South Dakota
'No Going Back' for Noem after trying too hard to impress Trump • South Dakota Searchlight
These are tough times for Kristi Noem. She’s frequently the butt of jokes from late-night comedians. She’s been lampooned on “Saturday Night Live.” Her plight inspires memes on the internet: Run, Cricket! Run!
In one of the roughest book tours in the entire history of print, Noem finds herself defending the killing of a family dog — a story she included in her book to show she knows how to make tough decisions — and dodging questions about why she made up an anecdote about meeting the reclusive dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un.
The book, ironically titled “No Going Back,” is just one of her latest efforts to ingratiate herself with Donald Trump as she competes to be his selection to serve as his vice presidential candidate.
Sure, Noem has no one to blame but herself for her current predicament. She sought to be a national leader and instead became a national punchline. Her current fate is made all the more bitter by the fact that it certainly didn’t have to be this way.
Go back in time to the pandemic when Noem was seen in some circles as a hero for keeping South Dakota businesses open. Journalists who pointed out that the state led the league in per capita COVID-19 deaths were dismissed by Noem’s office as fake news. However, people didn’t seem to want to know the facts. Sick of their own governments literally being in their face with mask mandates, they liked the notion that there was freedom in South Dakota.
At this point, Noem’s popularity exploded. If you doubt this, don’t go back and check old polls or look up what the pundits were saying then. All you need to do is ask your real estate agent, many of whom were getting calls from across the country from people intent on moving to South Dakota because of the example and policies set by Noem. These were people who were tired of being told by government how to live their lives, even if those instructions were for their own good.
Noem has no one to blame but herself for her current predicament. She sought to be a national leader and instead became a national punchline.
Of course Noem’s growing popularity put her on Trump’s radar, and that’s when she started to make mistakes. During her dating years, Noem may have known the value of playing hard to get. During her political years, she forgot that tactic and threw herself into a process designed to make her Trump’s choice to be his V.P.
Should Trump be elected, his vice presidency is political gold. In four short years, Trump would be out of office and his vice president would likely have the inside track on getting the Republican nomination. Noem, like others competing in the veepstakes, saw a short-term chance to grab higher office.
Hindsight tells us that Noem would have been better off steering clear of the Trump circus and taking the political long view. Instead of panting after the vice presidency, the post-pandemic Noem should have split her efforts — nurturing her popularity by helping other Republican candidates while focusing on the needs of South Dakotans.
Noem could have strengthened her resume with an eventual run for the U.S. Senate or a Cabinet position in Trump’s administration or a high-profile job, perhaps leading the NRA. Any of that would have helped her be a better, more well-rounded candidate should she choose to run for the presidency some time in the future.
Instead, lured by the prospect of four years serving Trump and then a possible move to the Oval Office, Noem has recast her image. She’s Kristi the wartime governor. She’s Kristi the TV pitchwoman.
Certainly “No Going Back” was written to burnish her V.P. credentials in Trump World. It’s just too bad that in the rest of the world, her story has become a joke for some and a stain for others. The book and its fallout will haunt Noem if she tries to continue her political career.
Instead of taking her growing national popularity and forming a long-term political strategy, Noem chose to take part in Trump’s “Apprentice”-style tryout for vice president. Now she has the distinction of being the largest national political failure from South Dakota since Sen. George McGovern lost the presidency in a landslide to Richard Nixon. The difference between the two is that McGovern was the choice of his party, but Noem made her mess while trying to be the choice of one man.
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South Dakota
South Dakota ends 2026 fiscal year with $69 million surplus
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South Dakota
SD Lottery Millionaire for Life winning numbers for July 12, 2026
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at July 12, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from July 12 drawing
12-21-39-46-48, Bonus: 02
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes of $100 or less: Can be claimed at any South Dakota Lottery retailer.
- Prizes of $101 or more: Must be claimed from the Lottery. By mail, send a claim form and a signed winning ticket to the Lottery at 711 E. Wells Avenue, Pierre, SD 57501.
- Any jackpot-winning ticket for Dakota Cash or Lotto America, top prize-winning ticket for Lucky for Life, or for the second prizes for Powerball and Mega Millions must be presented in person at a Lottery office. A jackpot-winning Powerball or Mega Millions ticket must be presented in person at the Lottery office in Pierre.
When are the South Dakota Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 9:38 p.m. CT daily.
- Lotto America: 9:15 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Dakota Cash: 9 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 10:15 p.m. CT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a South Dakota editor. You can send feedback using this form.
South Dakota
Incarcerated women to move into new Rapid City prison to alleviate overcrowding
RAAPID CITY, S.D. — Incarcerated women will start moving into a new $87 million prison in Rapid City next month, a South Dakota Department of Corrections spokesperson confirmed this week.
The medium-security prison will be the state’s second for women. The South Dakota Women’s Prison in Pierre has operated beyond its capacity for years, with dozens of people serving their sentences at the Hughes County Jail or in halfway house facilities.
The new prison in Rapid City, which was approved by state lawmakers
in 2023
, will add 288 beds to the state’s capacity. The Department of Corrections will begin transferring women there next month, according to spokesperson Michael Winder, who said the exact date of full operations won’t be released for security reasons
The prison includes a work release area, a mother-infant building that lets new moms stay in a home-like environment with their babies, a vocational training facility to be staffed by instructors from Western Dakota Technical Institute and 96 beds for chemical dependency treatment.
The majority of the women held in South Dakota prisons are incarcerated on nonviolent drug charges, and 97% have a substance use disorder diagnosis.
“Drug addiction is a disease that must be treated,” Corrections Secretary Nick Lamb said at Friday’s ribbon cutting, adding that “Through dedicated treatment space and the therapeutic community, women will receive the counseling support and skills that they need to break the cycle of addiction and successfully return to their families and communities.”
The mother-infant program
mirrors one launched a few years ago in Pierre
.
Mothers who qualify under security guidelines stay in a group home separate from the main prison facility with other women and children for the first few years of their child’s life. The program was launched by former Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko and was championed by Lamb in his first public conversations with lawmakers on the state’s budget committee during the 2026 legislative session.
Photo courtesy Gov. Larry Rhoden’s office
At Friday’s event, Gov. Larry Rhoden said family connections and parenting skills are key factors in rehabilitation. He framed the program as an extension of a commitment to the well-being of South Dakota families.
“This program gives mothers and their children the opportunity to build that foundation from the very beginning,” Rhoden said.
Rhoden also called out the vocational training, drug treatment and work release programs as vital to rehabilitation — and to public safety by extension. The state recently broke ground on a new $650 million men’s prison in Sioux Falls, which is set to replace the state penitentiary and is also designed to expand programming and rehabilitation.
When combined with pending policy recommendations from the state’s correctional rehabilitation task force, Rhoden said, the new prisons will help improve public safety statewide by reducing the number of people who return to prison within a few years of their release.
“At the end of the day, every person in our corrections system is a human being,” Rhoden said. “They are sons and daughters. They are mothers and fathers. People who’ve made mistakes but also have the capacity to change.”
Winder, the corrections spokesman, told South Dakota Searchlight that staff will spend the next few weeks training at the new facility in preparation for the arrival of inmates in August.
The state hired Eric Aldridge
to serve as warden in March
. Aldridge, who came to South Dakota after a stint as warden of a medium-security women’s prison in Troy, Virginia, said Friday his goal is to “to facilitate an environment, an atmosphere, a culture where people learn, they grow, they heal, and where people develop through dignity and respect.”
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