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Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Larry Rhoden

Election Day is November 3. This race is not close — Mason-Dixon (Oct. 12–14) has Larry Rhoden 56, Dan Ahlers 36; Emerson has it 56–38 — and the Secretary of State has confirmed exactly two tickets on the ballot. What makes the race worth a full claim-by-claim treatment is the incumbent's record itself: Rhoden is a governor who took office by succession, survived his state's first-ever gubernatorial runoff, got a $650 million prison funded in a one-day special session, signed a property-tax mechanism whose mechanism verifies even where his magnitudes don't, and has used the veto four times in two sessions — the anti-Hobbs pattern, documented. This is the whole race. LiberalMind endorses Larry Rhoden.

The race

The confirmed ballot, per the Secretary of State: Larry Rhoden (R), running mate Tony Venhuizen, against Dan Ahlers (D), running mate Steven McCleerey. No third ticket qualified.

Rhoden succeeded Kristi Noem on January 25, 2025. Because no candidate cleared 35% in the June 2 Republican primary — Jon Hansen's running-mate rival Toby Doeden took 31%, Rhoden 25%, Dusty Johnson 23%, Hansen 21% — South Dakota held its first-ever gubernatorial runoff, and Rhoden won it on July 28 by roughly 71–29.

The legislature he governs with: Senate 32 Republicans to 3 Democrats; the House reads 64–6 per the research file's primary count against Sabato's 65–5 — the conflict is printed, not resolved. Either way, Rhoden signs and vetoes in front of overwhelming Republican majorities of his own party. Under our veto doctrine, that matters in his favor: nothing in his record is a man vetoing his own legislature's will wholesale; his four vetoes in two sessions were aimed at individual bills, and three of the four were sustained.

A standing check: no pedophile-association material was located for either candidate. Absence noted, nothing implied.

Larry Rhoden (Republican) — the succession governor who kept winning the hard votes

The prison — the largest governing test of his tenure, priced honestly: South Dakota needed a new men's prison. Rhoden's first plan, at $825 million, failed. The state had already spent or obligated $52.7 million on the abandoned Lincoln County site plan, of which more than $20 million is unrecoverable — that is a proven in-service cost of the failed first attempt, and we print it as such. What followed is the other half of the same record: Rhoden came back with a $650 million plan (SB 2) and passed it in a one-day special session on September 23, 2025 — Senate 24–11, exactly the two-thirds required, and House 51–18. Failing first and then closing the deal at $175 million less is the whole story; neither half is printed without the other.

Property taxes — the mechanism verifies; the magnitudes are his: Rhoden signed SB 96 (a county-option half-cent sales tax dedicated to property-tax offset) and SB 245 on March 12, 2026. The mechanism is verified in the enrolled bills. His office's magnitudes — "largest in state history," a 36% average reduction, $660 per household — are his office's estimates, independently unverified, and we print them at that status. Two honest caveats ride with the policy: it is county opt-in, not statewide-automatic, and the relief first appears on 2027 tax bills — after this election. Ahlers's counter, "It is a tax shift," is printed in his section; a sales-tax-funded property-tax offset is, in part, exactly that, and voters deserve both descriptions.

Eminent domain — a signature our side of the aisle should notice: Rhoden signed HB 1052 (March 6, 2025), restricting eminent domain for carbon pipelines — a governor siding with landowners against a pipeline company's condemnation power. That is a property-rights act in service, not a campaign line.

The veto record — the anti-Hobbs pattern: Four vetoes in two sessions. In 2025: a child-care assistance expansion (sustained), and HB 1169, which would have imposed petition-signature districts — overridden by the House 50–18 on March 31, 2025; Rhoden's stated ground was constitutional, and we print the override and his stated ground together. In 2026: HB 1077 (a lab-grown-meat ban — veto sustained; he instead signed SB 124, a five-year moratorium compromise) and HB 1138 (home-care licensing — sustained). Four vetoes, one override, one veto traded for a negotiated compromise law. That is the veto used as the office's check, which is what our doctrine says the veto is for.

Enforcement — documented fact: South Dakota operates under a 287(g) task-force-model agreement (from May 2025); 38 state troopers participate; the Highway Patrol has assisted in 261 immigration arrests, and the National Guard is credited by the state with assisting in the deportation of 1,013 people; the deployment is extended through September 30, 2027. We back ICE the agency and its job unconditionally, and a governor who puts his state patrol formally alongside federal enforcement is doing the job as we understand it. The figures are state-attributed and printed as such.

Pros: A prison funded after a failed first attempt, at a lower price. A property-tax mechanism that exists in enrolled law. A landowner-side eminent-domain signature. A veto record of four, mostly sustained, one traded for a compromise. Formal ICE cooperation through 287(g).

Cons: $20 million-plus of the abandoned prison site's spending is unrecoverable on his watch. The property-tax relief's headline numbers are his own office's unverified estimates, the relief is county-optional, and it lands in 2027. He lost a veto override in 2025.

The flaw, plainly: The Lincoln County write-off — proven in-service waste attached to a plan that failed — and signature tax-relief magnitudes that are estimates from his own office, not verified results. Neither is a math failure on a promise not yet kept; both are printed at full weight.

Dan Ahlers (Democratic) — a real legislative record, an uncosted program, and a recognition problem

Ahlers has served three non-consecutive terms in the legislature from deep-red District 25 — winning there at all, repeatedly, is a real political fact about the man — and has been executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party since 2023. He lost a 2020 U.S. Senate race roughly 66–34 and lost a 2018 re-election by 101 votes. In the current polling, 35% of voters do not recognize his name.

His program is a set of pledges: an $800-per-student school-lunch figure, an unspecified childcare credit, and the tax counter-position quoted above — "It is a tax shift" — which is a fair description of the offset mechanism and the strongest line in his campaign. No costing for his own program was located. No extremist-class plank was located in his own material, and we do not invent one: this is a standard Democratic program, uncosted, offered by a candidate unproven as an executive — a watch posture, not a demerit. No ICE or enforcement position was located in his material; we print the absence as an absence, not an inference. No Manchin-test break toward our values was located in his record.

Pros: Repeated wins in a deep-red district; party-building work as executive director; an accurate one-line critique of the incumbent's tax mechanism.

Cons: An uncosted program; no stated enforcement position; a third of the electorate does not know his name nine days out; his two statewide-scale tests (2020 Senate, and this race's polling) are not close.

The flaw, plainly: None proven in conduct. The priced items are an uncosted program and the absence of any documented break that could earn the exception under our doctrine.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Larry Rhoden.

This is the straightforward race of the tranche. Rhoden is a proven in-service conservative governor whose hardest governing test — the prison — he ultimately passed at a lower price than his failed first plan, whose property-tax law exists in enrolled text, whose eminent-domain signature sided with landowners, whose veto use is the documented opposite of rule-by-veto, and whose state formally cooperates with federal immigration enforcement under 287(g). His flaws are priced in full above: the Lincoln County write-off and the unverified relief magnitudes. Ahlers is not an extremist and we do not call him one; he is a party-standard Democrat with an uncosted program, no enforcement position on the record, and no Manchin-test break — the standing reason the exception is not earned. Endorse the proven governor, flaws printed.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Winner: Larry Rhoden (Republican) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 4, 2026 (results wave 1); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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