South Dakota
New landscape confronts South Dakota Republicans after political earthquake shakes incumbents • South Dakota Searchlight
A literal 3.7-magnitude earthquake shook the state Capitol in Pierre last week. State Rep. Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish, said a political earthquake shook the Capitol on Tuesday night.
“The people are waking up,” Odenbach said.
He and others within a faction of the South Dakota Republican Party say it’s being run by politicians who are not as conservative as the party’s base of supporters. Their efforts to change that contributed to 14 losses by incumbent Republican legislators in Tuesday’s primary election. Odenbach’s political action committee spent $58,000 ahead of the primary in support of some winning candidates.
Current Republican House Majority Leader Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre — who is unopposed for reelection — said new legislators are always welcome, but losing 14 incumbents comes with a cost.
“It’s an opportunity for new ideas, but it does mean we lost a lot of institutional knowledge,” he said.
Those losses include Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton, who’s served 24 years in the Legislature, and Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Isabel, who has served 16 years, among others.
Mortenson’s political action committee spent $48,271 to help some of the incumbents and other candidates that Odenbach opposed.
Mortenson blamed the incumbent losses mostly on historically low voter turnout of 17%, which he said creates an environment in which a motivated faction can turn out enough voters to swing a primary race.
Pipelines and property taxes
Odenbach said challengers won because of quality candidate recruitment, a good ground game and the right messaging.
Much of that messaging, especially in eastern South Dakota, capitalized on opposition to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline project. It would collect carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants in South Dakota and other states and move it through an underground pipeline for sequestration in North Dakota, passing through farms, ranches and other private property along the way.
Incumbent Republican legislators suffer losses as pipelines and property rights surge to the fore
The project has caused more than two years of legal and legislative wrangling over landowner rights and eminent domain, the legal maneuver through which a company can seize property for projects in the public interest.
“A lot of candidates have been saying South Dakota is open for business, but not for sale, and that was proven last night,” Odenbach said.
Mortenson and some other Republican leaders passed a bill during the last legislative session to preserve a regulatory path forward for the pipeline while ensuring landowners receive additional protections. That put them at odds with some in their own party who sought stricter measures such as a ban on eminent domain for carbon pipelines. Some members of that faction are gathering petition signatures to refer the bill passed last session to a public vote in November.
Odenbach said the pipeline debate is not over.
“We’re going to be back next session to better define public use and who gets to use eminent domain in South Dakota, like I tried to do during the recent session,” he said.
Incumbent Rep. Aaron Aylward, R-Harrisburg, won his primary. He’s the president of the South Dakota Freedom Caucus, which has butted heads with Republican leadership. On the topic of pipelines, he said, “It’s not looking good for the carbon ones, that’s for sure.”
Aylward said incumbents lost Tuesday because “people are tired of the same type of bureaucratic garbage they’ve been fed for the last number of years.”
Meanwhile, in the Black Hills, rising property taxes animated many Republican voters. Former legislator Tim Goodwin, of Rapid City, earned one of District 30’s two Republican House nominations Tuesday. He and incumbent Rep. Trish Ladner, of Hot Springs, will face one Democrat in the November race for two House seats.
“Out here, property rights isn’t even on the radar,” Goodwin said. “It’s property taxes.”
Greasing the open primaries wheel
Some Republicans think the inner-party friction is self-defeating. Pat Powers, writer of the Dakota War College political blog, said Tuesday’s primary results offer Democrats an opportunity to win some general election races if they run to the middle of the political spectrum. Democrats currently hold only 11 of the Legislature’s 105 seats.
“It could very well mark a shift in the Republican party’s fortunes,” Powers said.
Powers said Republican infighting also gives an open primaries ballot measure a better chance of passing during the November general election. The measure would change some primaries to include all the candidates for an office, rather than splitting the candidates into party-specific primaries.
Tuesday’s low turnout and poor showing by incumbents gives ammunition to open primaries supporters, Powers said.
“They can say, ‘Look at what happens when we don’t have open primaries,’ and they have the money to get the message across.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Drey Samuelson, who worked as Democratic former U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson’s chief of staff for many years, is involved in the open primaries effort. He’s already making that argument.
