South Dakota
AP Decision Notes: What to expect in North Dakota's state primaries
WASHINGTON (AP) — While possible Republican vice presidential hopeful Doug Burgum travels the country campaigning for former President Donald Trump, the race to succeed him back home as North Dakota governor tops the list of contests voters will decide in statewide and local primaries on Tuesday.
Burgum decided earlier this year not to seek a third term following his unsuccessful run for the White House. That created an opening not just for his own job but also for the state’s lone seat in the House.
Republican Kelly Armstrong has represented the state in Congress since his election in 2018 but has opted to run for governor rather than seek a fourth term in Washington. His primary opponent is Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, who seeks a promotion after serving 17 months as Burgum’s second in command.
Armstrong won the endorsement of the state Republican party at its April convention, which Miller did not attend. Meanwhile, Burgum has endorsed Miller to succeed him.
The winner of the Republican primary will face Democratic state Sen. Merrill Piepkorn of Fargo, as well as independent candidate Michael Coachman, a frequent statewide office-seeker who led an unsuccessful effort to recall Burgum in 2021. Republicans have held the governor’s office since 1992.
Five Republicans and two Democrats are running to replace Armstrong in Congress. Vying for the GOP nomination are former foreign service officer and military veteran Alex Balazs, former state Rep. Rick Becker, Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, attorney and former Miss America Cara Mund and Sharlet Mohr of Williston, an unsuccessful candidate for the Williston Basin School Board in 2023.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Balazs narrowly won the state party’s endorsement over Fedorchak after a prolonged vote at the state convention. Fedorchak leads the field in fundraising and had the largest campaign war chest as of late May. She is the only candidate in the field to have previously won statewide office.
In the Democratic primary, former teacher and military veteran Trygve Hammer faces frequent candidate Roland Riemers, who is simultaneously running for a seat on the Grand Forks School Board. Hammer has raised about $388,000 for the campaign and had about $141,000 in the bank as of late May.
Neither Riemers nor Mohr in the Republican primary has reported any campaign finance disclosures to the Federal Election Commission. A Democrat hasn’t won this seat since 2008.
Voters will also decide on a statewide ballot measure that would put an age limit on those running for the state’s U.S. Senate or House seats. People who would reach the age of 81 by the start of the final year of their term would be prohibited from appearing on the ballot.
Contested GOP primaries will be held in five state Senate and 10 state House districts. About half the seats in each chamber are up for election in November. Republicans have overwhelming supermajorities in both houses of the legislature.
Further down the ballot, Kirsten Baesler seeks another term as the state superintendent of public instruction. She faces three other candidates in the nonpartisan primary, including Republican Jason Heitkamp, a former state senator and cousin of former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. The top two vote-getters will advance to the general election.
Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer is also up for reelection this year, but both he and Democrat Katrina Christiansen are unopposed in their primaries.
Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:
PRIMARY DAY
The North Dakota state primary will be held Tuesday. The last polls close at 9 p.m. ET in the state’s westernmost counties, although polls in most of the state close at 8 p.m. ET. All polls close at 7 p.m. local time, but North Dakota spans two time zones.
WHAT’S ON THE BALLOT
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in 20 races. These include contested partisan primaries for governor, House, state Senate and state House, a nonpartisan primary for superintendent of public instruction and a statewide ballot measure on congressional age limits. Republican and Democratic primary contests appear on the same ballot, but voters may cast votes in only one party’s primaries.
WHO GETS TO VOTE
North Dakota does not have a formal statewide voter registration system. Any voter who meets the age, citizenship, residence and ID requirements may participate in the primary.
DECISION NOTES
The counties that usually have the biggest impact on North Dakota elections are Cass, home to Fargo and the most populous, and Burleigh, the home of the state capital of Bismarck. Grand Forks and Ward also have a sizable share of voters. A candidate with leads in these four counties would be difficult to overtake in a statewide contest.
In the gubernatorial race, Armstrong last won a competitive primary in 2018 for his first run for the House. He won that race with 56% of the vote, carrying Cass, Burleigh, Grand Forks and Ward.
For the at-large House seat, Republicans Fedorchak and Mund and Democrat Hammer all have previous statewide vote performances that may prove instructive. Fedorchak was unopposed in her 2022 Public Service Commission primary, but she won the general with 71% of the vote. Hammer received about 30% of the vote in his Public Service Commission race that year. Mund received 38% of the vote when she challenged Armstrong as an independent in 2022. She carried Cass County, but the bulk of those Fargo-area voters willing to vote for a pro-abortion rights independent against a GOP incumbent probably won’t be voting in this year’s Republican primary.
