In Politics: Nationally: The Election is over and the wrong side won. I have nothing to contribute to the barrels of ink being used by Pundits to explain away the Democrat’s lose this cycle. For those interested, I refer you to the New York Times Opinion page where you can find any number of explanations, some of it even insightful.
My only thought is that, Trump, whatever he does, has always exceeded my worst expectations, exponentially. I am prepared for the worst, but expect it will be worse.
In Politics: South Dakota: The South Dakota Democratic Party (SDDP) lost two or three Legislative seats (there is a recount for the second House seat in District 15). South Dakota has 105 Legislative seats and the Democrats will now hold eight or nine of them, down from the eleven they held in the last Legislature. The Democratic candidates for the US House and the PUC also lost by substantial margins.
The Dems lost two seats on the Reservation that they used to hold. I really didn’t think I would see that. I always envisioned the possibility that “someday” the Democratic caucus in Pierre would only consist of legislators from the reservations, but I guess not.
Democrats lost a House seat in 28A, which they used to barely carry with the help of the Indian vote, and now they have lost a seat in 26 (Rosebud). The two are apparently examples of their redistricting deal with moderate Republicans not going as planned for the long run. But they did win in Pennington for the first time in years. It will be interesting to see if they can keep that seat. With the growth of the native population in RC, however, it’s plausible that part of RC could be involved in a split legislative district due to federal Civil Rights Act requirements in the future, which could then further favor Democrats down the line in Pennington, but that wouldn’t happen until at least ’32, and this also assumes that the Civil Rights Act will survive the Age of Trump.
But when you look at those legislative districts where Democrats have a fighting chance like 15 and 10, and now 34(Pennington), and also the reservations, what prevents the SD GOP from placing mailbox voting centers (RV Voters) in all of those districts to sway the outcome for future Republican legislative candidates in those districts, so that there would be no Dems in Pierre?