The 2026 midterm elections have seen no shortage of dramatic and competitive primaries across multiple states. With major primaries in Michigan or Wisconsin coming up, or massive primaries in Colorado and New York in the past, the race for South Dakota Governor got far less attention. Honestly, if you are not a massive election nerd or from South Dakota, you probably didn’t even know South Dakota had their primary yet. Well, since I am not from South Dakota….
There is a reason I want to write about South Dakota today, however. Specifically, I want to discuss the race for Governor.
You see, South Dakota had its Republican Primary back on June 2nd, which was eclipsed by the focus on the California primary. Then, on Tuesday this week, they had their first ever RUNOFF from that primary. The results from the first round of voting compared with the runoff showed a remarkable amount of consolidation, leading to the 2nd place candidate surging into a dominant runoff win. The results are a further piece of a long debate about how to best run elections; whether with runoffs, ranked-choice voting, or with allowing a plurality (less than 50%) to decide.
So lets take a look at the South Dakota Governor’s race and see what it might tell us about the long-standing debate about how we decide elections.
The Republican Candidates for Governor
The Republican Primary for South Dakota Governor had a unique dynamic this year. Larry Rhoden, the incumbent Governor, was running in the election,however, he is not a “true incumbent” from an electoral perspective. In 2025, Rhoden, then the Lt Governor, was elevated to the top job when Governor Kristi Noem resigned to become Trump’s Homeland Security Director. I think we all know how that worked out.
Rhoden, who long served in the state legislature, became Lt Governor in the 2018 elections when Noem selected him as her running mate. That year saw the closest Governor election in modern South Dakota history, with Noem only barely edging past State Senator Billie Sutton.
The results were especially week for Noem, as South Dakota has not elected a Democratic Governor in decades. Noem, then in Congress, was a weak candidate who by all accounts was bailed out by state and national Republican forces. Still, Noem won, and in 2022 had a much easier time, winning re-election with over 60%. Lt Governor Rhoden never was tagged with anti-Noem sentiment, so when he became Governor, he did so relatively scandal free.
After ascending to the Governorship, Rhoden was initially was not sure if he would run for his own term, with him waiting to see if he could key legislative priorities passed to show he’d be effective at the job. When he finally did make his bid for a term of his own, he already had three opponents: Congressman Dusty Johnson (left), businessman Toby Doeden (right middle), and Speaker of the State House Jon Hensen (right).
Rhoden’s entry into the contest did not clear the field of his opponents, and he earned little value from incumbency. However, Rhoden was not a no-name politician, having served in the state legislature and run for US Senate in 2014; losing the GOP Primary to now-Senator Mike Rounds. Still, Rhoden would have his work cut out for him, as early polls showed him a very divided electorate.
In the early stages, the biggest threat to Rhoden seemed to Dusty Johnson, the at-large Congressman for South Dakota. Johnson had a large campaign war-chest, bringing in over $3.5 million in a state that is pretty low populated and not expensive to campaign in. Rhoden, meanwhile, brought in less than $1,000,000 in comparison. Of course, this is just hard money, and outside and affiliated committees spent countless more. Speaker Hansen trailed in funds, bringing in less than $200,000 and not seeming to have much outside help. Businessman Toby Doeden, however, self-funded up to $4,000,000. We will get back to him in a moment.
Dusty Johnson’s Fragile Lead
At first, everyone consider Johnson to be Rhoden’s biggest threat, or even the outright front-runner. This, however, did not last, and that was pretty predictable.
Johnson may have been the big fundraiser, but he did have issues on his right-flank. In 2022, Johnson faced far-right anger for his voting to certify the 2020 election and his vote to set up the January 6th commission. He faced a primary from State Representative Taffy Howard and won with an underwhelming 59%.
Johnson’s defections from Trump were overall few and far between. However, those votes, including a 2019 vote against a border wall scheme by Trump (which Johnson said violated the separation of powers) were used against him. In one ad, Rhoden said Johnson wasn’t with Trump, stating “Dusty Johnson. If he’s not with Trump, he’s not with us.” In the modern Republican party, that often is enough to drag a candidate down.
The primary between Johnson and Rhoden got especially nasty as time went on. Rhoden even claimed Johnson threatened the Governor to stay out of the race by promising a negative ad blitz. Indeed Johnson would hit Rhoden in ads, namely over taxes. When Rhoden signed a bill that lowered property taxes but raised sales taxes, Johnson hit Rhoden for… you guessed it… “raising taxes.”
