A few interesting developments have been swirling in the ether recently for the Governor’s race in 2018 that affect the lay of the land. And they’re related to the fortunes of Democrats.

First off, there’s Mayor Mike Huether, who seems to be his own worst enemy.

If you haven’t noticed, under the leadership of Mayor Mike Huether, Sioux Falls has gained the reputation of becoming Crime City, U.S.A.   Back in 2015, Sioux Falls was named among the Top 10 Cities Where Crime is Soaring:

While the prevalence of violent crime — which includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault — has declined in many of the nation’s metropolitan areas, in some regions it has increased. In Bismarck, North Dakota, the violent crime rate grew by nearly 92.4% — from 206.6 cases per 100,000 people in 2009 to 397.6 in 2013. Based on figures published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), these are the metropolitan areas with the greatest increases in the violent crime rate.

#9 – Sioux Falls, South Dakota: 37.7% –In 2009, there were 212 violent crimes reported per 100,000 people in the Sioux Falls metro area, one of the lower rates nationwide. By 2013, the rate had risen to 292 violent crimes per 100,000 people, an increase of nearly 38% — the 10th largest increase among U.S. metro areas. City officials last year attributed part of this spike in crime to population growth. Yet, this does not fully explain the higher crime rate. Some crimes are also becoming more common than others. Methamphetamine-related crimes, for example, have risen dramatically in the area since 2009. Despite the increase in crime rate in recent years, however, the city remains significantly safer when compared to the national violent crime rate of 367.9 per 100,000 people, and the local economy is relatively strong. Just 3.3% of the area’s workforce was unemployed in 2013, one of the lower rates nationwide.

Read that here.

Between that, and anecdotes of Sioux Falls’ autocratic executive branch doing things just because they can, such as shaking down the local swim team for cash, and then reneging on an agreement, his dogged pursuit of more and bigger city offices for the administration,  and continued instances where people are noticing he’s taken to calling himself as “the mayor of South Dakota”  don’t paint Huether in a favorable light even among Democrats.

At this point, Huether may struggle coming out on top in a Democrat primary, much less competing on equal footing to the Republican primary winner in a deep red Republican state.

Writing off Huether at this point (whether he runs or not), there’s the other person who has been widely talked about in the race.

Former Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who moved down to Sioux Falls herself a few years back has long been looked as as being the Democrat’s best (or possibly only) chance to give a respectable run for the highest state office for her party.

But, surprise! She may have entirely different plans than most people have been superimposing on top of her resume after looking at her family history.

A couple of weeks back on Facebook, a few people were chatting about Stephanie, and asking when she was going to announce her entrance into the Gubernatorial contest for 2018. In response , a Democrat County Party chairperson for one of the larger counties in the state replied that they were told that very day that as opposed to the Gubernatorial contest, Stephanie “would rather take on Mike Rounds.”

As in Stephanie challenging United States Senator Mike Rounds for that office in 2020.

That wasn’t a possibility anyone had mentioned before. But, it makes sense.  She hasn’t had a terribly high profile for a while. In fact, it’s as if she’s purposefully keeping it on the down low. Which allows her time to maximize her income before she takes a year off to campaign.

South Dakota hasn’t elected a Democrat as Governor for a long, long time. But we’ve put Democrats in Washington, as she well knows.

In considering her opposition, the Republicans running for Governor in 2018 have bigger campaign bank balances at the moment. And she can raise cash for a US Senate run from Liberal DC allies far, far easier than she can for a race for Governor in one of the least populous red states in the nation.

If you’re looking at it from her personal standpoint, running for US Senate in 2020 makes all the sense in the world.

Between Huether’s arrogance and awfulness, and Herseth possibly taking a pass, the outlook for the future just became far bleaker for Democrat hopes for Governor in 2018.

Democrats may find themselves defaulting again to someone like they did to Susan Wismer in the last contest, or Jay Williams for US Senate this year. There’s jut not any good options for them, and they may once again be left in a situation of running someone who was unfortunate enough to draw the short straw.

From Bob Mercer this morning, Bob chronicles how redistricting had nothing to do with the awfulness of the South Dakota Democrat Party:

South Dakota Democrats didn’t get into their horribly deep hole overnight. It took 40 years of ups and downs to finally bomb this bad.

But after seeing 30,000 of their registered voters disappear in the past eight years in South Dakota, while Republicans and independents surged to record heights for this Tuesday’s election, the question must be asked.

What happened?

First, let’s look at what didn’t happen. The popular, but erroneous, claim is Republicans used legislative redistricting every 10 years to punish Democrats.

Read it all here.

As I noted yesterday, the leadership team of the South Dakota Democrat Party is the worst it has been in years. A continuous trend of mismanagement and abdicating their role as a political party has contributed to their continued downhill slide in numbers.  And unless they come to the realization they’re a political party, and not a small ballot measure company, it’s not going to change anything anytime soon.

