The South Dakota Republican Party has filed their pre-primary report with the Secretary of State. And while there’a glimmer of hope for convention happening, their raffle fundraiser seems to be a bit of a bust.
First, the report:
2026SDGOP_PrePrimary by Pat Powers
$1670.87 in unitemized donations, and $1450 in itemized. $3120.87. As a political party, when that’s what your donations have been over the last 6 months… that’s not good. And wasn’t the chairman talking about how they were supposed to get $50k from the RNC? Looks like they got $17,500.
Here’s where the outlook gets especially dreary..
It appears they’re reporting 30k raised from convention registration.. all of which are likely to go back out in convention expenses in the next report. But check out what they raised (or didn’t raise) from the raffle fundraiser that was supposed to generate significant funds. $15,812. That’s…. well that what one so-so fundraiser would bring in.. but there are no more fundraisers besides that one. Party fundraising typically is an ongoing process. Not “1 and done.”‘
It looks like they added $54k to the $70k they had in the bank. Which in an election year isn’t really that much. Especially when you consider that that only raised $20 in the federal account for this month’s report.
I’m not sure that what they raised will get them through the convention, much less this fall’s election.