South Dakota Democrats are ending 2024 with some money in their federal account, just a bit more than Republicans And there’s a more troubling statistic that has my attention. First – here’s the hard data for the SDDP:
South Dakota Democrat 2024 Year End Report by Pat Powers on Scribd
Democrats found themselves starting with $104,949, they added $38,770.41, and disbursed $60,260.52, leaving them $83,458.94 cash on hand, with all their debts and obligations paid off. Not something to send up fireworks over, but respectable. And now the State Account:
SDDP Year End State Report by Pat Powers on Scribd
Starting with $58,264.83, Democrats raised another $28,635.47, spent $28,903.34 and ended with $57,996.96. Leaving the South Dakota Democrat Party with $141,455.90 to start 2025 with.
How does that compare to what should be the massive juggernaut of the South Dakota Republican Party? First, the Republican Party’s Federal Account:
2024 SDGOP Year End Report by Pat Powers on Scribd
Starting with $64,415.87, the SDGOP added $15,134 in fundraising. and disbursed $12,132, leaving a total of $67,417.11 cash on hand in the federal account.
Now, the State Report:
SDGOP Year End State Report by Pat Powers
Starting with $49,339.86, the SDGOP added $55,415.19 in state income, and spent $68,911.03. Leaving them with $35,844.02 cash on hand.
Adding that up from the Federal report, that’s a total of $103,261.13, about $38,194 less than the South Dakota Democrat Party.
As the majority party in South Dakota, the SDGOP should be leaps and bounds beyond that, and not trailing Democrats.
Beyond that, what should really grab our attention is the other difference in the reports. The SDGOP report is 11 pages long. With 1 donation. One Donation. On the State Report, there were two itemized donation. Two. The Democrat’s FEC Report is 105 pages long, with around 71 pages of donations – over 200 donations.
Without significant effort, Democrats are maintaining a regular donor base dozens if not hundreds of pages long every report. Republicans are challenged to pick up any at all, despite 300,000 or so registered Republican voters in South Dakota.
Despite the South Dakota Republican Party’s model of county quota donations as a system set up by the SDGOP Central Committee to help support the group, not a single county donation is registered in their year end report this year. Not one. Nor in the pre-general report. You have to go back to the pre-primary report, and only before the Primary the Meade County GOP sent in 2k. But nobody else. Why? And to add insult to injury, you had people like the Minnehaha GOP sending nearly $20k to “various PACs and organizations.”
This lack of donors willing to support the Republican Party organization should be scaring the dickens out of the South Dakota Republican Party. The Republican Party outnumbers the Democrats in South Dakota more than 2-1, yet the SDGOP is on the verge of financial and electoral collapse if they can’t get their act together and put their eye back on the ball.
It’s about representing a broad base of ALL people registered as Republicans in South Dakota, not just the fringe. It’s about quality candidates. It’s about raising votes and raising money, so you can raise votes.
Ugh. What happens if they can’t figure this stuff out?
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
The fringe has won. The party does not represent the middle of the road republican anymore. Maybe we are dinosaurs and not welcome in the new fringe and out of state party.
Honestly, if the SDGOP had raised a ton of money and spent a ton of money, I’d be fine with ending the year behind the SDDP. After all, the whole point is to win elections! If you have to spend everything you’ve got to win, do it! Provided, that is, you can raise it back.
The problem is, they didn’t raise anything. Considering they didn’t raise anything in the past, I have no confidence they can raise in the future. The SDGOP is definitely in trouble, and I don’t think any of the three announced candidates can fix it.
It looks to me like the PACs were big fundraisers, targeting the sane republicans and replacing them with whack jobs.
Because of our closed primary system, the right-wing fringe has control. Mainstream Republicans, the kind with money, have little influence and little motivation to give.
Saw this coming when the delegates to the 2022 convention almost won a vote to give themselves the money and bankrupt the party.
By 2024 they wanted to waste money supporting various candidates in the primaries instead of saving money for the general election.
No incumbent is going to give money to a county or state party which will use it to fund a primary challenger.
The crazies have taken over the party and nobody sane is going to give them any more money.
The party is over as we knew it. Done. Won’t ever be the same. They will never again have serious leadership who can raise money. The campaigns themselves and PAC’s are now the primary fundraising entities and political engines. With that change, we also fail to attract top leadership to run the party. Next step is we need to move candidate selection to the primary ballot. We can’t let the crazies pick the candidates for the rest of us. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted with the task.
Who want to contribute when Schoenbeck funds and controls all the races? The system is broken.
New people take over and donations dry up. Idiots on the internet: how is this everyome else’s fault?
And where do you see this? Lee didn’t get involved in races last year, as he’s retired from the legislature. You’ll have to pick a new boogeyman.