Wow. I heard a big one today.
Word on the street is that Troy Heinert is taking a job, possibly out of state, and will NOT be taking on Kristi Noem for Governor.
Leaving state Democrats really nobody. And they have no one to blame for the lack of candidates besides themselves.
For the past couple of decades, Democrats have labored under the mistaken belief that ballot measures could drive energy and interest towards their party apparatus and diverted significant energy towards those ends. Unfortunately, they lost that bet, and their party has withered on the vine (while former candidate Rick Weiland has cashed in on it.)
Their miscalculation in betting on ballot measures is that energy actually comes from the top of the ticket to turn out voters. It’s why we have higher turnouts in presidential years.
The problem is that Democrats are finding that a lack of attention to the business of being a political party has seen their down-ticket success eroded to the current historic low point.
And it’s self-perpetuating. Fewer elected officials at the local or legislative level means fewer possibilities for competent statewide candidates. And fewer people willing to put themselves up to run as a Democrat in the first place, because frankly, no one wants to carry the ball as part of the losing team.
In 2022, Democrats wondering why thinks look so bad need to take a look at the hot mess they’ve created for themselves.
After a major financial crash which shut their doors for a time, the State Democrat Party is as dependent on cash from their national party to fund their daily operation just to get through the day. AND the State Democrat Party remains on shaky financial ground after rebuilding, on top of which they find themselves owing a $40K fine to the Federal Elections Commission as a result of their mishandling of money.
Only holding 11 seats between the House and the Senate, with two incumbents ineligible to run again due to term limits, Democrats are challenged to not just hold their own, but also have to recruit candidates for over 90% of state legislative races.
And with 30 days to go until petitions begin circulating, they literally have no one jumping forward to run as candidates at the statewide level, and they’ve ran the clock down to the last few seconds.
No matter how futile it ends up being, it seems that there are always candidates who think they can escape conventional wisdom and run a competitive statewide challenger campaign by starting in February of election year. Nevermind the fact that the incumbents have been active in pulling resources – both financial and organizational – for months.
Senator John Thune (at around $15M), Governor Kristi Noem (about $6.5M) and Congressman Dusty Johnson (about 1.5M) have built up funds and organization to go towards the ends of running a competent campaign in this cycle.
At the same time Democrats have literally no idea who they can talk into it.
With Heinert out, no one stepping forward to run in the general election against Congressman Dusty Johnson, and only a Democrat party outsider whose stated party affiliation is ‘a lifelong Independent’ until he wanted to run for office expressing interest in the US Senate contest, you cannot describe Democrat’s electoral chances as anything but ‘bleak’ in the 2022 election cycle.
And those are the races at the top of the ticket. Not to mention they lack anyone talking about the mid-ticket statewide constitutional offices. Which we can accurately predict will be the usual “whoever-we-can-talk-into-it-at-convention” candidates that Democrats tend to offer.
Already, it looks as if 2022 is not looking good for the blue team.
As the clock continues to run down, we’ll continue to watch to see if all is as bad as it seems.
Lay the blame where it belongs…the hard shift to the left, socialist, marxist policies.
I dont get why they aren’t running people like casey olivier. Get some young and talented people with great stories.
All true Pat. And to add to that: The national Dem party has done them any favors with their hard-left turn since Obama got elected. They have become an urban, coastal party and basically written off the rural areas.
Add to that, 2022 is looking to be a terrible year for Democrats nationally. Another big Democratic congressman announced his retirement today. Who would want to be on the Democratic ticket in South Dakota next year and spend all their time trying to defend the Biden record, or run away from it?
Billie Sutton, probably the best candidate for governor the Democrats could reasonably hope for, lost by 3 or 4 percent last time. This time, he’d lose by ten points at least. Maybe 20.
If I’m the SD Dems I’m working on my ten-year plan, because the two-year plan is looking pretty bleak.
Billie would win this time. Although it might be a little harder beating Haugaard.
SDDP aka South Dakota Drugs Party creating more victims and suffering every day while promoting, pushing to legalizing and commercialize POVERTY industries.
Meanwhile in the Twin Cities over 500 car jackings, record high crime rate including violent crime, organized mass looting of Best Buy stores and now Brooklyn Center is defunding it’s police department by 30% cutting 15 officers during their own record breaking year for crimes including violent crime. Thanks Socialists!
How did the GOP fail in protecting kids from bathroom predators. Just because someone has a mental illness and thinks they don’t have a gender, doesn’t mean they can get naked with kids in the bathroom. I would take drug crime any day over crime against kids.
Good for you! Enjoy your drugs courtesy of the South Dakota Drug Party aka SDDP.
According to Nebraska Free Press they are all for Lora Hubbel.
I was just going to say, running as a Democrat might finally get her the attention she wants
Lora would make a great Democrat. She loves the underdog and less fortunate.
Would she run in Nebraska home of out of state blogger Cory Heidelberger from Nebraska Free Press or in South Dakota as a Democrat? Will she run in the primary and seek the Democratic nomination? The SDDP has demonstrated they no longer have any principles anymore and are desperate for a candidate so why not.
A Republican could run the SDDP better than a Dem.
Where is Brendan Johnson?
Where is Mike Huether? I know he is not a registered Dem. any longer but he is at least a viable alternative.
Does single party rule lead to major corruption? Are there any examples where single party rule has gone well?
Randy Seiler is doing a great job!
For the SDGOP I agree!
Nice enough guy, and I kind of admire him for taking a job that he clearly didn’t want and that no one else wanted. But by what metric is he doing a great job? Not in fundraising, party organization, candidate recruitment, or certainly winning elections.
One would have thought Billie Sutton’s competitive campaign in 2018 would have given them something to build from but instead they threw it all away and seem to have fallen farther than ever.