On a night Democrats retook Congress, South Dakota stayed firmly Republican — and gave its accidental governor a mandate of his own. The Associated Press called the governor's race for Republican Larry Rhoden at about 10:45 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, when he was leading Democratic challenger Dan Ahlers 64 percent to 36 percent with 52 percent of the votes counted statewide. The win gives Rhoden, who inherited the job in January 2025, a full four-year term he can call his own.
Source: South Dakota Searchlight via Rapid City Post — Rhoden wins four more years
Rhoden's rise began with a resignation in Pierre. He was lieutenant governor when Governor Kristi Noem resigned in January 2025 to join President Donald Trump's administration, leaving Rhoden to serve the final two years of her second term. When he launched a campaign last November to keep the job, polling showed him as an underdog to U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson, who chose to run for governor instead of reelection to Congress. Few in South Dakota politics expected the year that followed.
Source: South Dakota Searchlight via Rapid City Post — Rhoden wins four more years
Three Elections in Five Months
Rhoden first had to survive his own party. In the June 2 Republican primary, political newcomer Toby Doeden, an Aberdeen businessman who spent $5 million of his own money on his campaign, finished first; Rhoden advanced to a top-two runoff by finishing second, while Johnson fell to third and state House Speaker Jon Hansen finished fourth. Rhoden then turned the tables on Doeden in the July 28 runoff, trouncing him by 42 points. After that, in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one, there was little suspense left in November.
His general-election opponent never had the money to change that. Ahlers, a 52-year-old businessman and former legislator from Dell Rapids, struggled to gain a statewide foothold: his campaign's minimal fundraising allowed him to spend only $164,000 by the October 19 reporting deadline, while Rhoden's fundraising committee spent more than $3 million throughout the campaign. Ahlers delivered his concession speech at the Democratic Party's election-results watch party in downtown Sioux Falls on Tuesday night, alongside his running mate, former legislator Steven McCleerey.
Source: South Dakota Searchlight via Rapid City Post — Rhoden wins four more years
The defeat extends one of the longest losing streaks in American politics. The last time South Dakota elected a Democratic governor was 52 years ago, in 1974. Republicans completed a sweep of the state's top races on Tuesday: Senator Mike Rounds was poised to win another term over independent Brian Bengs, and Attorney General Marty Jackley claimed the state's lone U.S. House seat over Democrat Nikki Gronli, according to South Dakota News Watch and KCCR Radio's statewide results coverage.
Source: South Dakota News Watch — Republicans Rhoden and Jackley win
The Record He Ran On
Rhoden, 67, is a rancher and custom welder and a former legislator from rural Union Center, and he ran on his record from nearly two years as governor, including his work with legislators and his lieutenant governor, Tony Venhuizen, to sign several major bills into law. Those include a law capturing revenue from sales tax increases to reduce homeowner property taxes, a law banning the use of eminent domain to gain land access for carbon capture pipelines, and a law funding construction of a $650 million replacement for the oldest parts of the state's 145-year-old penitentiary. “Good policy makes good politics,” Rhoden said while launching his campaign.
His running mate added two footnotes to the night. Venhuizen, a state history buff, pointed out that Rhoden is the first West River governor elected since 1944, and the first South Dakota politician to win three statewide elections in the same year — the primary, the runoff and the general election all falling in 2026.
Source: South Dakota News Watch — Republicans Rhoden and Jackley win
Rhoden now begins a full four-year term as governor of South Dakota in his own right. Unusually, he could choose to run again four years from now for what would amount to a third term: the state constitution's limit says no person shall be elected to more than two consecutive terms as governor, but Rhoden served his first two years through the line of succession rather than by direct election to the job. Counting and certification of Tuesday's vote continue, with later returns keeping his margin at roughly two-to-one.
For a governor who took office because someone else left for Washington, the result closes an unlikely loop: three campaigns, three wins, and a state that — on the bluest night of the Trump era so far — chose continuity by a landslide.