Republican voters once again opt to oust incumbents from South Dakota Legislature

KFGO ^ | 6/4/26 | Bare Coen

[cotton1706]

PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – After 14 incumbent South Dakota lawmakers lost their seats in the 2024 Republican primary, 16 lost on Tuesday, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office.

The 2024 shakeup was described as “an earthquake” by Spearfish Rep. Scott Odenbach, a Republican incumbent who won his own primary that year and was elevated to majority leader of the House of Representatives with support from the newcomers.

In the 2026 primary, those former newcomers made up the majority of the ousted incumbents.

snip

Several of the lawmakers who lost their seats in the 2024 primary regained them on Tuesday, and several of 2024’s victors won’t return to Pierre.

Lobbying groups like the Retailers Association, political action committees associated with U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson’s gubernatorial campaign and others aligned with South Dakota business interests spent heavily on legislative primaries involving those candidates.

snip

Many of the 14 lawmakers ousted in 2024’s primary had supported legislation that sought to regulate, rather than defeat, a proposal for a five-state carbon capture pipeline proposed by Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions that would have run through eastern South Dakota.

Opponents of the legislation — expressing concern about the private property rights of landowners along the route — referred it to voters, who rejected it in the 2024 general election. Opponents also won enough legislative seats in 2024 to replace the Republican legislative leadership team and ultimately pass legislation banning eminent domain for carbon pipelines — a law that has so far kept the pipeline out of the state.

[cotton1706]

So what I thought was a clean-house effort in South Dakota was actually an Empire Strikes Back effort.

Dusty Johnson, who's basically a RINO, got his defeated ideological buddies back in their positions.

Dusty Johnson expected to be governor, but WON'T be governor since he came in third in the primary. So he's out of office completely (though I bet he runs for US Senate if Thune retires next year).

But in any case the people of SD, using elections, got the eminent domain protections they wanted, and politicians are on notice that they can be ousted at any time.

And if the runoff goes as the election did, the citizens of South Dakota will have ousted an incumbent governor (Kristi Noem's successor), and rejected RINO Dusty Johnson to put in an outsider candidate.

[FreedomPoster]

The GOPEs are slow on the uptake everywhere, it seems.

[Skwor]

I see the eminent domain issue as o critical one, worth it even is soke RINO’s get back in. One wonders how good the non RNOs were if they were allowing land steals for a pipeline.

[quantim]

“Many of the 14 lawmakers ousted in 2024’s primary had supported legislation that sought to regulate, rather than defeat, a proposal for a five-state carbon capture pipeline”

This smells like payoffs/kickbacks much like many state and local pols did a few years ago for selling huge tracts of land for the failed electric car battery nonsense. Some of these tracts of land have been bought by the data center developers it is said, we’ll know after it is too late.

[PGalt]

GREAT

[FLT-bird]

This has been a good season MAGA has had.

[dangus]

It sounds like a bunch of environmental loonies had taken over South Dakota in 2024, and this was a pro business lashing out. I don’t actually know how these two groups of legislators actually stand on issues that are the Trump issues, but I really don’t think I would associate the Trump movement with trying to ban pipelines in South Dakota

[dangus]

I think it boils down to leftists Saudis and Chinese using a flash button issue in America to keep America helplessly addicted to their energy. This eminent domain issue in south dakota, at least as it’s been described here, and if you know better in South Dakota good for you, but this doesn’t sound like the sort of eminent domain abuses that launch the anger at eminent domain. This sounds like exactly the sort of uses of eminent domain that were intended; a project that benefits the general public, not just a few greedy developers.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Dusty Johnson has the look of a wimp. The at large house seat should be a stepping stone to higher office but since he won’t be the governor let’s hope he’s not the one to challenge Thune from the right. In an ideal world Thune would call it quits after the November results as he’ll be missing 3 of his allies in the surrender caucus but then leadership positions are hard to walk away from. Is Noem up to the task and would she do it? Can’t think of anyone else.

[House Atreides]

“… this doesn’t sound like the sort of eminent domain abuses that launch the anger at eminent domain. This sounds like exactly the sort of uses of eminent domain that were intended; a project that benefits the general public, not just a few greedy developers.”
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“CARBON CAPTURE”? Are you out of your mind? This is the kind of scam that benefits ONLY the developers and grifters profiting off of such ridiculous BOONDOGGLES.

[dangus]

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about this particular proposal, and if it’s bad because it’s simply a bad idea, I’ll have to defer. I made some political inferences: that local energy providers, who as I understand it supported the bill, aren’t saying, “Oo! Oo! Drive up my costs!” As such, I’s presuming that this is a compromise to allow necessary energy infrastructure, rather than simply saying, “You shouldn’t be driving cars and tractors!”

That’s only using rule-of-thumb political observations, and if you tell me it’s wrong, I’ll defer to you.