Rhoden and Johnson would hit each other back and forth through the spring and summer. Speaker Joe Hansen, as previously mentioned, had far less funds and consistently trailed in polls. However, there was always the possibility that if the two front-runners went hard against each other, Hansen could have emerged from the war as a less-tainted choice. However, that prospect was upset by the presence of Toby Doeden.
Toby Doeden Rises
While three of the Republican candidates for Governor were well-established political figures, businessman Toby Doeden was the definitive “outsider” candidate. Doeden is a wealthy man that made money in sales, real estate development, and bitcoin sales. Through the primary he invested $4,000,000 of his own funds into his long-shot campaign.
A major pitch from Doeden was his desire to ELIMINATE property taxes. This of course is an impractical idea that would harm voters by completely dismantling public services; including police and fire fighting. However, its a catchy policy idea for people who have zero idea how Government operates and how much it affects your life more than you think. Doeden, who very much styled himself as a Donald Trump figure, had all the same racist baggage. Social media posts from Doeden ranged from homophobic, to racist, to anti-Semitic.
Doeden remained in third place for much of the primary season, but was a big benefiter of the negative attacks between Rhoden and Johnson. By Johnson’s own account of his polling, Doeden began to pick up voters that were defecting from his camp. By the time Doeden was rising in the polls, very little had been spent going after him directly. This allowed Doeden to rise in the polls as the two front-runners went to war.
The Primary Results
When the votes came in on June 2nd, the results were a shock to many in and out of South Dakota. Once the front-runner, Dusty Johnson trailed in third place. Toby Doeden, meanwhile, TOPPED the primary with 31% of the vote. Governor Rhoden was in 2nd with 25%, and Jon Hansen at 21%
With 136,000 ballots cast, the four way split was very close, with Doeden taking 41,000 votes and Hansen in the back taking 28,000. Johnson was 3,000 votes behind Rhoden to make the runoff himself.
The close result triggered South Dakota’s runoff rule; which was mandated if no candidate got 35%. This law was long on the books but had NEVER been triggered before. On primary night, myself and many others didn’t even realize such a runoff system existed, and thought, at least for 20 or 30 minutes, that Doeden was the nominee.
Thanks to the runoff rule, Rhoden and Doeden would face off in a July 28th head-to-head fight.
The Republican Runoff
The runoff for Governor was a unique dynamic. On the one hand, an incumbent only getting 25% would normally mean they were destined to lose the runoff, as other candidates could be seen as anti-incumbent candidates. However, Rhoden was hardly an electoral “incumbent.” Instead, it was a reasonable bet that Rhoden could consolidate the votes that had gone to more established and experienced candidates. Rhoden recognized this, and welcomed Johnson and Hansen supports to his side. Neither eliminated candidate endorsed in the runoff.
The two month runoff was consistently negative, with both camps throwing barbs at the other. Doeden claimed Rhoden was getting support from Democrats, and Rhoden claimed Doeden “might” have voted for Obama once.
Doeden’s incendiary social media past didn’t seem to drive much focus, but his property tax proposals did. As questions about how anything could be funded continued to increase, Doeden was forced to admit he wouldn’t be able to eliminate ALL property taxes; namely those not on homes would have to stay. A good summary of the major issues in the campaign, including fights about lab-grown meat, can be seen here.
As the runoff progressed, Doeden saw more scrutiny with his positions, and what ultimately began to hurt him was a perception he was not experienced enough for the job. Many Republicans predicted/warned a Doeden Governorship would be in constant gridlock with the legislature, which had very few Doeden allies within it. It became more clear than supports of Hansen and Johnson would likely gravitate to Rhodes; who many felt they could trust to bring conservative but compete leadership.
The Rhoden campaign hit Doeden hard on the infeasibility of his proposals. A website was generated called “Reckless Toby Doede” that laid out what they called the “Toby Tax” - which argued that eliminating property tax would cause skyrotcking fees/taxes elsewhere.
The site also pointed out a property tax elimination would benefit many of his properties, essentially arguing Doeden wanted to change the state finances to benefit him while raising fees for everyone else.
Doeden continued to self-fund, and even had outside help from big-money third party groups. However, it became clear that Doeden was in BAD shape for the runoff. The lone poll for the runoff, from Emerson, gave Rhoden a 30% LEAD in the runoff. The polling breakdown showed that virtually 100% of Johnson’s backers were going for Rhoden, with 70% of Hansen voters following suit. Emerson had initially seen the Doeden rise in the primary, so there was plenty of reason to see this as credible. In the end, it seems voters simply did not think Doeden could be a competent executive for the state.