Other things to remember: The ballot measure on congressional age limits must receive at least 50% of the vote to pass. In the state House primaries, there are two winners per seat, and voters select up to two candidates.
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
North Dakota requires an automatic recount in primaries if the vote margin is 1% or less of the highest vote cast for a candidate of that office. Recounts for ballot measures are automatic if the vote margin is 0.25% or less of the top vote-getter’s vote total. A losing candidate may also request and pay for a recount if the vote margin is more than 1% but less than 2% of the highest vote cast for that office. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
WHAT DO TURNOUT AND ADVANCE VOTE LOOK LIKE?
In the 2022 primaries, North Dakota had a voting age population of about 585,000. That year, votes cast in the Republican Senate primary made up about 13% of the voting-age population, while votes in the Democratic primary made up about 4%. About 48% of votes in that election were cast before primary day.
As of Wednesday, a total of 27,271 ballots had been cast ballots before primary day.
HOW LONG DOES VOTE-COUNTING USUALLY TAKE?
In the 2022 primaries, the AP first reported results right at 9 p.m. ET as the final polls closed in the state. The election night tabulation ended at 1:10 a.m. ET with about 98% of total votes counted.
ARE WE THERE YET?
As of Tuesday, there will be 147 days until the November general election.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
South Dakota is separated from Central Europe by about 4,000 miles. On the outside, it seems the two have little to nothing in common, but longstanding partnerships known as “sister cities” have forged a deep bond between the Mount Rushmore State and the country of Germany.
It makes sense as approximately 34% of South Dakotans identify with German heritage. But these connections go far beyond just family trees.
From the Black Hills to the banks of the Big Sioux River, here are the four South Dakota communities that have found their ‘twins’ across the Atlantic Ocean.
Credit: Canva
Sioux Falls, South Dakota – Sister City: Potsdam, Germany
Credit: Canva
Sioux Falls and Potsdam have been ‘Sister Cities’ since 1990. That year stands out as it was just one year prior when the Berlin Wall fell, uniting East and West Germany after nearly 45 years of being apart. Potsdam is located in the former East Germany and has a similar population to that of Sioux Falls, at around 184,000 residents. It’s famous for its Sanssouci Palace and for being the spot of the legendary ‘Potsdam Conference’ of 1945, in which the allied powers of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union decided on Post-WW2 order.
Other sister cities include Rapid City and Apolda, Germany. This partnership began in 1994 and contrasts the ‘City of Bells’ (Apolda) with the ‘City of Presidents’ (Rapid City). Both towns have a great respect for public art and historic landmarks.
There are also the sister cities of Vermillion and Ratingen. Established in 1969, this is by far the oldest partnership of all the cities on the list. The two have traded students in an exchange program for decades and have also shown their friendship in other ways. In Ratingen, the Vermillionring and the South Dakota Bridge were built to honor the partnership. In Vermillion, Ratingen Square was inaugurated back in 2010.
Finally, much like Sioux Falls and Potsdam, the cities of Brookings and Schwanewede began their partnership back in 1990. The two have one big thing in common, too, as they’re both college towns. It has since become a very active exchange, particularly focusing on student programs and cultural visits that highlight their shared agricultural and university-town identities.
Even more surprising, Potsdam isn’t Sioux Falls only sister city. The other is found in Northern Ireland, and you can read all about it in this article.
10 Smallest Towns in South Dakota
Some ghost towns in the United States used to be popular hotspots along Route 66, the “Mother Road” that extended thousands of miles from Illinois to California. Others, like the once-thriving prairie town of Okaton, South Dakota, were established along historic railroads. Now largely abandoned, the eerie ghost town makes an interesting detour on the way to one of America’s best road trip destinations, Badlands National Park.
Located in south-central South Dakota, about a 45-minute drive east of the national park, Okaton was founded in the early 1900s on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. According to Legends of America, the town was thriving in the years immediately after it was built, home to a farming community as well as a number of railroad workers. However, most of those workers didn’t stick around as the railroad expanded westward, and the town grew quieter. The remaining residents were primarily farmers and homesteaders — and many of them ultimately left, too, in search of employment during the Great Depression. Decades later, in the 1980s, the train tracks fell out of use, and few people stayed there.
