I was noticing as I was reviewing candidate lists today that the Secretary of State has several independent candidates who will be running for office this fall across the state. And there are a few interesting points of information with regards to the Indy’s.
| Contest | Name | Party | District/County | Notes |
| State Senator | Michael J. Miller | IND | District 19 | Actual Indy |
| State Senator | Shane C. Farlee | IND | District 28 | Registered Dem |
| State Senator | Karen M. McNeal | IND | District 32 | Registered R, Justin McNeal’s mom from Texas. |
| State Representative | David Reis | IND | District 26B | Registered Dem |
| State Representative | Shana McVickers | IND | District 31 | Actual Indy |
| State Representative | Victoria Greenlee | IND | District 31 | Unaffiliated |
| State Representative | William Craig Lafferty | IND | District 26A | Registered R |
A couple are registered Democrats, and a couple are registered R’s.
On the Senate side, Michael Miller on the ballot means that Kyle Schoenfish has a run in the fall. D28 Senate is now a three way race between the victor of tomorrows primary and Dean Schrempp. In D32, Helene Duhamel now has a contest, against Justin McNeal’s mom, who at 68 moved to Rapid City from Texas.
In the House , 26A is now a three way contest for 1 seat, and now 26B will be a race for Rebecca Reimer against a Democrat.
District 31, which will end up being Fitzgerald and Odenbach, because Mowry is arguably incapable of winning the primary, is now a full blown contest with 4 candidates running for 2 seats in the fall.
But this might not be all. Because the Libertarian party has yet to weigh in. According to a post today from a South Dakota Libertarian party adjacent website, they may be coming with candidates as well:
As of now the only way to put challengers in any of these unopposed Legislative races would be for new candidates to run as either Libertarian Party or the newly created and recognized No Labels Party. These “alternative Parties” as the State calls them, have the ability to nominate State candidates at their State Conventions. The Libertarian Party of South Dakota will be having their State Convention on June 29th in Pierre. Details can be found on their website here. There has been no word on when, where or IF the No Labels Party will be having their State Convention or if they will put any candidates on the ballot. As of this writing they have not filed the required Statement of Organization with the Secretary of States office. Nationally the No Labels Party said they would not be running a Presidential candidate this year.
Coming after the major party conventions this year may be something the Libertarians did that actually makes sense. And it could mean that they come with more strater-egy.
Mr. Oakes, please encourage grudznick’s good friend Bob to run for one of your nominee spots, again.
While that would certainly bring warmth to my tiny, cold and crusty Libertarian heart, with our national party leadership sucking up so blatantly to a certain recent president and more-recent felon, I would have to imagine our mutual friend Bob might not want anything to do with the party label at the moment.