Trump increases lead, Ballot Measures Lose Ground

NATIONAL AND STATEWIDE RACES

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump widens his lead in the most recent Nielson Brothers Polling (NBP) South Dakota Survey (Nov. 1-2, 2016).  As undecided numbers drop, respondents are largely deciding against the various ballot initiatives and amendments in this survey.

Donald Trump leads Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton 52* to 36 percent (Libertarian Gary Johnson – 5 percent, Constitution Party candidate Darrell Castle – 2 percent, undecided – 6 percent).  In NBPs October survey Trump led Clinton 49 to 35 percent.  This November survey went into the field following James Comey’s letter to selected Republican House chairpersons.

Other statewide races show little change between the October and November NBP surveys. Incumbent US Senator John Thune’s support dropped a point, and he now leads Democratic challenger Jay Williams, 53 to 33 percent, with 14 percent undecided.

Incumbent US House member Kristi Noem’s lead over Democratic challenger Paula Hawks remains unchanged at 51 to 41 percent, with 8 percent undecided.

Public Utilities Commissioner incumbent Chris Nelson’s support increased one point. He now leads Democratic challenger Henry Red Cloud 56 to 28 percent, with 17 percent undecided.

BALLOT MEASURES

Amendment T (redistricting authority moves from the state legislature to a nine person commission) has support drop from 42 percent in the October survey to 39 percent. Opposition climbs to 30 percent, compared with 27 percent in October. 31 percent remain undecided.

Initiated Measure 21 (limits annual loan rates for certain lenders at 36 percent)  has support increase two point to 41 percent in this survey, but opposition rises to 35 percent from 26 percent in October, with undecideds dropping to 24 percent from 36 percent.

Amendment V (removes candidate party affiliation except for president) which was holding even in the previous NBP survey, now has 42 percent of respondents saying they will vote against it (compared with 38 percent in the previous survey), 37 percent support it (compared with 38 percent), and 22 percent undecided.

Amendment U (allows unlimited interest rates for written loan agreements), drops a point to 23 percent of voters saying they will vote for it, while opposition rises from 45 to 51 percent, with 27 percent undecided.

Initiated Measure 23 (gives corporate and nonprofit organizations the right to charge a fee for any service they provide) has 20 percent support, 55 percent opposed, and 25 percent undecided.

Referred Law 20 (lowers the state youth minimum wage to $7. 50 an hour for non-tipped employees under age 18) has support rise by one point to 32 percent, as opposition rises two points to 53 percent, with 15 percent undecided.

The fate of each measure still depends in large part on the high numbers of undecided voters.

NBP

Former Chief of Staff For Bill Janklow and former Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson announced his support of Amendment V today:

On a day in which the former Republican leader in the state Senate endorsed Amendment V, the state Republican Party announced that it was devoting tens of thousands to defeating the measure.

Dave Knudson, the former GOP leader in the Senate and the chief of staff to former Gov. Bill Janklow, announced his support for the amendment, which would create non-partisan elections in South Dakota by removing political party labels from ballots in county, state and federal elections. In the announcement, Knudson said he was worried that the partisanship exhibited in Washington, D.C. was seeping into the state Legislature.

“We must stop this troubling development,” Knudson said in the announcement.

Read that here.

What the article doesn’t mention is that Knudson is a former Democrat who switched his party, but not his views, to run for office. And he joins the other Democrats in pushing this measure to hid party labels and prevent independents from spilling the vote in the fall election by ensuring only the top two vote getters have an opportunity to appear on the fall ballot.

It’s a process which will shut out the grassroots, and only leave it open to the wealthy who can buy the most TV time. on March, April & may – a time when most haven’t even considered getting serious about the elections under the current system – extending races by months and months.

So, what else isn’t the press telling you about Amendment V?

• —As I’ve mentioned before, the Amendment V effort is funded by Enron billionaire John Arnold through his 501(c)(4) “Open Primaries” organization based in Manhattan
•  –Arnold has “donated significant amounts to the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee” [Houston Chronicle May 2, 2012]. And he’s no knight in shining armor. As I’ve noted, as detailed in Rolling Stone (September 26, 2013) on Arnold: In 2011, Pew began to align itself with a figure who was decidedly neither centrist nor nonpartisan: 39-year-old John Arnold, whom CNN/Money described (erroneously) as the “second-youngest self-made billionaire in America,” after Mark Zuckerberg. ….In the book [The Smartest Guys in the Room] that the [Enron] movie was based on, the authors portray Arnold bragging about his minions manipulating energy prices, praising them for “learning how to use the Enron bat to push around the market.” Those comments later earned Arnold visits from federal investigators, who let him get away with claiming he didn’t mean what he said. [Click here to read]
• –“Open Primaries” is run by John Opdycke, a political operative for Lenora Fulani, the self-professed “fringe candidate” in New York who represented the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan and the International Workers Party; the Legislative Director of “Open Primaries” is the self-professed “Democratic Party strategist” and union activist Al Benninghoff; the Communications person for “Open Primaries” is NARAL activist Zach Handler 
• —one of the biggest supporters of “Open Primaries” is Bernie Sanders 
• –Getting back to South Dakota, and Dave Knudson above – Amendment V is being pushed by SD liberals –Tom Daschle, Tim Johnson, Pam Merchant, Drey Samuelson, Rick Weiland, Casey Murschel, Bernie Hunhoff, & Vernon Brown;
• –and in addition to the New York billionaire, the other financial supporters of Amendment V are the political allies of Rick Weiland and Tim Johnson and labor unions.

