If he wins the race, will Jackley be a rubber stamp for Trump?
South Dakota has a number of important statewide election contests this fall. Our new Governor, Larry Rhoden, won a surprising landslide in the Republican runoff election over Toby Doeden, the extreme right-wing multimillionaire who had come in first in the primary but failed to clear the 35% threshold required for victory.
Rhoden faces Democrat Dan Ahlers, a seasoned former legislator and Democratic Party leader who lost the U.S. Senate race to Mike Rounds back in 2020.
Rounds, who has supported virtually all of Donald Trump's policies, is seeking a third term in the Senate, but his only opponent is Brian Bengs, running as an Independent, now that the Democratic nominee, Julian Beaudion, withdrew from the race at the last possible minute.
Bengs was the Democratic candidate for Senate against John Thune in 2022, shortly after he moved to South Dakota, and changed his voter registration back to Independent within weeks after his loss. Bengs likes to point out that he worked briefly as a ranger at Wind Cave National Park and is currently living in a camper while he builds a house to live in.
Perhaps our most interesting statewide race is for U.S. Congress, since there is no incumbent running after Dusty Johnson finished a dismal third in the Republican primary for Governor. The Republicans nominated Marty Jackley, who has served as Attorney General and as U.S. Attorney over the years. Democrats are running Nikki Gronli, who made friends around the state when she served as our rural development director in the US Department of Agriculture, and has been campaigning tirelessly and holding town halls wherever people are willing to gather.
"Nikki G for SD", who stands barely five feet tall, has put forth a program that includes fighting the fertilizer industry and meatpackers who are strangling our beleaguered family farmers, opposition to federal tax breaks for AI data centers, standing up to Donald Trump's tariffs on necessary farm inputs, as well as making Obamacare affordable for working families, improving health care on our reservations and working closely with tribal colleges, supporting early childhood education (Pre-K), and investing in rural schools and in the Disabilities Education Act.
You could say that Gronli does not want to leave any South Dakotan behind. Her positions are somewhat reminiscent of the last Democrat to represent this state in Washington, Senator Tim Johnson, who was never flashy but also never lost an election.
For his part, Jackley has always been a competent attorney. He has managed to keep the Attorney General's office out of the headlines for most of his tenure.
It is interesting that Jackley would want to go to Washington at this point in his career. The overwhelming suspicion would be that Jackley will be yet another rubber stamp for Trump, supporting the directionless war against Iran and economic policies that favor billionaires and that prevent local communities from reining in (or even prohibiting) data centers in their midst.
If Jackley does not intend to serve as a Republican rubber stamp, he needs to explain convincingly where he will stand up for his constituents and eschew the party line. Otherwise, moderate Republican voters and many Independents may want to split their tickets and vote for Nikki Gronli.
Jay Davis is a retired Rapid City attorney
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