Rhoden doesn’t want to follow in footsteps of Wollman and Miller
Gov. Larry Rhoden is trying to avoid the fate of two of his predecessors: Being denied his party’s nomination for a full term.
Rhoden took office on Jan. 25, 2025, when Kristi Noem resigned to join President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Wonder how that is working out?
Anyway, Rhoden was a veteran hand in Pierre, serving six years in the state Senate and two in the state House of Representatives before becoming Noem’s running mate in 2018 and 2022. He even filled in as secretary of agriculture for a few months in 2020.
Now, he wants to serve as governor in his own right, but the Republican gubernatorial primary is a dogfight and a scrawny but fierce canine called Dusty is the big dog in the scrap. Based on recent polls, Congressman Dustin Michael “Dusty” Johnson is leading three other candidates and stands a pretty good chance of earning at least 35% of the vote, which would win him the nomination.
That seems like an odd figure. Why not 50% to ensure the winner really has the support of the party? There’s a chance a nominee could be selected with almost two-thirds of the party faithful opposed to their candidacy.
But those are the rules we are playing by, and Rhoden, as well as state Speaker of the House Jon Hansen and Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden, are stuck with it. They are hoping to keep Dusty beneath 35% and then defeat him in a runoff.
That wasn’t an option for two other governors who took office to fill a vacancy.
Democrat Harvey Wollman was only in office for a little more than five months, and he assumed the job as a lame duck. A change in state law had allowed Gov. Dick Kneip to seek a third term in 1974 — this time four years instead of two.
He won, and remains the last Democrat to be elected governor. No other state has had such an extended run of one-party rule.
Four years later, Kneip was offered the position of ambassador to Singapore by President Jimmy Carter, and Lt. Gov. Wollman sought the 1978 Democratic gubernatorial nomination. But so did state Sen. Roger McKellips of Alcester, and McKellips defeated Wollman in the June 8 primary.
That meant when Wollman became governor on July 24, he already was assured of serving a short time in office. That fall, McKellips was defeated by Attorney General Bill Janklow, a Republican who would go on to serve four terms as governor.
Over the years, I discussed that year’s race with Wollman, McKellips and Janklow. They all had different memories of it, of course.
Wollman blamed a wet spring and a sunny day for his defeat. He told me farmers were a major part of his base, and many were behind in their field work. The weather was great on primary day, Wollman recalled, and that kept them working instead of voting.
He also said Janklow told him he was relieved to see McKellips win the primary, saying running against a seated governor with a strong rural base would have been a bigger challenge. At least, that was Wollman’s story. Janklow never entered an election he didn’t expect to win.
I have been told by Democrats that the 1974 gubernatorial primary, when Lt. Gov. Bill Dougherty challenged Kneip, and the hotly contested 1978 primary divided the party and hurt it deeply. Some claim it has never recovered, and the results back that up.
McKellips returned to the South Dakota Senate and served seven more terms. He was the last Democrat to serve as majority leader. He died in 2017 at 94. Wollman was 87 when he died in 2022.
The other South Dakota governor who was not elected to the office was Republican Walter Dale Miller, who took office under tragic circumstances. Gov. George S. Mickelson and seven other men were killed in a plane crash while on a trade mission on April 19, 1993.
Like Rhoden, Miller had extensive experience in state government. He had served 20 years in the state House of Representatives, including a two-year stretch as speaker of the House, before he joined Mickelson’s ticket in 1986.
They won a pair of terms. Mickelson was just 52, widely popular and his political future seemed bright, with a run for the Senate a distinct possibility. Miller, who was 67 when he took office, was not seen as a contender for high office.
But once he was governor, he decided he liked the job and wanted to hold onto it for a full term. He announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination in 1994. But there was another candidate who wanted the job, too — Bill Janklow.
I covered Janklow several times during that race. It was his comeback after eight years out of public office, but he had not been forgotten. Janklow’s bold, brash style was unlike any other South Dakota politician I have covered and a lot of voters liked it. Some despised it.
Like Trump, Janklow stirred strong emotions. Unlike Trump, Janklow had the intelligence and drive to establish goals and achieve them. Trump is bluster and braggadocio; Janklow was the real thing, like him or not.
The 1994 Republican gubernatorial primary was hotly contested, with a former governor trying to defeat a sitting state leader. I recall the Argus Leader publishing a poll showing Miller with a solid lead; it didn’t match with what I was seeing and hearing on the campaign.
Janklow won and went on to win two more terms as governor. He is the only four-term governor in state history. Wild Bill was just 72 when he died in 2012. Miller was a week shy of his 90th birthday when he died in 2015.
Rhoden doesn’t want to follow in the political footsteps of Wollman or Miller. He hopes to get into a head-to-head battle with Johnson and earn the right to win a full term. The last three weeks of the contest should be highly entertaining for political buffs, as the TV ads continue to inundate us and the knives and words get sharper.
If Rhoden is defeated, he could take solace in a post-governor tenure like Wollman and Miller, both of whom enjoyed long and active lives. Right now, he’s in a fight for his political future.
Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states for four decades. He has contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Do not republish without permission.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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