Dan Ahlers recalls campaigning for a 2018 South Dakota legislative race in his hometown of Dell Rapids and calling on a household he knew was registered Republican.
The woman who answered the door recognized Ahlers from his work in Pierre and said, “Dan, I like you and I appreciate what you stand for, but I can’t vote for you.”
When he asked her why, she said, “I just can’t vote for a Democrat.” He lost the election by fewer than 100 votes.
The challenge of partisan perspective hasn’t changed much now that Ahlers serves as executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party, except maybe the situation has gotten worse.
Republicans control 96 of the 105 legislative seats in Pierre (91%), which puts South Dakota in company with fellow GOP super majorities West Virginia (92%) and Wyoming (91%) as the most partisan legislatures in the nation.
No South Dakota Democrat has won a statewide election since 2008, and the last Democratic governor elected in the state was Dick Kneip, who served from 1971-78.
Of the 630,000 active registered voters in South Dakota, 51% are registered as Republicans, 25% as independent/no party affiliation and 23% as Democrats.
For Ahlers, finding a Democratic message more patterned to the Great Plains than states such as California or New York is one of the keys to reviving party relevance.
“We need to be able to define ourselves better so people can see who we are,” said Ahlers, who served three terms in the South Dakota Legislature and ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2020. “It's not necessarily a rebranding. We just have to tell people who we are and what we stand for. That’s our biggest challenge.”
Social issues 'not nearly as important' in SD
The situation is also sobering nationally.
A CNN poll published March 16 showed the Democratic Party’s favorability rating at 29%, a record low in CNN polling dating back to 1992 and a drop of 20 points since January 2021, when Republican President Donald Trump exited his first term following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Republican Party’s favorability rating in that national poll was 36%.
The downward trend of Democratic influence is especially profound in the rural Midwest, where states such as South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska had farm-focused Democrats representing them in the U.S. Senate in recent decades and now have zero across the board.
Trump’s rise in the Republican ranks helped accelerate that trend by elevating immigration concerns and social issues such as abortion and transgender rights to try to define Democrats as too liberal or “woke” to relate to middle America.
“The national Democratic Party has become dominated by people on the coasts who care more about social issues than economic concerns,” said Drey Samuelson, a Nebraska native and Democratic operative who served as chief of staff to former South Dakota U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson. “Those social issues are not nearly as important to people who live in rural states like South Dakota.”
There is, however, hope among longtime state Democrats that the time is right for a pendulum swing.
With the South Dakota Republican Party under the sway of hard-right populists and Trump experiencing sinking poll numbers, the traditional midterm backlash could pay dividends for a party desperate for momentum.
Many Democrats are disenchanted by the Elon Musk/Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) federal workforce cuts and a still-wobbly economy. The party's ability to channel that energy into voter registration spikes or election wins will be a good test of Republican staying power in Washington and Pierre.
“Because South Dakota is a one-party state, Republicans have been allowed to screw up at times without paying the cost,” said Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University, noting the impeachment of former attorney general Jason Ravnsborg and scandals involving the Gear Up educational cooperative and EB-5 visa program over the past 12 years.
“There’s been no electoral check or other consequences, so you wonder if that changes in terms of self-correction from within the party or (with Democratic gains) if it’s perceived that the Republicans are misgoverning.”
State Democrats made impact in Congress
It seems almost inconceivable now, but South Dakota’s congressional delegation in Washington consisted of nothing but Democrats during a brief spell two decades ago.
Johnson and Tom Daschle served together in the U.S. Senate for eight years leading up until the 2004 election, when Daschle lost his majority leader status and Senate seat in a high-stakes election loss to rising Republican John Thune.
In June of 2004, Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin won a special election to replace Republican Bill Janklow in the U.S. House after Janklow resigned following his manslaughter conviction for killing a motorcyclist in a car crash.
Johnson and Herseth Sandlin were re-elected in 2008, the year Barack Obama won the White House and the Democrats took over all three branches of the federal government. It was the last year any Democrat has been elected to statewide office in South Dakota.
Backlash to Obama’s presidency, with its landmark health care reform package and economic stimulus after the Great Recession, served as a galvanizing force for Republicans.
Nationally, Republicans took control of the U.S. House in 2010 by gaining 63 seats with Tea Party influence while cutting into the Democratic edge in the Senate. They also flipped control of 20 state legislatures.
In South Dakota, the shift was personified by a 38-year-old rancher and state legislator from Hamlin County named Kristi Noem, who knocked off Herseth Sandlin with 48% of the vote in 2010 and later became the state’s first female governor. She now serves as Homeland Security secretary in the Trump administration.
“(Noem) had a strong message about less government, less regulation and advancing legislation to build people up rather than tear them down,” Suzanne Veenis, Noem’s statewide volunteer coordinator in 2010, told News Watch. “It was the message that people in South Dakota wanted to hear.”
This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email every few days to get stories as soon as they're published. Contact Stu Whitney at [email protected].