If you’re thinking of voting yes on Amendment V, take a long look at the company you’d be keeping. Because it’s a dinner party for liberals and the wealthy to reshape the political system at whim, and cutting grassroots Republicans out of the process. Because they won’t be able to afford the price to play.  

South Dakota GOP Joins Fight Against Amendment V’s Out-of-State Millions

Pierre, SD – November 3, 2016 – South Dakota Republican Party Executive Director Ryan Budmayr announced that the South Dakota GOP is committing funds to combat the millions of dollars in dark, out-of-state money that has poured into South Dakota to support Amendment V.

“South Dakota’s Constitution is worth protecting from Amendment V’s out-of-state, anti- transparent attack. That’s why we are committing funds to support the local effort to combat this effort and encourage South Dakotans to Vote No on Amendment V,” said Budmayr.

The South Dakota Republican Party is committing $70,000 to Vote No On V, the local effort to oppose Amendment V. $70,000 represents around 6 percent of the amount contributed to push Amendment V by the out-of-state group Open Primaries. To date, this New York group has contributed more than $1.12 million to the effort to overhaul South Dakota’s Constitution. The South Dakota Republican Party, unlike Open Primaries, discloses the source of its funds.

“Our contribution may pale in comparison to the millions in out-of-state, special interest money given to push the measure, but we believe it will help to inform South Dakotans about Amendment V’s attempt to hide information from voters and make us more like California,” Budmayr added.

Following the pre-general campaign finance report, Proponents for V had raised more than $1.5 million. 85 percent of the funds raised to support Amendment V came from outside South Dakota.

No On V, the local effort to oppose the Constitutional change, had raised more than 99 percent from South Dakota donors.

In addition to the South Dakota Republican Party, the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the South Dakota Association of Cooperatives, South Dakota Farm Bureau, Governor Daugaard, Senator Thune, Senator Rounds and Congresswoman Noem have all joined to formally oppose this outside effort and encourage South Dakotans to Vote No on V. 

Contact Ryan Budmayr, Executive Director of the Republican Party, at 605-777-0467 with any questions.

##

It’s time for more armchair quarterbacking in the 2016 elections, as we take a shot at predicting the State Senate races from the hundred mile view. The big story in the Senate will be the hit that Democrats take in the campaign, as there’s practically no good news for them, and the potential for an even more historic low number of their group in the upper chamber.

D	Rep	Dem	Other	Predictions	Notes
1		Frerichs		Dem Over
2	Greenfield			GOP Over
3	Novstrup	Heidelberger		GOP	People don’t elect people who want to raise their taxes.
4	Wiik	Tyler		GOP	Tyler didn’t run 1/2 the race she had 2 years ago, and Wiik was prepared for a tough race he didn’t get.
5	Tapio			GOP Over
6	Otten	Boese		GOP	Incumbent v. unknwn
7	Tidemann	Perpich		GOP	Tidemann was prepared, and Perpich did nothing, and will be rewarded accordingly.
8	Youngberg	Parsley		GOP	The word on the street is that Youngberg has this won.
9	Peters	Koch		GOP	Replacement candidate who never took off.
10	Haggar	Powers		GOP	Challenger made effort, but Haggar should pull through fine.
11	Stalzer	Cool		GOP	Cool never got hot.
12	Curd	Sanden		GOP	Curd is fine
13	Kolbeck	Pierson		GOP	Denny Pierson grasped at straws, but his days are long gone by.
14	Soholt		Swanger	GOP	Swanger made effort, but Soholt knows how to campaign, and did so.
15		Nesiba		Dem Over
16	Bolin	Skiles		GOP	Bolin is a campaign machine. It’s over.
17	Rusch	Merrill		GOP	Rusch is well respected, and the incumbent. Merrill never gave a reason to replace him
18		Kennedy		Dem Over
19	Nelson	Graef		GOP	One of most GOP districts in state
20	Klumb	Berg		GOP	Berg made a few of us nervous early, but he was never more than a placeholder this time.
21		Sutton		Dem Over
22	White	Bliss		GOP	Is it a rule that Dem replacements are all mediocre?
23	Cronin			GOP Over
24	Monroe			GOP Over
25	Langer	Barth		Toss Up/Lead GOP	The only toss-up left. But, GOP has heavy voter advantage. Word is Barth isn’t confident.
26		Heinert		Dem Over
27		Killer		Dem Over
28	Maher			GOP Over
29	Cammack		Kindler	GOP	over.
30	Russell	LaRive		GOP	LaRive must have escaped the last Democrat Bounty Hunt in Fall River County. It’s over.
31	Ewing			GOP Over
32	Solano	Hubbard		GOP	Solano has turned out to be a good competitor. Hubbard never had a chance.
33	Jensen	Stuck		GOP	Phil for the win.
34	Partridge	Schultz		GOP	Over
35	Haverly			GOP Over

