South Dakota Republican Governor Primary Advances to Runoff After Inconclusive Result

South Dakota made electoral history on the night of June 2, 2026 — and not in a way anyone planned. For the first time since the state legislature enacted its primary runoff law in 1985, a gubernatorial primary failed to produce a nominee, sending the Republican race to a July 28 runoff [1][3]. With 567 of 686 precincts reporting shortly after midnight, businessman Toby Doeden held the lead at roughly 30%, followed by incumbent Governor Larry Rhoden at 26%, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson at 24%, and state House Speaker Jon Hansen at 21% [1][4]. None came close to the 35% threshold required under South Dakota law when three or more candidates appear on a primary ballot for governor, U.S. House, or U.S. Senate [3][5].

The Results: A Four-Way Split

Source: South Dakota Secretary of State / NBC News

Data as of Jun 3, 2026CSV

The vote distribution was remarkably even. Decision Desk HQ projected Doeden as the first candidate to advance to the runoff, but the race for the second slot — between Rhoden and Johnson — remained too close to call as of early Wednesday morning [1][6]. Rhoden expressed confidence in a late-night statement: "Well, it's been a long night and the numbers aren't all in, but we feel very confident that I am going to be in a runoff with Toby Doeden to be the next governor of the state of South Dakota" [6].

The 35% runoff threshold has existed on the books for 41 years without ever being invoked. Before its passage, six prior races saw no candidate reach that mark, but nominees were chosen by delegates at state party conventions rather than through a second public election [3][5]. This time, South Dakota voters will return to the polls.

Who Are the Candidates?

Toby Doeden, 51, of Aberdeen, is a car dealer and investor with no prior political experience. He ran as "a total political outsider who's tired of the government's failure to deliver on its promises" and branded himself as one of Donald Trump's "fiercest supporters" [7][8]. His core platform centered on eliminating property taxes and cutting government spending. Trump, however, did not endorse in the race [2].

Larry Rhoden ascended to the governorship in 2025 after Kristi Noem resigned to become Secretary of Homeland Security. He had served as Noem's lieutenant governor since 2019 and campaigned on property tax cuts and lowering crime rates for his first full elected term [2][4].

Dusty Johnson, of Mitchell, has served four terms in the U.S. House and previously chaired the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group associated with the party's pragmatic, business-oriented wing. He chaired the House Agriculture subcommittee with jurisdiction over commodity markets and rural development [2][9].

Jon Hansen, a lawyer from Dell Rapids, served as speaker of the South Dakota House of Representatives and co-founded the anti-abortion Life Defense Fund. He held the most explicitly socially conservative lane in the primary [2].

The Money Race: Self-Funding vs. the PAC Machine

Across all four candidates, more than $11 million was raised and approximately $10 million spent — an extraordinary sum for a state with fewer than 900,000 residents [9].

Source: South Dakota Secretary of State / Legis1

Data as of May 19, 2026CSV

Doeden's campaign was almost entirely self-funded. He loaned his own campaign more than $4 million while raising just $806 from outside donors in his final filing period [9][10]. Johnson assembled the largest conventional fundraising operation, raising approximately $3.7 million, anchored by a $3 million transfer from his congressional PAC. His separate state committee, "Dusty PAC," held an additional $1.19 million [9][10].

Rhoden raised roughly $572,000 while spending $914,000, entering primary week with approximately $170,000 cash on hand — running a deficit campaign [9]. Hansen raised about $355,000 total with approximately $164,000 remaining [9].

The most consequential spending may have come from outside groups. Republican Forward, a federally registered super PAC, raised approximately $3 million from South Dakota's business community and funneled $1.4 million to Rushmore Principles PAC, which spent roughly $1.2 million on digital advertising and direct mail opposing Rhoden [10]. Major donors to Republican Forward included POET Ethanol ($500,000), First Premier Bank CEO Dana Dykhouse ($300,000), MarketBeat founder Matthew Paulson ($150,000), Lloyd Companies ($100,000), and Genesis Farms Cannabis Company ($100,000) [10].

On the other side, Defend US PAC, a Virginia-based group, ran ads framing Johnson as "insufficiently conservative." Its primary funding source was $95,000 from the Affordable Energy Fund PAC in the first quarter of 2026, and its full donor list remained opaque [9]. Dakota First Action raised just $6,600 and spent approximately $10,600 supporting Doeden [9].

Why No Candidate Cleared the Bar

The four-way split reflected genuine ideological divisions within South Dakota's Republican electorate rather than a simple case of too many names on the ballot.

Doeden's strong first-place finish echoed a broader national pattern of outsider, self-funded candidates channeling populist frustration with party establishments. His support drew heavily from voters skeptical of career politicians, a constituency that has grown in rural states since Trump's first presidential run [7][8].

Johnson represented the party's business and agriculture wing, supported substantially by the Sioux Falls corporate community and ethanol interests. His congressional record on biofuels and agricultural trade policy aligned with the state's dominant industry [9][10]. Rhoden, as the accidental incumbent, held name recognition but lacked the grassroots energy of a campaign he had built from scratch — he inherited the office rather than winning it through a competitive election [2][4].

