It’s not just a double punch for Brian Bengs – it’s a flurry of body blows as South Dakota remembers it’s roots and prepares to send one of it’s own back to the US Senate, shaking off the carpetbagger dreams of someone who has only lived in the State for 9 years. At least, according to SD News Watch:

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds leads Independent challenger Brian Bengs 56% to 37%, according to the latest South Dakota Poll sponsored by News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota.

The Oct. 12-14 survey of 500 likely voters by Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, ranked as one of the least-biased and most-factual pollsters, also found that 62% of independents support Bengs, while 30% support Rounds and 8% of independents are undecided.

and..

“The Bengs campaign (has) spent over $100,000 on polling from various pollsters to get an accurate read of where the race is. Some have us up, some have us down. But the fact is that Mike Rounds’ allies wouldn’t be dumping so much money into this race if they really thought it was safe,” Clara Bronikowski, a representative from the Bengs campaign, said to News Watch in a statement.

and..

“Rounds is the junior senator. He also was a beloved governor who did really well as governor. That protects him, but he also really stays away from some of the more D.C.-esque concerning things. I think Rounds has very purposefully, maybe even strategically, tried to to stay away from falling into that trap, if you will. And so I’m not surprised by by that at all,” Hellwege said.

Read the entire story here.

I’m kind of thinking that Bengs’ $100k that he blew on goofy polling would have been better spent on helping to raise his name ID.

A new poll is out tonight from a group called Quantus Insights which comes on top of the poll recently released by Public Opinion Strategies showing Rounds up by 17%.

Quantus Insights notes that in a poll conducted in Mid-October..

Rounds is trouncing independent candidate Brian Bengs 57% to 36% in the deep-red state, according to a new poll conducted in mid-October by Quantus Insights.

That’s a larger lead for Rounds than many surveys have previously shown; some surveys even showed Bengs with a slight lead.

Read that here.

In slides linked to the story..

Rounds leads by 21 Mike Rounds takes 57.2 percent to Brian Bengs’s 36.5, a 20.7-point lead, with 4.6 percent undecided and 1.7 percent naming someone else. The margin on a difference between the two is about ±8.2, so the lead is decisive at the full-sample level.

The 29 undecided voters break 48 Rounds, 18 Bengs; 34 percent stay undecided. With leaners allocated the ballot is 59.4 to 37.3, Rounds +22.1, with 1.6 percent still undecided.

and..

90.6 percent of voters who picked a candidate say their mind is made up; 7.0 percent could change it. Republicans are the firmest at 95 percent, independents the softest at 80.

Read the polls results here.

At this point, they’re calling for Rounds as “A SETTLED RACE.”

Figuratively, you can stick a fork in the Bengs campaign at this point.

Because that baked potato is done.

You know, the devil tends to always be in the details.   Which makes the 2026 Campaign Finance Report filed by the Minnehaha County GOP kind of interesting.

Because there are no details. None.

Minnehaha County GOP 2026 Report.pdf by Pat Powers

So, according to this report, over the last two years, they received no itemized or unitemized donations…

And nothing from PACs. Or Candidates buying Lincoln Day Dinner ads.. Or anything.

They did have some events.  But somehow, despite renting facilities..  and buying supplies… or buying food for the Lincoln Day Dinner.. or prizes and trophies for golf tournaments…  They managed not to raise or spend anything.

The Republican organization for the largest county in South Dakota is reporting ZERO in expenditures over the course of two years?

And magically they have over $106k in their bank account.

 

The note that they managed to raise $68,420.95. Without receiving any money or spending any money on anyone or anything over the last 2 years.

Is it just me, or do they need to go back and maybe try that report again?

He claims to be an Indy. He ran as a Democrat. He’s been telling the gullible that he’s also a “Roosevelt Republican.”

Just when you think Brian Bengs ran out of political affiliations to try to claim, it looks like he’s doing another one:

Now US Senate wanna-but will never-be – Bengs appears to be hitching his wagon to the recently formed “Forward Party?” Good grief.

Maybe he should try to revive the “The Rent is Too Damn High” Party for all the good this new movement is going to do for him.

Within the Republican Party, the State and County parties have generally observed the guiding principle of not getting involved in primary elections.

Except as we look at the campaign finance reports for the past 2 years filed today for county political organizations, in addition to the party badly needing a new chairman it appears that they may need to make an official addition to state party bylaws. Because there are some bad actors among the Republican county groups playing in primaries. At least, according to campaign finance reports these groups are filing with the South Dakota Secretary of State.

