While the race to secure the nomination for governor has dominated the headlines ahead of the June 2 primary, Republican voters will also choose a candidate for one of South Dakota’s two U.S. Senate seats.

Incumbent U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, who is seeking a third, six-year term, holds a comfortable lead over his GOP primary challenger, Justin McNeal, a Navy veteran and business owner from Rapid City, according to the latest poll from News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy.

Here is a recap of the two candidates along with their thoughts heading into the June 2 election. The winner of the Republican primary will meet Democrat Julian Beaudion and Independent Brian Bengs in the Nov. 3 general election.

Hometown: Fort PierreAge: 71Occupation: Insurance broker; businessman; former governor (2003-2011); U.S. senator since 2015In their own words:

Rounds provided the following statement to News Watch:

“Working in the U.S. Senate, I’ve stayed focused on results that matter for our kids and grandkids. That means keeping the government off your back and out of your business and wallet. That means keeping our communities safe and creating a business climate that encourages job growth to keep our kids in South Dakota. And that means safety through a commitment to our men and women in uniform.

This past summer, we worked with President Trump to pass the Republicans’ Working Families Tax Cuts legislation. Without Congressional action, the average South Dakota family would have seen a $2,500 tax hike this year. Our legislation not only prevented the largest tax increase in American history, but it also provided additional tax relief for hard-working South Dakota families. That includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for nearly 9 out of 10 seniors.

We’ve accomplished some great things, but our work is not done. I am running for reelection to continue bringing results back home to South Dakota.”

Hometown: Rapid City (born in Illinois and raised in Texas)Age: 42Occupation: Business owner (Dakota BioChar); Navy veteran (2001-2007)In their own words:

“I’m feeling the people in South Dakota are ready for a change. The challenge we are running into is that not enough people know who we are, but as soon as they know who we are, it’s an easy decision for them,” McNeal told News Watch in a phone interview. “I don’t have millions and millions of dollars. I’ve been largely self-funding this race up to this point.”

McNeal, who is a licensed pilot, said he has flown his small plane to events throughout the state in an attempt to get his name out.

“I talk to people about the issues that matter and I tell them the biggest thing you can do to help me is tell 10 people about me and to go vote June 2. We need about 50,000 votes to win the primary,” he said.

McNeal is not critical of Rounds and conceded “he is very popular” but said Rounds has not done enough to tackle the country’s growing fiscal deficit.

“I don’t think Mike is doing a bad job. I’m just concerned with the federal debt and the people that got us into that mess are not going to be the ones to get us out of it,” McNeal said.

“This is going to cripple the country. It just seems like politicians are focused on what they can bring to their home district or home state. And the problem with that is every member of Congress is doing the same thing, so everyone is taking and taking without making sure we can pay for it.”

South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.

by South Dakota Searchlight, ICT
May 28, 2026

This story was originally published by South Dakota Searchlight.

Makenzie Huber
South Dakota Searchlight

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gutted a key provision of a voting rights law won’t affect South Dakota’s legislative districts until 2031 — but Native American voting rights advocates aren’t waiting to worry.

The decision in Louisiana v. Callais dismantled guardrails protecting the electoral power of Black, Hispanic and other racial minority voters enshrined in the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law barring racial discrimination in voting.

The 6-3 decision effectively nullified a provision called Section 2, which had required states to draw electoral maps giving racial minorities a fair chance to elect their preferred candidates.

Greg Lembrich, legal director for Four Directions, a South Dakota-based Native American voting rights advocacy organization, is concerned about the ruling.

“It’s a layer of protection that’s now been taken down by the U.S. Supreme Court and makes it that much easier to deprive minority voters of the full weight of their voting rights,” Lembrich said, “and a lot harder for voters with diluted voting rights to challenge those decisions in court.”

South Dakota has a strained relationship with the federal law. Some of the state’s redistricting changes in the last 50 years stem from requirements enforced at the federal level — and a majority of Native Americans who’ve earned seats in the Legislature have been elected from districts influenced by the law.

What the ruling means for South Dakota

The Supreme Court ruling has already set off redistricting battles in some states that have multiple members of the U.S. House of Representatives. That won’t happen in South Dakota, where the state’s small population entitles it to only one member of the House.