“The closed primary system does not work very well. It nominates people who are to the extremes of the parties,” Samuelson said. “We can look at these primary results to see that.”
Samuelson said turnout would have been better if Democrats and independents had more to vote on than the Democratic presidential primary, in which President Joe Biden was already all but guaranteed a victory. There was only one Democratic legislative primary Tuesday in South Dakota, and 44 Republican legislative primaries.
Seeking change ‘for the average person’
Joy Hohn, a vocal opponent of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines, bested former legislator Mark Willadsen for the Republican nomination for Sioux Falls District 9’s Senate seat. There is no Democratic or independent candidate running in the general election.
Hohn received a donation from Odenbach’s political action committee.
“I think that the citizens of South Dakota are seeing the need for a bigger focus on ‘we the people,’” Hohn said. “We don’t really need this pipeline.”
Hohn said the results of the election move the state in the right direction, “toward true conservative values and our country’s founding principles.”
Republican factions fighting for control of the party in Tuesday’s primary election
Incumbent Sen. Erin Tobin, R-Winner, fell by 48 votes (which is within the possible recount margin) to a political newcomer from Bonesteel named Mykala Voita, who also campaigned on the primacy of landowner rights.
“The people of South Dakota drew a line and they are speaking,” Voita said. “I think the people are sending a clear message that we don’t want to be trampled on, and if they’re going to come into our state, they’re going to play by our rules.”
In a four-way District 13 House of Representatives primary, incumbent Republican Tony Venhuizen, of Sioux Falls, advanced to the general election as one of the top two finishers. But he received fewer votes than newcomer John Hughes. There is no Democrat or independent on the ballot in November.
Hughes plans to push for change.
“Government just isn’t working for the average person in South Dakota, especially in terms of economic development,” Hughes said. “It’s helping large corporate interests that are not paying their fair share when they come into South Dakota and take advantage of our business climate, and it’s at the expense of the taxpayer.”
Ousted Republican legislators
Republican legislators who lost their primary races Tuesday, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office (results are not official until the election is canvassed):
- Sen. Erin Tobin, R-Winner
- Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton
- Rep. Byron Callies, R-Watertown
- Rep. Tyler Tordsen, R-Sioux Falls
- Rep. Tamara St. John, R-Sisseton
- Rep. James Wangsness, R-Miller
- Rep. Fred Deutsch, R-Florence
- Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Isabel
- Rep. Becky Drury, R-Rapid City
- Sen. Mike Walsh, R-Rapid City
- Sen. David Johnson, R-Rapid City
- Rep. Gary Cammack, R-Union Center
- Rep. Kirk Chaffee, R-Whitewood
- Sen. Julie Frye-Mueller, R-Rapid City
South Dakota
MN officials warn dogs adopted from South Dakota show ‘high prevalence of canine brucellosis’
Image on the left shows a dog waiting for adoption in a shelter (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images). image on the right shows an optical microscope view of bacterium brucella canis causes brucellosis (Photo by: BSIP/Education Images/Un (Getty Images)
The Minnesota Board of Animal Health is warning that some dogs adopted from South Dakota are testing positive for canine brucellosis, a contagious and uncurable infection.
Dogs from South Dakota carrying canine brucellosis
By the numbers:
State officials say that so far in 2026, there have been seven canine brucellosis positive dogs traced to South Dakota.
What they’re saying:
Companion Animal Program Veterinarian Dr. Steve Kivisto shared the following statement on the matter.
“We’re evaluating new import requirements and quarantine procedures for dogs coming into Minnesota from South Dakota due to a high prevalence of canine brucellosis in dogs rescued from that geographic area in the past few years,” said companion animal program veterinarian Dr. Steve Kivisto. “We’ve also had recent cases imported from other states and will consider additional requirements if those also prove to contain a pattern of canine brucellosis.”
Dig deeper:
Canine brucellosis is an infection that primarily affects dogs, but there are strains capable of infecting other species, including humans.
