As I joked with friends Monday night, no matter the results Tuesday, we will still be a heavily red state on Wednesday morning, or at least led by them.
But let’s focus on the positive to start out with;
Cameraman Bruce and I ran another successful campaign and got a Democratic candidate elected in a pretty conservative district. Another notch in the winner’s column for us. Woot! Woot! The candidate also busted their ass getting bi-partisan support. Democrats can win in this state, but they must follow a stringent strategy and keep it simple.
Congrats to Kelly Sullivan (House D13) who ran an amazing direct mail and ground game campaign, I also think the assistance of LEAD helped her defeat Rex Rolfing. A do nothing, two-term Sioux Falls city councilor. Hopefully we will never see his name on a ballot ever again. I joked with someone last night, “If Rex wins by only 35% of the vote, will he feel bad he didn’t get a 50+1 majority?” LOL. It’s time the SF City Council overturns his horrible idea.
LEAD also probably helped Erin Healy get elected, and Kasey Olivier get within 28 votes of beating Blake Curd. I expect there will be a challenge in that race. Curd needs to go bye bye.
IM 25 failed. It was a bad idea from the beginning. I’m hoping (but not holding my breath) that the legislature will find a way to fund Tech education thru a scholarship fund, funded by the industries that use and need tech workers. The Legislature also needs to work on making apprenticeships easier so graduating HS students can skip tech school all together and start working and training in a field right away without tuition debt.
Nothing changed on the Minnehaha County Commission with Beninga, Heiberger and Barth getting re-elected. Let’s see if they all serve out their new terms.
And now for the crap;
IM 24 passed. Which proves to me many voters are ignorant to our US Constitution. Money is free speech and it can come from anywhere. This measure will be challenged in court and will essentially be dead.
Amendment W failed, which surprised me. I guess South Dakotans like our ‘F’ rating of our very corrupt legislature.
As if we didn’t learn anything from Jason Gant as our SOS, we elected one of the most unqualified AG’s in the history of our State. Ravnsborg will clog our prisons with addicts, give little to no treatment to them and most likely run the office as a partisan hack. This will prove to be one of the worst decisions voters in SD made in a very long time.
Dusty winning the House race is no surprise. He ran a high energy, positive campaign. I think the Bjorkman campaign was positive to, but there wasn’t a clear message. As I told Dusty in an email before the election, while I appreciated the campaign he ran, I disagree entirely with his philosophies. On a positive note, for at least the next two years with a Democratically controlled Congress, Dusty will accomplish very little, but maybe he will get to witness a historic impeachment of a president.
As I am disappointed in Noem being elected, it shouldn’t surprise us. I voted for no one in that race. The GOP hate machine was in full swing from the Noem and Ravsborg campaigns, they proved negative campaigning works. Even if Sutton and Seiler would have been successful, we would still be living in a very red state.
South Dakota’s new motto should be ‘Two Steps forward, Three Steps back.â€
l3wis 