But the Legislature is required by the state constitution to redraw its districts every 10 years after the census. When that happens next in 2031, advocates will lose the legal tools they used to create and defend Native-majority districts. Under the old Section 2 standard, a map could be challenged by showing it had a discriminatory effect — even without proving intent. Now, challengers must prove lawmakers deliberately discriminated.

“It’s very hard to prove intentional discrimination,” Lembrich said. “People who are doing something to intentionally discriminate usually don’t admit that’s what they’re doing.”

In South Dakota, Section 2 caused the creation of split districts — single districts divided into subdistricts, each electing one state House member, with both sharing one at-large state senator. Districts 26 and 28, which include the Rosebud, Lower Brule, Crow Creek, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock reservations, are split districts.

The structure gives Native American voters the power to elect a candidate of their choice without stripping non-Native voters of the same opportunity, Lembrich said. District 27, which includes the Pine Ridge Reservation, has a majority Native American voting population.

Former Republican lawmaker Jim Bolin, who represented the Canton area, served on the 2011 and 2021 redistricting committees — both of which produced district maps that avoided litigation. He said lawmakers on the committees in both years went “out of their way” to include Native American voters and “ensure the Native American population would be able to win an election.”

In 2011, the Legislature expanded District 26 to include the Crow Creek and Lower Brule reservations.

In 2021, the Legislature consolidated a large urban Native population in northern Rapid City into one district rather than splitting it, and a Democrat was elected from District 32 for the first time in 18 years. The Legislature also expanded District 26 to follow Crow Creek reservation lines rather than county lines, and the voting population for Native-heavy districts was kept lower to avoid diluting Native voters.

Lembrich isn’t sure legislative leaders will feel compelled to redraw those districts dramatically in 2031. Although many of the Native Americans who have been elected to the Legislature have been Democrats, Republicans currently hold 97 of the Legislature’s 105 positions.

“Republicans consistently have a super majority in both chambers,” Lembrich said. “They don’t need the extra seats. It may not be worth the PR and the lawsuits of trying to change it.”

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This is the second installment in a four-part series profiling the four candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor of South Dakota.

DELL RAPIDS, S.D. – The city of Dell Rapids, roughly 20 miles north of Sioux Falls, labels itself “The Little City with the Big Attractions.” And it’s here, in a relatively humble law office off the main road leading into town, News Watch met with one of its biggest current draws.

Over the past few weeks, state House Speaker Jon Hansen has enjoyed a growing prominence in the race to be the Republican nominee for governor.

After polling at just 2% when he initially announced his candidacy in April of last year, Hansen, who at 40 is the youngest in the race, now finds himself within striking distance of being one of the two candidates that could make a potential runoff.

In a poll commissioned by News Watch and the Chiesmen Center for Democracy last month, Hansen, a lawyer by training, drew 18% of support from potential GOP primary voters.

If no candidate receives at least 35% of the vote on June 2, the runoff will be held eight weeks later, on July 28. The winner of that contest will meet Democrat Dan Ahlers, also of Dell Rapids, in the Nov. 3 general election.

So what does Hansen put his steady rise in the race down to after spending the previous few months being viewed as the long shot candidate?

“The debates were a huge factor because people across South Dakota were able to line up those four candidates on the stage and take a measure and get a sense of who is honest and who is genuine,” Hansen told News Watch.

In a poll of viewers after the first GOP gubernatorial debate on KELO-TV in March, Hansen was seen as the winner, while observers were also left impressed by his performance in the second debate co-moderated by News Watch and SDPB.

“The more people have been able to line up the four candidates, the more they have been coming our direction,” Hansen said.

In the same News Watch/Chiesman poll from last month, 27% of respondents did not know Hansen, which, some observers believe, could indicate he has the most potential of the four candidates to grow his support.

“A lot of people hadn’t heard of us and in large part, it’s never been about us. Karla and I have been fighting for the issues. We’re not big self-promoters,” Hansen said, referring to his running mate for lieutenant governor, Karla Lems.

From tragedy to political awakening

Hansen’s early childhood was marked by the death of his father, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Hansen describes the experience as “awful” but that it allowed him, his mother and his sister to grow closer.

“For awhile it was just my mom, my sister and I, and what really pulled us through that was the unconditional love we had for each other,” Hansen said.

His mother eventually remarried and they moved from Yankton, where he was born, to Dell Rapids, where he has lived for most of his adult life.

He said he had fond memories growing up in Dell Rapids, but he wasn’t the best of students. He also wasn’t interested in politics.