The infection in dogs is not curable, and should an owner choose to attempt treatment, their pet could still continue to shed the bacteria. Infected dogs would either need to be quarantined for life or humanely euthanized to prevent the spread.
People who live with or work closely with animals are also at risk of contracting brucellosis.
What you can do:
Officials say anyone bringing dogs into Minnesota for resale or adoption must have a veterinarian examine the animal and sign off on a certificate of veterinary inspection certifying that it appears free from disease.
Testing is also highly recommended since infected dogs can appear healthy.
The Source: This story uses information shared by the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.
A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil discovered on a ranch in western South Dakota will be auctioned off in New York City on Tuesday with a possible sale price of $30 million or more.
The 38-foot long skeleton, nicknamed Gus, stands more than 12 feet tall and has one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found. According to Sotheby’s auction house, which is handling the sale, Gus could bring the highest sale price ever for a dinosaur fossil.
The dinosaur is from the late Cretaceous Period and was believed to have lived on Earth 67 million years ago.
The Harding County ranch where the skeleton was found lies in the famed Hell Creek Formation, a geological region of northwestern South Dakota and parts of Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming where dinosaur finds are fairly common.
Several other major dinosaur finds have been made there, including Sue, the famous T. rex discovered in 1990. After legal wrangling over ownership, Sue was auctioned in 1997 at a sale price of $8.3 million to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where it remains today.
(Photo: Malcolm Ritter)
The first piece of Gus, a metatarsal from the dinosaur’s foot, was found in 2021 sticking out of the ground on a Harding County ranch owned by Gary and Dana Licking. The find was made by paleontologists with Theropoda Expeditions, a Texas company specializing in commercial excavation, preparation and mounting of dinosaur fossils.
The fossil consists of 183 bone elements, making up 61% of the possible bones in the dinosaur’s body and representing 75% to 80% of the original bone mass by weight, Sotheby’s said.
The dinosaur Sue is 40 feet long and 13 feet tall and is considered the largest and most complete T. rex skeleton ever discovered at 90% of possible bone mass.
“This is our longest-term project ever,” Cassandra Hatton, worldwide head of Sotheby’s Science & Natural History division, said in the video. “From the day the first bone was discovered, we’ve been going back and forth to South Dakota to oversee this whole process.”
The lowest opening bid accepted will be $19 million, with an estimated sale price up to $30 million or more depending on buyer interest, Sotheby’s said.
Gus is named after rancher Gary Licking, whose nickname was Gus. Licking died at age 67 in February 2022, before the full extent of the T. rex skeleton was known.
Gary and Dana Licking married in 1983 and lived on their family ranch 11 miles west of Buffalo, according to Gary’s obituary.
Dana Licking said in Sotheby’s video that she was impressed at the level of skill and professionalism displayed by the paleontologists who discovered the skeleton.
“I’m really grateful that they found it because it could have been lost and nobody ever would learn anything about it,” she said.
Walter Stein, owner of PaleoAdventures in Belle Fourche, in western South Dakota, is an independent paleontologist who is also working to uncover fossils in the Hell Creek Formation.
Western South Dakota is likely to remain a hotbed for discovery of dinosaur fossils, said Stein, who last year opened the Dinosaurs of the Hell Creek Museum in Belle Fourche, a 6,500 square-foot museum with a working paleontology lab, interactive exhibits and dinosaur displays.
“Finding a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with 183 bones doesn’t happen every day,” he said.
Stein said the auction of Gus could lead to a purchase by either a museum or a private individual or group.
But it is unlikely an American museum would have the funding to acquire Gus because many are struggling or struggling financially, Stein said. Across the world, however, interest remains high in major fossils in countries where funding may be more accessible, such as in Japan, Korea, China, Dubai, Saudi Arabia or in Europe, Stein said.
“On the one hand, I would love for this and every fossil I collect to go to a museum,” he said. “However, there’s so many dinosaur specimens and skeletons on display, it’s not going to affect the science that much if it ends up in private hands.”
— This story originally published on southdakotanewswatch.org.
