Think Progress has a good piece on how difficult it can be for Native American voters to get to the early polling places or to vote with an absentee ballot in South Dakota. Needless to say, the Republicans who run the state government are not vested with any self-interest in remedying the problem, so it’s no surprise that they haven’t availed themselves of federal monies that have been authorized for just such circumstances.
Thankfully, Daily Kos has been leading the way in the liberal blogosphere to help South Dakota’s Native Americans participate in this fall’s midterm elections. In such a small state, the impact of these kind of voter mobilization efforts is magnified.
The senate race in South Dakota is highly unusual and extremely hard to predict. The former Republican Governor Mike Rounds has been the favorite ever since he announced himself as a candidate. But he didn’t run much of a campaign and he’s been entangled in a nasty scandal about selling visas to the highest foreign bidder, as well as blatant conflicts of interest from some members of his administration that he knew about but did nothing to stop.
Complicating factors greatly has been the independent candidacy of former Republican U.S. Senator Larry Pressler. Mr. Pressler doesn’t have much money or organization, but he’s been polling strongly enough to add some doubt about how this three-way race will shake out.
The expectation is that both Pressler and the Democratic candidate, Rick Weiland, would caucus with the Democrats if they were to win this race, but it isn’t at all clear that either of them has a legitimate chance of winning. There were two polls in early October that offered some hope. A SurveyUSA poll put Pressler within striking distance of Rounds, while a Harper poll showed Weiland not too far behind. Something must have impressed the Democrats, too, because they suddenly reversed course a couple of weeks ago and dumped a million bucks into the state.
Nonetheless, the latest poll, which is from NBC/Marist, shows Rounds with a commanding 14 point lead over Weiland and 27 point lead over Pressler. This is consistent with all the polling that was taken this year prior to October.
I don’t have any special insight into this race. I don’t know why the polling contracted earlier this month or what the Democrats saw that led them to invest heavily around the same time. I do know that Rounds have been getting some unrelentingly bad press and that he’s run a lousy and complacent campaign.
All I can say is that some people seem to believe that Rounds could lose, but there isn’t much in the way of evidence to support that theory.
South Dakota is a small enough state for US Senate that communication heavily oriented to retail politics is still possible. As best I can tell, Weiland has run such a campaign.
The blatant corruption of Rounds with respect to a hot-button immigrant issue is such that one would expect in ordinary circumstances that it would break the hold of the GOP brand. The polls do not show that yet. Either there’s a lot blind loyalty going on or a lot of Republicans are not fessing up that they are breaking ranks.
South Dakota is a good test of whether a primarily local and GOTV campaign that rounds up the partisans can overcome a media war and brand loyalty. Whether it is possible anymore to even campaign on issues instead of brand.
Pressler is and always was a DC stalking horse on Weiland to ensure that Rounds’s defeat does not bring a Democratic populist to DC. I predict he will caucus with the winning party and be rewarded accordingly. And he will caucus with the GOP if that makes them the winning party.
The only reason that dumping a million bucks into the campaign makes sense is the possibility that not all voters had heard about Rounds’s legal and ethical troubles. Someone needed to make the aware of them. Or to hobble Pressler as a carpetbagger from the DC suburbs before he could get momentum.
To my mind, South Dakota is a canary for whether there is a democratic electorate left or just a bunch of media consumers.
This state need more frequent polling, but probably won’t get it. And that fact in itself could tip a close three-way election.
The post-election analysis of the geographical distribution of the vote by precinct (if that is possible to map) will be a very interesting study for future strategy.
Been reading about how hard it is for Native Americans to vote, and it’s absolutely outrageous. Driving 3 hours to vote – one way?
W-T-F?
Check out Dewey County and Corson County on Wikipedia.
Then figure the distance of the furthest communities to the county seat.
Remember the roads are laid out in a grid, with few diagonal roads.
In these counties, the whites live in the county seat or have huge ranches. (I don’t think the situation has changed drastically from the 1970s when I traveled this area extensively.)
(I don’t think the situation has changed drastically from the 1970s when I traveled this area extensively.)
Did they have those little shacks that served as slot parlors back then?
No, but they had a 55 mph speed limit in the wide-open spaces. Got stopped doing 65 mph crossing the bridge on the Grand River. The SD Highway Patrol had to drive a long distance from the county seat to get to that bridge.
I guess Republican rule brings slots and video poker, eh?
I guess Republican rule brings slots and video poker, eh?
Anything to make the poor poorer and the rich richer.
Yup! Those things were all over the damn place, as of 2 years ago. Even out in the boonies.
This doesn’t make me feel good about ND white folks. Weiland is a good guy and Rounds and Pressler aren’t.
Why North Dakota?
And oops — meant SD. (Some lefties not only have trouble with left and right, but north and south, and east and west.)
Remember when people were wringing their hands about the DSCC moving their money out of KY? Remember when I said to relax because Alison has enough resources and organizational strength to manage well without them so they can deploy their resources elsewhere, like Alaska? Well look at who has to loan his campaign almost $2 million to try to keep up with Alison’s spend and organization.
The DSCC came back in with another big chunk of money.
However, sounds as if Mitch managed his campaign finances as well as he does the federal budget. He had more money than Grimes as of 9/30 and iirc he’d spent more than she had up until that point. Costs a lot of money to get 50%+1 when one is as unlikeable as Mitch. Has he ever done a damn thing for KY during all his years in the Senate?