In most expensive Governor’s race in History, Dems spent nothing.

Pat Powers

The Rapid City Journal has a story up regarding how the 2018 election was the most expensive race for Governor in South Dakota History. But… it looks like at least one participant in it was a useless appendage:

At least $13.73 million was spent on South Dakota’s recent race for governor, which appears to have been the most expensive race for governor in the state’s history, according to a Journal analysis and historical data from a watchdog group.

and…

Meanwhile, reports from the South Dakota Democratic Party showed no coordinated expenditures in the race for governor.

and..

Stan Adelstein, a prominent businessman and Republican former legislator of Rapid City, spent a total of $5,820.51 on radio ads and an ad in the Journal, all supporting Billie Sutton.

Read the story here.

So when it was all on the line in the most expensive and competitive race for Governor in the state’s history, Democrats spent nothing.

And in fact, a disaffected Republican (who is also one of Stace Nelson’s big donors) spent more than the entire State Democrat Party to try to get the Democrat candidate elected.

Food for thought.

And I’d just repeat my prior endorsement to give Ann Tornberg 4 more years as State Democrat Party Chair!

17 thoughts on “In most expensive Governor’s race in History, Dems spent nothing.”

    1. In a midterm election with the GOP in the presidency, when nationally we lost the US House. This was a tough year.

      1. Not sure if I agree that it was a tough year for Republicans.

        Afterall, we swept every statewide office, nationally gained Senate seats. Losing the house in an off year election is pretty common for the incumbent party.

        We gained another conservative justice in spite of the lies and the showboating of the Democrats and main stream media.

        We elected the first woman Governor in South Dakota, a pretty neat accomplishment.

        I would venture to say Billy Sutton got a lot of sympathy vote, like Tim Johnson did. He is a liberal democrat. Tried to sway voters by putting a pro-abortion Republican as his running mate. Claimed to be pro-life for convenience but was supported by Planned Parenthood. Kept his liberal leanings secret to further fool the public.

  2. I think this should make those of us who are Republicans look at what we did wrong in the governor’s race if so much was spent on our side and the win was by a sliver.

      1. I can’t list specifics as I never intended to vote for Billie and the sole exposure I got was the commercials, but I have heard from others whose opinion I trust that the Noem campaign had some issues. I will leave it for those in the upper echelons of the party to evaluate, but I guess I figure that there were things done wrong if all this money was spent and we only beat a Bernie/Hillary supporter by a slim margin.

        My concern is the party getting complacent as I would shudder to think of someone like Sutton as governor, and I don’t think it would be wrong to look at what happened to learn from it.

  4. GOPe wins in a squeaker vs largest historical financial disparity, in their favor. Now that’s a $70k story !

    1. If there are those who want to claim a “win” because they LOST a “squeaker”, I say let them have their “victory”. But the Governor is Noem, all state races went to Republicans.

  5. Are you counting the costs of having Mr. Nelson and his families up to Mr. Stan’s big house on the hill on multiple nights to plan the takeovers they wanted? That is another $20-$30 thousand dollars in in-kind contributions that need to be reported on Mr. Nelson’s corrupt financial reports. Mr. Nelson is corrupt, and the reports all show it.

    1. I agree, Noem’s campaign was undermined by sore losers like Nelson, LaFleur and Hubbel who can’t keep their delusions to themselves and still have followers who haven’t figured things out.

  6. When your political party is pushing open borders, the end of internal combustion engines, the confiscation of mean scary looking rifles, free free free Government paid salaries for life, after birth abortions of babies, open voting without proven identification, 70% or higher income tax rates, gender destruction, the regulation of bovine farting and you live in South Dakota you have a very huge anti populist hill to climb. I actually feel sorry for my friends who are Democrats for no other reason than their parents were too.

  7. The National Democrat party is changing and that is why SD is losing members. In SD, there really isn’t much difference between the two parties. Most South Dakotan’s are moderate. Democrats would be better off registering Republican it they would like to run for office. I believe Sutton would have won if he would have registered Republican. You need to use strategy.

  9. I like SD but not the politics, but most people will say the same thing about their state.

  10. It’s like 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,…..the ones are red, the twos are blue. I believe running on issues rather than pandering to party.

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