Noting a few examples running around out there, let’s start with the Bon Homme Republican Central Committee, as chaired by Stu Cvrk:

Looks like they donated to Donna Olson for Senate and Tanner Hento for House. Neither one survived the primary, yet sometime in the last two years they received a check from the county group. As funded in part by the candidates who did win (Sen. Schoenfish, Reps Peterson and Bahmuller) who were probably pressed to buy tickets and place ads in the county’s Lincoln Day Dinner program. And yet, were not supported as their primary opponents were.

I hope they recall that when Stu comes around with his hand out for next years’ dinner. According to the report – the report THEY filed -They literally gave more to the State Party chair for some reason or another than they donated to their own candidates after the primary.  Lincoln Day Dinner food for thought.

Next, let’s look at the report for Davison County Republicans:

 

There are so darned many people who lost in the primary receiving a check that I can’t really go into detail. It’s like a rogues gallery of who couldn’t win across the state.

Sure, there were some of those who are running in the general election.  Except, this county group raised a bit over $20,000, and blew the vast lions share in choosing winner and losers not in the general election as they should have, but they spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave in the primary outside of their district. Did they really need to send Dylan Jordan $250 for his primary race across the state? Or Toby Doeden? Who made the decision in Mitchell to send Toby $2500 of the money they raised in Republican events to run his race against the other candidates in the primary, such as Governor Rhoden?

I am told that the group of clowns who led this party are out the door, after they spent everything they and their predecessors had raised, leaving $850 in the account. You want to give the new guys an opportunity to do better, but there may be some people burned by shenanigans like this making them reluctant to support the party.  So what are Republicans to do?

If people actually care about restoring confidence in the Republican Party, at a time that the Republican Central Committee is waking up to the fact that the State Party didn’t support candidates this year supporting candidates, while some of their county groups were playing in the primaries, they badly need some reform. They need to put new leadership in at the state level, and have measures in the bylaws on what county parties are and are not supposed to do, especially on what is allowed in supporting candidates.

Or not. And they can continue as they have.

SECRETARY OF STATE ISSUES UPDATE REGARDING CAMPAIGN FINANCE DEADLINE

(Pierre, S.D.) – Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson would like to explain the campaign finance reporting process for the Pre-General report filing.

All statewide candidate committees, statewide political action committees, statewide political parties, statewide ballot question committees, and legislative committees were required to file the Pre-General Disclosure Report detailing all transactions from their last report through October 14, 2026. The deadline to file the Pre-General Report was October 19, 2026, by 5:00pm central. Reports can be submitted through the online Campaign Finance Reporting System or reports may be submitted on paper and emailed or mailed to the Secretary of State’s office.

Approximately 300 of the 600+ committees had not filed as of Monday morning.  And approximately 150 committees still needed to file as of 4:20pm. Committees historically have always waited until the very last moment to file their reports.

Due to the number of committees that had not filed, SOS staff were working as fast as they could to process filings along with taking over 100 phone calls and even more emails from committees that had questions. Committees that file on paper always take longer to process and if a committee has supporting documents that they send via email those documents must be printed and matched up to the committee’s report before the SOS staff are able to upload to the website.

Secretary Johnson stated, “Ignorance is not an excuse for attacking my office or my staff because a person or group does not understand how campaign finance filings work. My staff has done an excellent job of processing 400 filings in the last two working days.”

More information about campaign finance may be found on the Secretary of State’s website at

https://sdsos.gov/elections-voting/campaign-finance/default.aspx.

###

Speaking of only providing only moral support, the SDGOP spent their time this attacking the Secretary of State, because they don’t think Heather Baxter is being treated fairly. Despite not bothering to find anything out.

The SDGOP actually did something for one of their candidates? That’s a shock.  Except it was FIRE! Aim, ready. Because they didn’t bother to ask.

I’m finding out that given her support for returning us to hand-counting, it should not come as a shock that Baxter’s campaign finance report was hand-written when it was submitted to the Secretary of State’s office. Which means that instead of instantaneous posting she could have done by filing electronically, someone has to upload them to the old system.  It has been that way.. well forever. Hand-written reports take longer.

And if she’s in the middle of the pack, or end of the line, despite Baxter sending the GOP to take to Facebook to complain, she doesn’t get to go to the front of the line. If she wanted that, she could have filed it earlier.