Around the same time, one enterprising couple from Illinois, the Westlakes, tried to turn Okaton into a tourist attraction. Signs on the I-90 highway nearby advertised “Westlake’s Ghost Town,” bringing in visitors to enjoy a stroll around the abandoned prairie town (and newly installed features, including a petting zoo and a rock shop). Their venture was moderately successful, but after the owners passed away, their tourist site became a thing of the past. Just like Vinton, Ohio, another abandoned railroad community, Okaton is a ghost town that visitors can still explore today.
Discover the eerie ghost town of Okaton
To get to Okaton, take Exit 183 off I-90, west of Murdo. In the abandoned prairie town, there are a handful of original streets with some buildings still standing. These include several dilapidated houses and shacks, a wooden grain elevator, a general store with gas pumps, and a crumbling old school. Also on view are Okaton’s deteriorated railroad tracks, and out on the fields, visitors can spot rusty farm equipment once used by the region’s cattle ranchers and grain farmers.
Atlas Obscura writes that the ghost town is “a very creepy place to visit, even in the middle of the day, but amazingly photogenic.” Many past visitors echoed the same sentiment, mentioning that it’s a great spot for photographs. As one traveler commented on Instagram, the once-thriving town “felt exactly how I imagined — quiet, worn down, and slowly being reclaimed by time.”
Keep in mind that the ghost town may still have a few residents, even if you don’t see anyone around. The place is no longer a managed tourist attraction — Okaton’s ramshackle buildings are privately owned, and visitors should not attempt to go inside. Luckily, past visitors say that you can take great photos of the crumbling buildings without even getting out of your car. If you love discovering abandoned towns, find out more about visiting Rhyolite, one of the best-preserved and most photographed ghost towns in the country.
LYONS, S.D. (South Dakota News Watch) – Farmer Jeff Thompson had waited months for soybean prices to rebound, and he was getting a little antsy.
Like many of the roughly 18,000 other crop farmers in South Dakota, Thompson is storing corn and soybeans in giant grain bins on his farm because he can’t sell at a profitable price due to a variety of unfavorable market conditions.
After several months of waiting – and suddenly seeking an infusion of cash – Thompson made the decision in mid-March to sell off about 15,000 bushels of beans he had been storing since the fall 2025 harvest.
But the day he hoped to sell, a single social media post by President Donald Trump caused the soybean price to fall by 70 cents a bushel, a decline that would have caused Thompson to lose more than $10,000 on the sale.
Trump’s post indicated he would delay scheduled trade talks with President Xi Jinping of China, the world’s largest importer of soybeans and a country in which the U.S. is embroiled in a trade standoff that has hurt American soybean producers.
Thompson held onto his soybeans, and the wait for better prices began anew.
“The whole geopolitical thing keeps you awake at night and you don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Thompson, 64, said on a recent day at his farm in Lyons, an unincorporated hamlet located about 25 miles northwest of Sioux Falls. “Farming is risky enough on its own, fighting Mother Nature and all that, so I’m hoping things will settle down.”
A trifecta of terrible economic headwinds
The Trump tariffs and resulting trade wars that have devastated foreign export markets over the past year are not the only unsettling reality for South Dakota grain producers, who grew 1.1 billion bushels of corn and 238 million bushels of soybeans with a combined value of $6.4 billion in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The new U.S. war with Iran has led to the closure of a key global shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, dramatically driving up prices for fuel and fertilizers. Farmers were already reeling from ongoing inflation that has raised prices for “inputs” required to grow crops, including seeds, water and electricity, rent or loan payments for land, and machinery and parts.
The trade war with China has led the Asian nation to forgo most orders for American soybeans and turn instead to South American producers. Prior to the trade war, about 30% of the soybeans grown annually in South Dakota were exported to China.
All that financial pain has been piled on top of stagnant low prices that have hurt revenues even as South Dakota grain farmers have produced record crops of corn and soybeans over the past couple years.
“The most difficult thing of all is that we’ve had three to four years of depressed prices,” Thompson said. “You can handle one low price year decently. But when they begin to piggy back on each other, it gets tough.”
Seeking new markets and uses
Since Trump took office and imposed tariffs on goods from other countries, cattle ranchers and other livestock producers have benefited from high sale prices and strong markets for their goods, as previously reported by News Watch.