The Runoff Results
When the results came in on Tuesday night, the Emerson poll proved to be very accurate. Larry Rhoden easily prevailed, winning 71% of the vote!
Rhoden absolutely dominated the runoff contest, winning all but two counties, and holding commanding leads in most. Doeden, meanwhile, struggled to gain anywhere in the state, actually getting a smaller share of the vote than in the first round. At the county level, few areas saw Rhoden either gain or lose a significant amount of support. His share of the vote remained remarkably static.
The results also came as the turnout remained very high. Sometimes turnout in the runoff can shape the race. However, only 19,000 fewer voters showed up for the runoff. Meanwhile, as Doeden lost some ground, getting 7,000 fewer ballots, Rhoden secured 49,000 EXTRA votes.
Doeden clearly struggled to win over any of the Hansen or Johnson voters. Whether his raw vote drop is due to turnout issues or some Doeden primary voters switching sides, it is clear he picked up relatively few new ballots. In fact, only three counties saw him earn more raw votes than the first round; and the largest was McPherson County and its 58 extra votes for him. Rhoden meanwhile, gained raw votes in every county.
If we look at the county results based on NET vote swing from the first round, it’s all Rhoden improving compared with Doeden.
The results were definitive proof that Doeden had a ceiling that he’d be unable to overcome once a runoff was set.
With these results, Rhoden is a near certainty to retain the Governor’s office, as South Dakota remains a firm Republican state, any blue-wave midterm or not.
Runoffs… Rank Choice… or FPTP?
This was an interesting election for me to write about because it strikes at an important debate that has long existed in democracies. Most elections in America, and many nations, are First-Past-the-Post; meaning the most votes wins even if it's less than 50% of the total vote. This system has its defenders and its critics, though in general it is widely agreed a candidate who represents the broadest coalition of voters is best versus a niche candidate. Doeden serves as a perfect example of a fringe candidate that could only win with no runoff system. In this case, the runoff was a good thing.
Of course, runoffs have downsides. A major issue is turnout can at times crater for runoffs, leading to electorates that don’t really match the original electorate. Another issues is that runoff, specifically in the southern states, were originally used to ensure Black candidates would struggle to win nominations after Jim Crow came to an end but racist sentiment remained.
However, runoffs held on separate days are not the only solution to this debate. We have seen many states adopt Ranked Choice voting, which allows supports of further back candidates to pick who’d they’d prefer otherwise if their first choice was eliminated. We saw this recently in the Maine Primaries, and NYC famously switched to this system several years back. Several years ago, I also wrote about St Louis’ unique “Approval Voting” system - which I recommend giving a read.
Often the debate about our election methods can be tainted by either partisan or ideological disputes. As I mentioned with the deep south, sometimes “reforms” are actually driven by nefarious reasons. It is hence not shocking that when reforms or status quo are debated, the motivation of the debate participants becomes a major issue. The South Dakota race, however, does show the benefit of some degree of a runoff trigger, and is relatively free of ideological argument. All these candidates were conservative, with Doeden vs Rhoden more about practical governing ability vs fringe ideas from a self-funding candidate. Doeden had a block of support, but it was clearly not close to a majority or even a solid plurality.
Broadly I favor some form of a system to ensure broad appeal candidates, whether with using ranked-choice-voting or runoffs. The South Dakota system of needing at least 35% is also worth considering. North Carolina similarly requires at least 30% of the vote, and other jurisdictions have thresholds like 40% to avoid a runoff. I also am only really in favor of runoff’s for primaries or non-partisan local contests; and feel partisan general elections should use ranked choice voting. As we have seen with George, doing regular elections in November with everything else and then having separate runoffs in December/January is chaotic, leads to major vote drops where party-run GOTV dominates, and is just not better than a ranked-choice system.
In the case of South Dakota, the results of the primary and then runoff revealed that FPTP without any runoff trigger could be very damaging; especially in multi-candidate primaries. Doeden was not a candidate who could secure a majority and only came in first due to a very split field. His failure to gain any ground showed he was a 30% candidate and no more; which is not someone who should be a party’s nominee. Here the South Dakota runoff law worked like a charm.
I think the South Dakota story is another case study to add to our debate about the best way we choose our elected officials.