Hansen said that all changed when he got a job working at the local movie theater, where he befriended a female coworker involved in the pro-life movement.

“One day she brought up the issue of abortion and, after we had a bit of a back and forth, I told her. ‘I don’t get it. The baby doesn’t even know the baby exists. I don’t see what the big deal is?’ Then it got real quiet and I noticed that she started to cry. In that moment, I realized there was something I was missing,” Hansen said.

“I think a lot of people have those moments that get them engaged in the political process,” he said.

Hansen said the conversation not only awakened his desire to enter the political arena but that it also reconnected him to his Catholic faith.

He is married to his high school sweetheart, Sheila, and they have six children.

Hansen subsequently got involved in anti-abortion campaigns in 2006 and 2008, which didn’t turn out the way he wanted. In both years, South Dakota voters rejected initiatives that would have instituted a near-total ban on abortions.

“The pro-life side lost those fights, but it started the journey I’m on now.”

After completing an internship at the South Dakota Legislature during college, in 2010 Hansen successfully won an open seat in the state House against a Democratic opponent who, it turned out, was his high school government teacher.

“Believe me, he never saw it coming because I was not a good high school student,” Hansen joked.

Hansen served one term and, after his return to the Legislature in 2019, played a role in South Dakota eventually enacting an abortion ban in 2022. On the campaign trail, he has also touted his involvement in defeating Amendment G in 2024, which would have enshrined the right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution.

‘In the arena’

Hansen said his work on abortion underscores his ability to deliver for the conservative Republican agenda.

“I’ve not just talked. I’ve been in the arena fighting the fight on the issues,” Hansen said.

Besides abortion, Hansen also highlighted his work to lower property taxes, which has come under heavy scrutiny from one of his primary challengers, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson.

In recent weeks, Johnson has utilized his significant campaign war chest to attack Hansen’s role in the passage of a series of bills during this year’s legislative session that, in some fashion, lower property taxes in exchange for raising sales taxes.

In particular, there is Senate Bill 245, which will create a property tax relief fund using money generated from the planned 0.3% sales tax increase set to take effect next year.

Former Gov. Kristi Noem enacted a law in 2023 that lowered the sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2% until 2027. Efforts to make the measure permanent were rejected in the state Senate.

Hansen said Johnson’s claims that Hansen has raised sales taxes are “disingenuous” and pointed out that, at least when it comes to the scheduled sales tax increase, it was a case of trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for South Dakotans to give out tax breaks to some of the world’s richest tech companies. They want to come to South Dakota, they can pay taxes just like everyone else.”
– Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Hansen

“We (the state House) wanted to make the cut permanent, but we didn’t have the votes in the Senate. Every year after, we tried to make that sales tax cut permanent and every year the Senate didn’t have the votes,” Hansen said. “So the reality is it was going up anyway.”

“The next best thing we could build a consensus around was take all that money, dollar for dollar, and put that towards property tax relief,” Hansen said, arguing that the break in property taxes will outweigh any rise in sales taxes.

Hansen said if he were to ascend to the top job in Pierre, he would focus on examining state finances to see where he could potentially cut more taxes.

“We’re going to look at our state budget and cut government spending and use that savings to provide more tax relief,” he said.

Hansen said he also wants to clean up what he sees as a culture of grift in Pierre that favors larger corporations over small businesses.

“It’s a breeding ground for corruption. You see it when people who sit on the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board dole out money to certain companies then get executive jobs with those companies,” Hansen said, citing the recent example of CJ Schwan’s, a food manufacturer that hired a former GOED commissioner and received $69 million in state grants and loans.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate. It seems very Washington, D.C.-esque to me,” Hansen said.

Hansen’s hostility toward larger corporations is further illustrated by another piece of key legislation he passed in this past session.

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Along with Senate President Pro Tempore Chris Karr, Hansen passed Senate Bill 135, dubbed the Data Center Bill of Rights for Citizens, which puts certain restrictions in place for any future data center project.

He ruled out being open to providing data center companies any special tax privileges to operate in the state.

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for South Dakotans to give out tax breaks to some of the world’s richest tech companies,” Hansen said. “They want to come to South Dakota, they can pay taxes just like everyone else.”

With the campaign entering the final stretch, what’s his strategy to win over voters before they vote?

“We’re going to continue being positive, share our vision of the state and show our track record of results,” Hansen said.

South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.