Despite earlier notes that he might still be in, the Argus Leader is reporting this morning that former State Senator Jordan Youngberg is out of the race for the office of School & Public Lands, and the path is clear for Senator Brock Greenfield to take it all:
But there will likely be one fewer race for the GOP nomination of a statewide office after former lawmaker Jordan Youngberg has bowed out of the contest for the open South Dakota Schools and Public Lands seat this week.
“I just want to concentrate on hanging out with my kids now,” said the 31-year-old Madison man who in February 2021 became the first to enter the race for the seat. “It’s more fun than any committee meeting I’ve ever been at.”
Convention races might start to be more dynamic & fluid now, but this definitely clears the deck for Brock to move forward to November and the win!
I hope someone enters the race that has a resume with something on it other than, “professional legislator”. I think Jordan would have done a great job so it is very disappointing that he is bowing out.
Right? It’s fitting, though, that he’s running for the most worthless of the constitutional offices.
“Time with family” is such a cliche. So why did he really drop out?
He dropped out because he didn’t campaign. Jordan didn’t have a pre-built support base: he didn’t get the support from the legislators, donors, and party insiders he was expecting. He needed to have gone to Lincoln Day Dinners and courted the delegates. He didn’t. Now he perceives that it’s too high a mountain to climb with too little time. It’s better to bow out than to run and lose. While losing is not necessarily devastating to a political career, it’s very difficult to lose without incurring at least some damage. While there is value in building name recognition even if you lose, the simple fact is that losing makes it that much harder to get backing the next go around. Simply, people don’t want to back candidates who lose — they don’t have faith that those candidates will win. In special circumstances, it’s possible for the benefit of increased name recognition to outweigh the stigma of loss, but typically that’s not the case.
That’s one of Cole Heisey’s biggest problems now: He’s lost twice in a row now. Cole’s built name recognition — as someone who loses. He can potentially play spoiler in an election, but now that he’s firmly established as someone who loses, it’s highly unlikely he will ever win. Jordan has made other mistakes. But at least he didn’t make the mistake of losing.