With Republican control of Legislature assured, Democrats target competitive districts

The South Dakota Senate convenes during the 2024 legislative session. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)

It's no secret that Republicans will keep control of the South Dakota Legislature this election year. The questions heading into the Nov. 5 election are whether the results will widen the party's internal fracturing and whether Democrats will improve their meager numbers.

All 105 seats in the Legislature are up for election, and Democrats currently hold only 11 of those positions. Republicans are already guaranteed a near majority in both the House and Senate next year, due to Democrats' failure to field candidates in some districts.

"There's 12 or 15 races that are going to basically shape what the composition of the Legislature in terms of partisan split will look like," said House Majority Leader Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre.

Of South Dakota's 66 counties, those that include Native American reservations have the strongest share of Democratic voter registrations in the state. While nine of the 14 seats representing reservation lands have been won by Republicans in recent years, high turnout expected because of this year's presidential race could change that.

And in South Dakota's urban districts, including a handful in Sioux Falls, Democrats are hoping to be competitive.

"I think both sides have put up pretty strong candidates and are trying to run vigorous races in those areas, because I think they know that they're the most contested areas," Mortenson said.

Meanwhile, 14 incumbent Republican legislators lost to challengers from their own party in the June primary, leading to speculation about the future direction of the party. Many of the challengers described themselves as more politically conservative than the incumbents.

Following are summaries of some noteworthy legislative races. Voters elect one senator and two representatives in each district, except in split House districts — 26A and B, and 28A and B — where voters select one representative.

Districts with high Native American populations

District 1: Up until 2018, District 1 was a Democratic stronghold in the northeast corner of the state. Democratic Senate and House candidates went unchallenged from 2008 through 2018. But when Tamara St. John became the first Republican elected from the district since 1998, the district shifted red, with the Republican Party taking the Senate seat in 2020 and both House seats in 2022.

Although Aberdeen Sen. Michael Rohl is uncontested in the general election, St. John was ousted by two Republican challengers in the June House primary. The district will have a six-way House race among two Republicans, two Democrats and two Libertarians:

District 26: The south-central district includes some of the highest Democratic voter registration percentages in the state, including 63% in Buffalo County and 60% in Todd County. The district's House seats are split between the west (Mellette, Todd and part of Jones counties) and the east (Brule, Buffalo, Lyman and parts of Hughes, Hyde and Jones counties).

Democrats have held the Senate seat since 2004 and the 26A House seat since 2006, following an ACLU lawsuit to protect minority voting rights. Incumbent Sen. Shawn Bordeaux faces Republican challenger Tamara Grove. Bordeaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, won his Senate seat in 2022 with 58% of the vote. Democratic incumbent Eric Emery, also a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, won his 26A House seat in 2022 with 67% of the vote. He faces Republican Ron Frederick and independent William Craig Lafferty.

District 26B House incumbent Republican Rebecca Reimer has held her seat since she was appointed in 2018. She faces an independent challenger in David Reis, who previously ran unsuccessful campaigns as a Democrat in District 26. The 26B House seat has been filled by a Republican since the district was split.

District 27: Oglala Lakota County is No. 1 in the state for Democratic voter registration, at 65%. Bennett County, No. 8 in the state, reports nearly 38% Democratic registered voters, and Jackson reports 32%. The district also includes eastern Pennington County, which is strongly Republican.

In the House race, incumbent Republican Liz May faces incumbent Democrat Peri Pourier and Democrat Elsie Meeks, both members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Meeks ran as Bernie Hunhoff's running mate in the 1998 gubernatorial race and is a former member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. May served in the House for three terms before losing her seat to Pourier and Republican Steve Livermont in 2018 by 51 votes. She was reelected in 2020 when she earned the majority of votes against two Democratic candidates.

In the Senate race, Democratic incumbent Red Dawn Foster faces Republican Anthony Kathol.

District 28: Dewey, Ziebach and Corson counties within the district have some of the highest Democratic voter registration rates in the state, at 53%, 47% and 42.5%, respectively. The other counties in the district — Harding, Butte and Perkins— have some of the lowest Democratic voter registration numbers in the state.

The Senate race is a contest among former lawmaker Sam Marty, a Republican who served District 28B (Harding, Butte and part of Perkins counties) in the House from 2015 to 2022; independent Shane Farlee; and Democratic former lawmaker Dean Schrempp, who represented District 28A (Dewey, Ziebach, Corson and part of Perkins counties) in the House starting in 1993 and ending his last term in 2016.

