn’t been to re-invent herself and her views to make her more appealing to District 12’s conservative voters.
If anything, it appears that she could be shifting further to the left in her public political stances as hinted by this post from pro-pot crusader Ryan Gaddy.
While Spawn’s campaign web site doesn’t talk about a pro-pot stance, Gaddy expressly claims that Spawn is a supporter of the illegal drug in South Dakota.
The question is whether the campaign trail will find the candidate confirming support for pot use in a medical or other manner in South Dakota?
South Dakota has not proven very hospitable towards pro-pot measures despite multiple attempts from legalization advocates, and in fact has become more hostile over the last couple of attempts. There’s no reason to believe that the trend is going to change among people who get off the couch to cast a vote, no matter what advocates claim in opposition to medical evidence.
And if candidates are already out there taking stances in support of it, it may not reflect on them well at the ballot box when that time eventually arrives.
SDDP’s website is gone. They must be really desperate and think all this out of state pot money and SD potheads will save the party.
The Spawn of liberalism.
I’ve also heard rumors that Manny Steele and Hal Wick are considering running for the House in 12 and if Curd doesn’t run again it sounds like Wick will run for Senate. That’s a strong conservative district.
Typical pothead doesn’t know which district she’s running in. Gaddy says 13, but it’s 12. I wouldn’t mind if Curd didn’t run again. He’s kind of a goofball (should be called Crude, not Curd). I like Wick and Steele, they are both solid.
You probably won’t be able to call Gaddy for clarification or any questions today since he posted on facebook that lost his phone again. A day or two earlier he posted on SDAP another study from High Times that showed Recreational Marijuana Users showed no negative health outcomes.