Hansen carved out the social-conservative lane, particularly among evangelical voters, with his anti-abortion credentials and legislative record [2]. The result was a primary where each faction had its champion, and none commanded a majority or even a strong plurality.

The Runoff System: Feature or Bug?

South Dakota's runoff requirement raises a structural question: does forcing a second election between the top two candidates produce a better outcome, or does it distort the result?

Research from FairVote shows that over the past 30 years, 97% of runoff elections nationally experienced lower turnout than the initial election, with a median turnout decline of 41% [11]. In 2024, 81% of runoff winners received fewer votes in the runoff than in the first round [11]. If the same pattern holds in South Dakota, the July 28 nominee could be chosen by a significantly smaller and potentially less representative subset of Republican voters.

Political scientists have documented cases where runoff systems produce different winners than plurality rules would. Under simple plurality, Doeden — the first-place finisher on June 2 — would already be the nominee. The runoff gives the second-place finisher an opportunity to consolidate support from the other eliminated candidates, which could alter the outcome. Whether this consolidation reflects genuine majority preference or is an artifact of differential turnout is an open empirical question [11][12].

Advocates of ranked-choice voting argue their system achieves the same consolidation benefit as runoffs — ensuring the winner has broader support than a simple plurality might indicate — without requiring a second election. Research from the University of Chicago's Center for Effective Government and FairVote indicates RCV elections tend to produce more moderate winners and more civil campaigns compared to both plurality and runoff systems [11][12]. South Dakota, however, has shown no legislative appetite for ranked-choice voting.

Timeline, Logistics, and County Budgets

The July 28 runoff creates a compressed general-election calendar. The general election is scheduled for November 3, 2026 [13]. County election officials must now prepare ballots, secure polling locations, and staff a statewide election that was never guaranteed to occur — all within eight weeks of the primary and roughly three months before the general election.

South Dakota's 66 counties bear the administrative costs of elections. While specific county-level budget figures for the runoff are not yet publicly available, election administrators in other states have estimated that a statewide runoff can cost 40% to 60% of a full primary election's expenses, covering poll worker wages, ballot printing, equipment testing, and early-voting logistics. For a state where county election budgets are already lean, an unplanned statewide election represents a meaningful fiscal burden [14].

The runoff also compresses the window for the Republican nominee to pivot to general-election messaging and fundraising. The nominee will emerge just over three months before November, while the Democratic candidate — Dan Ahlers, the South Dakota Democratic Party's executive director and a former state legislator who ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 — has been able to prepare for the general election since the primary [15].

Democratic Prospects in November

Any discussion of Democratic chances in South Dakota must begin with the state's overwhelming partisan lean. Trump carried South Dakota by 29.2 percentage points in 2024 [16]. As of mid-2024, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats 305,166 to 143,994, with 150,535 independents [17]. No Democrat has won the South Dakota governorship since the 1970s [2].

Dan Ahlers, who lost to Republican incumbent Mike Rounds by 32 points in the 2020 U.S. Senate race, faces long odds regardless of the GOP primary outcome [15]. The extended Republican primary does offer marginal advantages: it forces GOP candidates to spend money attacking each other rather than building a general-election war chest, and the runoff will test Republican voter enthusiasm. But in a state where the Republican nominee starts with a 25-to-30-point structural advantage, the drawn-out primary is unlikely to produce a competitive general election by any standard metric.

The more realistic impact of the prolonged GOP contest may be downstream: turnout patterns in the runoff, the degree to which the losing faction's voters feel alienated, and whether the nominee emerges with enough resources and party unity to avoid an embarrassingly narrow win that could signal vulnerability in future cycles.

Outside Money and the Runoff Ahead

The runoff will test whether the financial dynamics of the primary carry forward. The Sioux Falls business community's investment against Rhoden through Republican Forward suggests they will continue spending to support their preferred candidate in the second round [10]. POET Ethanol's $500,000 contribution reflects the ethanol industry's significant stake in having a governor sympathetic to biofuel policy — and Johnson's subcommittee chairmanship made him the natural recipient of that support [9][10].

Doeden's self-funding model gives him independence from donor expectations but also a ceiling: he cannot continue to invest millions of personal wealth indefinitely, and his near-total lack of small-dollar fundraising raises questions about the breadth of his support beyond the primary [9].

Specific tribal nation endorsements or investment in the primary were not prominently documented in campaign finance filings, though tribal land disputes and sovereignty issues remain ongoing policy questions for any South Dakota governor. The state's nine tribal nations — including the Oglala Sioux, Rosebud Sioux, and Standing Rock Sioux — have historically had contentious relationships with state government, and the runoff candidates' positions on tribal issues may become more visible as the July 28 vote approaches.

What Happens Next

South Dakota's first-ever primary runoff is a test not just for the candidates but for the state's electoral infrastructure. The July 28 vote will determine whether Doeden's outsider energy holds in a head-to-head contest, or whether the consolidation logic that runoff systems are designed to produce delivers the nomination to a more establishment-aligned candidate. The answer depends on which Republican voters show up a second time — and whether eight weeks is enough time to reshape a race that took more than a year to reach this point.