The longstanding Democratic seat in 28A is also under pressure. With Democrat Rep. Oren Lesmeister opting not to run for reelection, voters are left to choose between Democratic candidate Carl Petersen, a Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member, and Republican Jana Hunt, who is backed by the conservative Liberty Tree PAC and beat longtime Republican legislator Ryan Maher in the June primary.

District 28 was the first split House district in South Dakota, formed in 1991 to protect minority voting rights.

Sioux Falls contests

District 11: Western Sioux Falls could see competitive races in its District 11 Senate and House contests.

The district is 43.2% Republican, 29.8% "other" and 27% Democratic, according to the Minnehaha County Auditor's Office. "Other" includes Libertarian, independent, the No Labels Party, and people who registered without any political affiliation.

Republican Sen. Jim Stalzer term-limited out of the Senate, leaving the seat open for current District 11 Republican Rep. Chris Karr to try for the seat. He's challenged by Democrat Steve Natz.

In the House race, Republican Brian Mulder is up for reelection in a race that includes Republican Keri Weems and Democrats Aaron Matson and Sonja Mentzer.

District 12: Incumbent Republican Sen. Arch Beal will vie for reelection. Beal won in 2022 with 54% of the vote. Republicans won the Senate seat in 2020 with 54% and won in 2018 by 27 votes. Beal is challenged by Democrat Clay Hoffman, who served as a personal assistant for Billie Sutton in his 2018 gubernatorial campaign and as Senate minority secretary with the Legislative Research Council in 2017.

On the House side, Republican incumbents Greg Jamison and Amber Arlint each took 28% of the vote in 2022, with Democratic challengers taking 22% and 21%. Jamison and Arlint will face Democrats JR Anderson and Erin Royer. This is the third election in a row Royer is running for the Legislature.

According to Minnehaha and Lincoln county auditors, District 12 voter registration is 43% Republican, 30.5% "other" and 26.5% Democratic.

District 14: Democratic Rep. Erin Healy held one of the district's House seats from 2019 to 2022 before moving to District 10. The Republicans' share of the district's Senate vote dwindled from 69% in 2016 to 54% in 2022. The district's voter registration is 44.4% Republican, 28.2% Democratic and 27.4% "other," according to the Minnehaha County Auditor's Office.

Democrat Sandra Henry is challenging Republican incumbent Larry Zikmund for the district's Senate seat. In the House race, Democratic challengers Keith Block and B.J. Motley face Republican candidates Tony Kayser, who was backed by conservative Liberty Tree PAC during the primary, and incumbent Taylor Rehfeldt.

District 15: Two of the Democratic Party's leading lawmakers, Sen. Reynold Nesiba and Rep. Linda Duba, are not seeking legislative seats this year, leaving two seats open in District 15.

Former lawmaker and 2022 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jamie Smith hopes to succeed Nesiba, but faces Republican Brenda Lawrence. Nesiba won his seat in 2020 with 55% of the vote and in 2022 with 53%, which was also against Lawrence.

In the House, Democratic incumbent Kadyn Wittman won her first term in 2022 by 97 votes. Democrats went unchallenged for House seats in District 15 in 2018 and won with 31% and 28% of the vote in 2016. Wittman and fellow Democratic candidate Eric Muckey face Republicans Joni Tschetter and Brad Lindwurm in the current race.

The district has the most "other" registered voters in Minnehaha County at 38.4%, followed by 33.5% Republicans and 28.1% Democrats.

Other noteworthy races

District 7: The City of Brookings' District 7 reports a 42.6% Republican voter registration, 31.75% "other" and 25.6% Democratic.

Republican incumbent Sen. Tim Reed is unopposed, but Republican House incumbents Mellissa Heermann and Roger DeGroot face challenges from Democrats Blake Stevens and Fedora Sutton-Butler.

Candidate lists

See lists of all the House and Senate legislative candidates, with district maps, in our Voter Guide .

District 18: South Dakota's longest-serving female legislator Jean Hunhoff was ousted in the June Republican primary by challenger Lauren Nelson, setting a showdown for the Senate race. Nelson will face Democrat Sarah Carda, Yankton School Board president and former Mount Marty University vice president.

District 18 encompasses Yankton County and a portion of Clay County. Voter registration in the district is 49.87% Republican, 26.37% "other" and 23.8% Democrat, according to the Clay County Auditor's Office and the Secretary of State's Office

District 32: The central Rapid City district reports the highest share of Democratic voters in the city. The district is 44.3% Republican, 35% Democrat and 20.6% "other," according to the Pennington County Auditor's Office.

Republican incumbent Sen. Helene Duhamel faces independent Karen McNeal, without a Democratic challenger. Republicans Brook Kaufman and incumbent Steve Duffy face Democrat Nichole Uhre-Balk for the House seats.