From Bob Mercer at Pure Pierre Politics, he reports on how not many people are interested in being a Democrat in South Dakota:
South Dakota Democratic Party officials really need to answer to the public about why they can’t keep pace, at least proportionally, with the South Dakota Republican Party’s efforts on voter registration. The Democrats filled the ballot in the three statewide contests for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state Public Utilities Commission. But since January, Republicans have added some 9,000 registered voters and Democrats have added about 1,700. The NPA/Independents have added about 6,000.
Those who complain about one-party rule of state government and Congress in South Dakota — and who favor ballot measures that would attempt to change the dominant roles of Republicans — need to realize the Republican brand right now in 2016 is nearly twice as popular than the Democrats and NPA/Independents combined.
That might be one reason that Democrats are trying to hide their party affiliation through promoting Amendment V. 
Mercer is a great reporter.
The only thing that cracks me up is that he thinks the GOP has “efforts” for registrations. These are mostly organic. The SD GOP barely exists at the grassroots level. The Dems even less so.
It is purely done by voters identifying positively with a brand.
While I believe you are right that the GOP does not have concentrated effort on voter registration and that most of these registrations are organically driven, you are wrong about the grassroots. The SDGOP is extremely strong at the grassroots level. Though they may not be as active as in the 2010, 2004, or 2002 races, if called upon they are ready to work.
Republicans are strong at the grassroots level but it has nothing to do with the current leadership of the SD GOP. The SD GOP is not in touch with the average Republican county party leadership by email, text, phone, pony express, carrier pigeon, telegraph, letter, mail, walkie talkie.
The SD GOP does not organize grassroots anymore. There might be an organized county but that is about the extent of it. Pick up the phone and ask anyone in the county parties if they have had much contact with the SD GOP since new leadership was elected. Ask them the last time they got correspondence from the top was.
I should also ad that the SD GOP has done about as great of a job fundraising as it has done in a long time. They are obviously more focused on that aspect and that is extremely important.
But people shouldn’t have this false idea that Republicans win all the time because the SD GOP is an organized machine like it used to be. Most of this is organic and a rejection of Democrats and voters identifying with the Republican brand.
Here is what I know:
South Dakota has a total tax per capita equal to 7.1% of personal income. Only Alaska is lower and they get significant revenue via the sale of oil on public lands which keeps their taxes low.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/state-and-local-tax-burdens-1977-2012
And, on social issues, SD always ranks in the top five with regard to its state law.
Exactly Troy…and why would we want to change the political system to elect more Democrats…we don’t no on all these horrible Weiland/Out of state measures!
The Dem party is basically socialist, and the wise people in SD are NOT!!
That is very true. Obama was the worst thing that could have happened to the Democrats and Bernie Sanders was the second and Hillary Clinton is probably trying to take over that top spot from Obama.
The Democrats in SD need to realize that they can be different from national democrats. They can be Tom Daschle, Tim Johnson and Stephanie Herseth Democrats and get elected. They can’t be liberal democrats. Johnson and Daschle obviously hurt themselves in their final term.
The SD Democrats are too busy making their own brand less relevant with a few ultra-liberal flame throwers, place holders and a few drug culture enthusiasts that would seem far more happy living in Portland working at a pot shop or an adjacent coffee shop having pseudo-intellectual discussions about the latest conspiracy theory. There they could talk about rallying the proletariat for the next protest and boycott but more than likely the end up staying at the coffee shop never doing much.