Iverson Ford now offers the 2027 Ford Expedition, giving families throughout Huron, Mitchell, Aberdeen, Watertown, Brookings, De Smet, Redfield, Miller, and surrounding South Dakota communities access to a full-size SUV with advanced technology, impressive capability, and spacious three-row comfort.
— Iverson Ford is proud to offer the 2027 Ford Expedition, providing drivers throughout Eastern South Dakota with Ford’s latest full-size SUV engineered for growing families, outdoor adventures, towing capability, and everyday versatility. The newest Expedition combines three-row comfort, advanced driver-assist technologies, modern connectivity, and confident performance for today’s active lifestyles.
Located at 2500 Dakota Avenue South in Huron, Iverson Ford serves customers from Huron, Mitchell, Aberdeen, Watertown, Brookings, De Smet, Redfield, Miller, Woonsocket, and surrounding South Dakota communities. As part of the Iverson Auto Group, the dealership offers an extensive selection of new Ford vehicles supported by experienced product specialists, financing professionals, and certified Ford service technicians.
The 2027 Ford Expedition continues Ford’s commitment to delivering capability and comfort in one versatile SUV. Designed for families who need generous passenger space and flexible cargo capacity, the Expedition is well suited for daily commuting, weekend road trips, towing recreational equipment, and exploring South Dakota’s parks, lakes, and outdoor destinations.
“Our team enjoys helping customers find an SUV that fits both their lifestyle and long-term transportation needs,” said a representative of Iverson Ford. “The 2027 Ford Expedition offers the capability, technology, and versatility that many South Dakota families value, whether they’re traveling across town or across the state.”
Demand for full-size SUVs continues to grow as drivers seek vehicles that balance passenger comfort with towing capability and advanced safety features. Iverson Ford helps customers compare Expedition trim levels, explore available technologies, and select the model that best matches their family’s needs while providing continued support through financing, certified maintenance, and genuine Ford parts.
Drivers interested in the 2027 Ford Expedition are encouraged to browse available inventory online or visit Iverson Ford in Huron to experience the SUV firsthand.
About Iverson Ford
Iverson Ford is a full-service Ford dealership located in Huron, South Dakota. Serving drivers throughout Huron, Mitchell, Aberdeen, Watertown, Brookings, De Smet, Redfield, Miller, and surrounding communities, the dealership offers new Ford vehicles, quality pre-owned vehicles, financing, certified Ford service, genuine OEM Ford parts, and customer-focused automotive solutions backed by more than 75 years of service through the Iverson Auto Group.
Contact Info:
Name: Iverson Ford
Email: Send Email
Organization: Iverson Ford
Address: 2500 Dakota Ave S, Huron, SD 57350
Phone: +16053526464
Website: https://www.iversonford.com/
Release ID: 89197473
In case of identifying any problems, concerns, or inaccuracies in the content shared in this press release, or if a press release needs to be taken down, we urge you to notify us immediately by contacting error@releasecontact.com (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our dedicated team will be readily accessible to address your concerns and take swift action within 8 hours to rectify any issues identified or assist with the removal process. We are committed to delivering high-quality content and ensuring accuracy for our valued readers.
-
Movie Reviews1 minute ago‘Only Beautiful Things to Look At’ Review: A Handsome but Muffled Portrait of State-Sanctioned Cruelty
-
World9 minutes agoColombia Adds Massive Soundstage as Bogotá Audiovisual Market Attendance Soars and ‘Narcos’ Star-Led ‘Rookies’ Cleans Up in Project Prizes
-
News16 minutes ago
How a Beer Hall Keeps Up With a World Cup Crowd
-
Lifestyle49 minutes agoShy on the dance floor? Virtual reality ‘partners’ aim to help you find your groove
-
Technology1 hour agoAre you filthy enough for a $700 portable shower?
-
World1 hour agoFormer British MP and reality TV star Ann Widdecombe found dead; man arrested for murder
-
Politics1 hour agoTrump takes unusual step, lets bipartisan housing bill become law unsigned amid SAVE pressure campaign
-
Health1 hour agoEating common dairy food every day may slow biological aging, study suggests