I’m going to optimistically predict that the Senate is going to come down to a 29-6 split, with Senate Dems consisting of Frerichs, Nesiba, Sutton, Heinert, Killer and Kennedy, dropping their numbers two as they lose seats they held centered around Madison/Flandreau and Milbank.

Admittedly, even if they can keep what they held in the 2015-2016 session, that’s only 8, which consigns them to near irrelevancy. That might be optimistic, but it’s the best they could possibly hope for, because the numbers are not in their favor.

Why is the outlook so bleak for South Dakota Democrats? First off, the South Dakota Democrat party has managed to coordinate the absolute worst effort for their legislative candidates that I think I’ve seen in nearly 30 years. It’s as if they absolutely abdicated their role as a political party, discarding it for – and it’s a familiar fault – concentrating on ballot issues. They put time and money into those issues while their efforts at candidate recruitment and funding floundered miserably.

As we come to the end of the 2016 election cycle, it’s all to evident that Ann Tornberg and Suzanne Jones Pranger have managed to take a vehicle already driven into the mud and encapsulated it even further in mediocrity. (So it is even more hopelessly stuck).  And that bodes poorly for Democrats as they get manicures in preparation of their biennial ritual of pointing fingers and blaming everything but the root cause of their failure – the inability to conduct themselves as a political party, find candidates for office, and help them to run competent campaigns.

As the first hints of dawn are approaching for 2018, when they need to start the whole thing over again in a campaign season where many statewide offices are going to be up for grabs, botching this election was a grevious error. And one that just put them that much farther back on having people queued up on the bench ready to join the big leagues.

In case you might be fooled into thinking Amendment V is a nonpartisan effort, here’s liberal democrat Tom Daschle encouraging you to vote for it.

Initiated Measure 22, Rick Weiland’s Politician Welfare act, helping to support those poor politicians by providing them taxpayer funded campaigns is not just a proposal in South Dakota. They have managed to pass taxpayer funded political campaigns in other areas.

So, what exactly would IM 22 bring South Dakotans political parties. But not the GOP/DEM type. The type with party beads, candy, and more. From the Maine Press-Herald:

“These may be legitimate campaign expenses, but it really doesn’t seem to be the best prioritization of taxpayer money to buy things like robocalls and junk mail,” Brakey said. He said that compared with traditionally financed candidates who collect most of their money from individual donors, those taking state funds for their campaigns can easily forget who is actually footing the bill.

and…

Dunlap, a traditionally financed candidate, is running against Saviello again. She has raised just $750, with $700 of that coming from a donation she made to her own campaign. And according to Dunlap’s most recent campaign finance reports, she has spent just over $59 on supplies for a get-out-the-vote headquarters in Rangeley. That left her with $139 to spend as of Oct. 25.

Saviello, by contrast – and within the rules of the program – has collected $62,000 of public campaign cash, spending $43,083 on his campaign, including $213 for party beads to toss out during a parade and $88 for candy.

Saviello said Wednesday he follows the rules, and that he can’t take re-election for granted.

“The first time you make an assumption like that you’re dead in the water,” said Saviello, who is seeking a fourth term. He said he has always thrown out party beads during parades, and noted that other politicians give out little American flags that are often left behind on the ground after a parade. “And that doesn’t seem right to me, either,” he said.

Saviello also has used his public funds to equip a campaign office and staff it with volunteers, which he said he did to ensure he’s doing his homework and is prepared to counter any last-minute political maneuvers by his opponent or her supporters.

Read it all here.

So, if you want taxpayers to foot the bill for tools, Chinese takeout, and party beads, by all means, pass IM 22.

If you think candidates can pay for themselves, then you should probably VOTE NO on the Politician Welfare Measure, IM 22.

Tim Reed hit us with a postcard today touting an endorsement from both outgoing State Rep.Scott Munsterman, as as well as Governor Dennis Daugaard.