But almost all other farmers in South Dakota and across the country are feeling the financial pain and emotional stress of an unfavorable global market for agricultural goods, said Scott VanderWal, president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation who also serves as vice president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“By nature, farmers are pretty optimistic, but economically it’s pretty tough right now,” said VanderWal, a grain farmer from Volga. “The market right now is at a loss position and we’re about to plant the most expensive crop in history.”
National agricultural leaders are urging President Trump to find new international and domestic markets for agricultural products, VanderWal said. An ongoing hope is that Congress will approve year-round use of E-15, the gasoline that contains more ethanol and could boost corn prices and markets.
Jerry Schmitz, executive director of the South Dakota Soybean Association, was one of a dozen South Dakota officials and agricultural leaders who spent eight days in March on a trade mission to expand export opportunities in Japan and South Korea.
Schmitz said those two Asian countries — relatively small buyers of South Dakota corn and soybeans compared to China — were welcoming and eager to maintain or expand imports of American grains and goods.
The majority of South Dakota grains sold as exports are used as hog and poultry feed while a smaller percentage is used for human consumption, he said.
But even the most optimistic agricultural experts and producers are concerned the worst is not over yet for American farmers, Schmitz said.
“Things have been difficult, and possibly this could continue for another year or two,” he said. “Farmers are pretty flexible, but when bad news happens three to five years in a row, and with all the things happening in the world, it gets concerning.”
Fewer profitable farms possible this year
While it may be hard for South Dakota farmers to believe, the Rushmore State has fared better than most of the nation during the recent agricultural economic downturn, said Nate Franzen, president of agricultural lending at First Dakota National Bank in Yankton.
In 2025, the state had only one farm bankruptcy that Franzen was aware of, and about 80% of grain producers made a profit, a higher rate of performance than the 65% he predicted.
Franzen, who has worked in farm lending for three decades, said the best year for farm profitability in South Dakota over the past 20 years was in 2012, when the ethanol market was raging and about 93% of state farmers made money.
In 2025, record yields by producers and a high level of diversification on individual farms put South Dakota in a good position. But 2026 may be more challenging, he said.
“Looking forward, it is troubling,” Franzen said. “We’ve been experiencing inflation on the expense side for the last few years. And this Iran war is not helping because fertilizer is spiking and fuel is spiking.”
Financial and emotional stress the norm
Meanwhile, many farm families are enduring stressful kitchen-table meetings about money and the future of their operations, VanderWal said.
The challenging economic conditions are hardest on young farmers without strong equity or savings, those who recently took over from retiring parents or those who are heavily leveraged with loans for land or equipment.
“We are hearing more stories of bankruptcies increasing, and we’re hearing more incidents of farmer suicides again,” he said. “Farmers and ranchers are very proud people and it’s hard for them to ask for help, so we’re encouraging people to pay attention to family members and neighbors and get help for them if they need it.”
Schmitz said most South Dakota grain farmers are sticking to their planting plans for 2026 even amid great market uncertainty.
He said some farmers may plant more cover crops instead of corn and soybeans to build soil health, and a few may diversify their operations with cattle, hogs or poultry to create new revenue streams and generate manure as a source of low-cost fertilizer. Others may take on new jobs off the farm or expand the hours they spend working outside of agriculture.
Impacts felt beyond South Dakota farms
From a broader perspective, the weakening farm economy is hurting not only farmers but also the communities where they live, VanderWal said.
“Agriculture is what drives the economy of this state and very much so in the small communities,” he said. “These issues could really come home to bite the small communities of South Dakota.”
Ultimately, continued income challenges for American producers could lead to farm consolidation and greater corporate ownership, which could threaten not only American family farms but also the nation’s ability to feed itself, VanderWal said.
“Food security is national security, and if we have to rely on other countries for our food supply, that’s a real problem,” he said.
Thompson, the Minnehaha County grain farmer, said he is hopeful that new trade deals brokered by President Trump will hold up and remain favorable over the long term. He has applied for some of a recent $12 billion farm bailout approved by the president, though he considers that stop-gap program only a “small Band-Aid.”
Thompson hopes that when he retires in a few years, the agricultural economy will be strong enough for someone local to buy his roughly 800 acres and continue to use it for farming.
But he’s no longer sure that will happen.
“We love what we do and look forward to passing things down that we’ve built up over the years,” he said. “There’s a lot of younger guys who love to farm, but it just doesn’t pay.”
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact content director Bart Pfankuch: 605-937-9398/bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
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