My point is whether it’s good policy or bad policy, at least as far as the matter of eminent domain, it’s legitimate policy. The entire US highway system was built with eminent domain. Where eminent domain became a problem is when government started to argue that anything that benefited the wealthy and the power potentially improved the tax base, so letting the rich take stuff from the not-so-rich was a “public benefit.” This does not seem to be in that category, but it’s been cast as an issue of eminent domain reform, anyway.

[TheThirdRuffian]

I deal with eminent domain all the time with pipeline companies since my ranch straddles an oilfield.

They are, by far, the dirtiest and most dishonest crew of people I’ve ever dealt with and I’m in the oil business.

Dig up a cultivated field, and bury the topsoil and leave rocks right under the surface to break your plow. Never mind the agreement obligates them to scrape the ground and replace the topsoil with all rocks over 4” removed.

Offer $4500 when the going rate is $200,000.

Pick a route right through the middle of an orchard ripping out trees, when they could go up a bar ditch.

The workers are all felons and steal anything they can, breaking into ranch houses and even cattle. Once they stole an entire mobile home.

[SunkenCiv]

Many of the 14 lawmakers ousted in 2024’s primary had supported legislation that sought to regulate, rather than defeat, a proposal for a five-state carbon capture pipeline proposed by Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions... Opponents of the legislation... referred it to voters, who rejected it in the 2024 general election. Opponents also won enough legislative seats in 2024 to replace the Republican legislative leadership team and ultimately pass legislation banning eminent domain for carbon pipelines — a law that has so far kept the pipeline out of the state.

[Brellium]

As much as O'Leary claims this is being driven by The Chinese, this is not the case.

I've monitored Chinese propaganda and they have 3 targets, domestic, dispora, and "intellectuals".

The first two are targeted in Chinese, the last is targeted with shiny 80 page white papers that are full of photos and other graphics. That no one in the west have time to read.

The us is not addicted to Saudi energy and we are a net exporter of oil and their by-products.

If you are quoting this the reason for opposition to these projects, it means that you have not done any research on the claims and instead listen to talking heads who only job in this world is create outrage.

[dangus]

I explained elsewhere where I don’t claim much knowledge of S Dakota, and my main focus was on the manipulation of anger at eminent domain, but holy crap, you have a ton of garbage in your facts!

First, the CIA under Trump *AND* Biden has determined that the Chinese have dominated the Brookings Institute (which creates NPR content directly), Pew Research, The People’s Forum, the ANSWER Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and several Governors and congressmen, the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control, NPR itself, and 57 other news-generating organizations.

Second, the US doesn’t directly import oil from Saudi Arabia or much of the Middle East. And here, it’s very important to distinguish between companies which largely produce domestic oil, such as Devon, EOG, Conoco-Phillips, Occidental, Sinclair, etc., and international corporations like Exxon, BP, Shell, etc.:

The Domestic oil companies deal with commoditized prices, and don’t have massive profits to influence lawmakers and media, which is why they’re much more anonymous, even though they extract a very large share of US oil. The international oil companies are the problem. They want to limit US production, because they don’t make nearly as much profit at US production (and have many more competitors) as they do when dealing with exclusive rights with dictators. They don’t move a lot of oil from the Middle East to the US, but the same oil companies which are giants among US oil refiners are the same giants which move oil form the Middle East to OTHER oil markets. These are the companies which back anti-oil production media (remember National Georgraphic and it’s main sponsor, Exxon?)

We are STILL a net importer of CRUDE oil even though we are a next exporter of the sum of oil and oil products. When we import crude, and export “oil products,” the value of such exports outweigh the value of such imports, but we can’t make those products if we can’t import crude oil. One of the chief drivers of the influence of the foreign oil market is that our oil is very “sweet” and other importers’ oil is very “sour.” If the overall mix of oil is very “sour,” it’s far less useful, so the big international oil refiners trade US sweet oil (which we don’t need much of because our mix is so sweet) and international sour oil.

[House Atreides]

“ I’ll admit that I don’t know much about this particular proposal, and if it’s bad because it’s simply a bad idea, I’ll have to defer….”
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The whole idea that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that needs to be “captured”, transported and “buried” (at great expense) is RIDICULOUS to any clear thinking person. The Republicans who recognize this fact are the ones that need to be in power….with the “go along to get along” Republicans defeated.

Here’s some info on the discussed project:

https://www.summitcarbonsolutions.com/

[Skwor]

You have it backwards, the majority of eminent domain issues are flat out stealing, like 99%. The company always undercuts massively with the government approval.

[dangus]

Yeah, we don’t need to get into the whole climate-change debate. Finding ways to deal with constraints isn’t necessarily stupid, even if the constraints are.

[dangus]

99%? That’s just silly. “5% to 10% involves highly controversial private-party transfers or ‘economic development.’ This takes place when the government seizes property to transfer it to a private developer or corporation under the premise that the development will boost the local tax base or stimulate economic growth.” And even that data is largely way out of date because “[F]ollowing that 2005 ruling, more than 40 states passed varying levels of reform laws to heavily restrict this specific use case.”