Looks like the 32-year former Democrat Jim Eschenbaum version of the SDGOP is continuing a record-breaking streak of not raising money, according to the FEC Report they filed today in advance of the Central Committee meeting this weekend:
SDGOP FEC Report Feb 2026 by Pat Powers
The South Dakota Republican Party in recording how much they raised from 1/1/26 through 1/31/2026 noted that it had NO donations rolling through their federal account. $277 in refunds & $355.30 in transfers in from the state account against $6409.92 in disbursements.
Leaving them $30,180.59. About $6,000 closer to being at zero than they were last month in the federal account. Not a great trend.
Between this slow-rolling, ongoing disaster and the controversial VIP they’re talking about bringing in for convention who was accused of drugging and raping a woman, how long is the Central Committee going to let this go on?
Disaster is the best description for the current state of the SDGOP. The current leadership team has successfully decimated decades of hard-fought success and credibility built by those they then intentionally insult.
Absolute embarrassment.
The only meaningful thing the SDGOP convention does is nominate candidates for the down ticket offices. The Conservatives with Common Sense are likely to endorse all independent, or members of the Libertarian or Realconservative party. At that point, the Eischenbaum factor is nothing but a money bleeding picnic you have to pay your own way to.
Mr. Eischenbaum, we expect you at breakfast this weekend to account.
On a side note: the Grant county Republican Party will be having a Lincoln day dinner on April 24th for those who wish to attend. $50 per ticket/ 200 seats available and have tables of 8. Come and enjoy a great meat and a lot of fun aside from this nonsense.
Mr Powers, can you remind us how much the convention in Rapid City is expected to cost?
And how many candidates are seeking constitutional offices?
In 2022 Taffy Howard declared that delegates should not have to pay to attend the convention, the candidates should pay for it.
I am just wondering how this plan will break down
One of the reasons given to support the nomination of statewide candidates at convention is that it is less expensive for them than a primary race.
I am wondering how much less expensive this will be for them.
The publicly declared candidates can be billed for the cost of the convention, and then lose the nominations they seek to a collection of candidates nominated from the floor who paid nothing to be there, but brought all their friends along. As Taffy said, we need to be able to nominate candidates from the floor because often the delegates are “desperate to vote for somebody else.”
One of the reasons the Central Committee never did anything about the precinct committeemen and women who never do the job they signed up for, contribute nothing but chaos at convention and then disappear like cockroaches at dawn, was “we’ll get blowback.”
Some of us on the Central Committee saw this train wreck coming over ten years ago and tried to stop it. We failed. The Central Committee could have prevented this if they had been willing to suffer a little blowback, but they were too cowardly to do it.
Blaming the current chairman for this mess might work for some of you but this was foreseeable years ago. Those of us who were on the Central Committee 4, 6, 8, 10 years ago failed. It was us, our failure to see what was happening and fix it, that brought us here.
BOOM !
Anne Beal…
That Truth smacks the SDGOP right in the chops.
They’re in denial.
When the good Republicans look in the mirror, they see Jim Eschenbaum staring right back at them.
Why?
Because it is them.
South Dakota Republicans, you have cancer.
You had better hope that it isn’t terminal.
God knows that Dr. Trump can’t save you.
Good luck. You are going to need it.
Ya gotta remember that the State Central Committee is loaded up with Eschenbama supporters so not much will change.
It will be up to the legislature to take the nominations of statewide candidates out of the conventions and into the primaries..
Perhaps the horror of having to attend the state and county parties’ fundraising dinners with disreputable keynote speakers will provide the impetus needed to get it done. Photo ops, y’know.
Discussions of amending the state party’s bylaws to prohibit incumbent office-holders from serving on the state central committee should have been enough, but it wasn’t.
South Dakota is not the only state where this has happened. Watched this happen in our local BPOU and state party. The home school, anti-vaxxer, election denier, anti-public school, pro-voucher, conspiracy obsessed bible thumpers took over. Those that took over drove the good sensible and ethical workhorses out were backstabbers, liars and devious. Their train has derailed and is plunging off a rail trestle into a steep ravine.
And yet the SD GOP keeps ruling the state.