If Baxter’s preference is having people continue to submit handwritten paper forms to go along with her declared preference of finger-counting votes, I anticipate that if she’s elected, everyone is going to do a lot of standing around during the next 4 years.

 

I had a reader point this out to me this morning (as I’m buried in helping Republican candidates get things out the door).

It’s interesting that South Dakota Democrats reported that while they didn’t have a lot of resources, they put a significant amount of what they have into their candidates:

$17k to Dan Ahlers, and $2500 each to all of their other statewide candidates.

Except “Not running as a Democrat for Sioux Falls Mayor” Jamie Smith. He received the most of all, at $17,500.

So, how much has the South Dakota Republican Party supported their candidates running for office? According to the report that was just filed… zero.

Wow.

SDGOP 2026 Pre-General Report by Pat Powers

They had no staff. They sent no candidate mailers. In fact, this report doesn’t seem to give any indication of what they are doing for candidates.

The Republican Party spent 3.2 k on advertising. $12.7k on “consulting.” Just under $2500 on credit card fees.  And they figured out they needed money for a convention after all.

It would be nice if some of the money that people donated with the intent of supporting candidates actually made it to the candidates.  But I am hard pressed to see where it did.

I do note that the SDGOP has $113,306.97 in their state account.  Unless they are doing something that isn’t evident, it looks like they intend to just sit on the kitty.

And their support for candidates is more moral. As opposed to actual.

 

Last week, “Dem-Independent” Brian Bengs peddled a phony poll claiming to be ahead of Mike Rounds. Just like when he pulled the same trick in 2022 before an epic defeat to John Thune.

If any other democrat vendor is looking to sell a baked poll, Bangs is in the market. @BrianBengs https://t.co/FzEgEsFxaI

— Robert Skjonsberg (@RSkjonsberg) October 16, 2026

It didn’t work then for “Senator Bengs,” either.

Now this morning, Actual US Senator Mike Rounds is out with a new poll today from Public Opinion Strategies—one of the most reputabile polling firms—showing a 17 point lead. Boom!

A new poll out this morning has me leading my opponent by 17 percent.

This election is about common sense versus crazy. Please make sure your voice is heard by voting. Election Day is November 3 but you won’t have to wait until then to cast your ballot. Early voting has started in South Dakota.

Thank you, and I appreciate all of your support.

— Mike Rounds (@RoundsforSenate) October 20, 2026

Now, we all just need to remember to show up and vote.

If you haven’t seen it yet, SD News Watch has started to trickle out poll results for their most recent poll. And it is not looking good for Dan Ahlers. At all:

Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden leads Democratic challenger Dan Ahlers 56% to 36%, according to the latest South Dakota Poll sponsored by News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota.

The Oct. 12-14 survey of 500 likely voters by Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, ranked as one of the least-biased and most-factual pollsters, also found that 51% of independents support Ahlers, while 35% support Rhoden and 14% of independents are undecided.

Read the entire story here.

But here’s the part that caught my attention the most. The name ID portion of their poll results:

An incredible 35% of the polled had no idea who Dan Ahlers is. “Don’t recognize” is a bad thing if you’re running for Governor. It’s even worse when this is a man who served 3 terms in the legislature and ran for US Senate just 6 years ago.   Yet he can’t even break 70% on his name ID?

Wow.  Dan is certainly not a bad or offensive person. But if you think about it, the resources to fight a campaign is a ticket-wide problem for Democrats. The simply lack the resources to make their candidates competitive.  This has been a problem for the Democrat party for over a decade. And when they have the opportunity to make hay – in a year when it’s a mid-term for Republicans, and the Republican President’s actions have driven gas prices through the stratosphere, this was a year when they could have captured a flag or two. But they are flat busted.

Democrat did it to themselves when they put their efforts away from party building into spending their capital of time and money on ballot issues years back. They’ve never really recovered.

Of course, the Republican Party has fallen in that trap – abandoning candidate promotion in favor of  ballot measures – so eventually it will happen to us down the line.  The most candidate promotion they’ve done so far this election is when the chairman wore a Heather Baxter t-shirt when doing the last gun drawing Sunday for the only major fundraising effort of the current chair’s tenure.  I seem to remember it was just 4 years ago when the GOP used to do slate postcards. Now a dim memory.

Republicans can take some glee in the Democrats’ missed opportunities this election.

Unfortunately, unless some things change, that could all too easily be the SDGOP in a coming election.