It might not have been the kind of victory they may have hoped for, but South Dakota Democrats started to move the pendulum back in their direction.
Last night, State Democrats started the long and arduous process of rebuilding their bench after they picked up 4 seats in the South Dakota legislature through a combination of the blue wave sweeping the country coming after President Trump’s mishandling of the economy, and a non-functional State Republican party that sat mute an spent their time making facebook videos as opposed to doing the work of a political party.
The new State Senate is comprised of a new super-super majority of 33 Republicans of the 35 members, leaving Democrats one shy of their high of three last year. 33 to 2 will make it kind of tough to have balanced committee representation. But I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
The House took the brunt of what I would argue was a good organizational effort from Democrats, as they doubled their numbers from 5 to 10, also picking up an independent who is more likely to caucus with them, while Republicans fully shed six members in that chamber.
In reading the tea leaves last night, Democrats rode a blue wave of absentee voting which was evident early in many races where their absentee numbers vastly outperformed what Republicans had. It’s as if the State Republican Party had absolutely NO absentee effort, and instead sat on their hands and made stupid videos and wasted their time posting AI slop on Facebook while Democrats had the opportunity to turn their people out unchallenged.
In Brown county, Dems won the absentee based contest. Thank god we were able to do sufficiently well on election day, or our goose would have been cooked.
In Minnehaha County, their organizational efforts showed, where we lost several of what had previously been safe seats.
D11 was a downer, where we lost State Rep. Keri Weems in a tight three-way race. Did the Libertarian serve as a spoiler? Maybe. But the math wasn’t there when it has been in the past.
D12, another previously safe seat, picked off by a Democrat who completely eclipsed Republicans. I’m told Brian Lewis who switched between Doeden & Hansen in the Gubernatorial races this year landed after the Hansen loss to run Loudenslager’s campaign. Just a note for the future.
State Rep. John Hughes finds himself out. Again, on surprising strength coming out of Minnehaha Democrats.
In District 14, this was one of the most surprising contests:
Tyler Tordsen who had reclaimed his position on the ballot after he came through the primary found himself short, against the unexpected strength of the Democrat in the race.
And check this our from District 15, where Democrats barely squeaked out a win in a Republican Majority District last year:
You know, when the election kooks remove 2000 REPUBLICAN RV Voters UPDATE – I was told it was 2700 Republican RV Voters – who were tied to the district from being able to vote in State Elections, it turns that District back into a “Republicans will never win” district.
This was a tough night for Republicans across the country, not that anyone paying $4 a gallon for gas, and $6 or 7 for Diesel would have told anyone any differently. Economic confidence is in the tank, and we live in a chaotic time.
Add to that a non-functional State Republican Party who did nothing for candidates, raising no money for them, and spending no money for them to help secure a fighting chance, and this is what happens; races that could have been, and should have gone the other way tend to fall apart.
