Republicans lead in races for South Dakota statewide offices, including secretary of state

Republicans had large leads as vote-counting continued beyond Tuesday night in the races for South Dakota’s lesser-known statewide offices: secretary of state, attorney general, public utilities commissioner, auditor, treasurer, and commissioner of school and public lands.

With about 85% of the statewide votes counted by 1 a.m. Central time on Wednesday, Republican Heather Baxter led the secretary of state race with 59% of the votes, ahead of Democrat Terrence Davis, 35%, and Libertarian Tamara Lesnar, 5%.

The secretary of state’s responsibilities include overseeing elections, campaign finance reporting, lobbyist registrations, business corporate filings and concealed pistol permits.

One of the main issues in the race was the candidates’ positions on election security. Baxter’s campaign website said she supports “improved hand-counting” methods. While serving as a legislator, she cosponsored an unsuccessful bill to prohibit the use of machines to count votes. 

Baxter told South Dakota Searchlight in an interview earlier this month that, if elected, she would focus on ensuring counties comply with state and federal requirements, while giving county auditors greater local control over their elections.

“The biggest misconception is that I’m going to go in and just completely get rid of these machines when I don’t even have that in my wheelhouse of what I’m allowed to do,” Baxter said.

Davis took the opposite approach, saying the state’s election system is sound and that Baxter was motivated by “the whole situation surrounding the 2020 election,” a reference to President Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was fraudulent.

Baxter is a small-business owner from Rapid City and state representative who focused on the secretary of state race after losing a legislative primary in June. Davis is a former state trooper from Sioux Falls. Lesnar, of Grenville, formerly served as a compliance officer at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

In other partial returns for lower profile South Dakota statewide races Tuesday:

• Republican Lance Russell was unopposed for attorney general.
• Republican Don Haggar, 61%, Democrat Frank Kloucek, 39%, in the race for one of three seats on the Public Utilities Commission.
• Republican Catherine Barranco, 63%, Democrat Tom Cool, 37%, in the race for state auditor.
• Republican Melissa Hull, 63%, Democrat Margaret Kuipers, 37%, in the race for state treasurer.
• Republican incumbent Brock Greenfield, 63%, Democrat Raeann Mettler, 37%, for commissioner of school and public lands.

Republicans also won the governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House races Tuesday in South Dakota. Republicans have held every statewide office in South Dakota since Tim Johnson, a Democrat, decided not to seek reelection in 2014 and left the U.S. Senate in 2015.