South Dakota Democrats name candidates for statewide office
Three South Dakota Democratic candidates benefited from former President Joe Biden’s appearance in Sioux Falls on June 5.
Biden issued endorsements for Dan Ahlers for governor, Julian Beaudion for U.S. Senate and Nikki Gronli for the state’s lone U.S. House of Representatives seat. He said he was “proud” to do so.
“Dan Ahlers has spent his life fighting for small businesses and working families. He knows what it means to roll up your sleeves and do the work,” Biden said in a statement. “Julian Beaudion spent 13 years as a state trooper keeping South Dakotans safe, and now he's going to fight to make sure families can afford their health care and their kids can get a good education. Nikki Gronli has dedicated her career to making sure rural communities and family farmers get the support they need to not just survive, but thrive.
“These are good, decent people who know where they come from and who they're fighting for,” the former president said. “The people of South Dakota deserve leaders who will actually show up for them. For South Dakotans this November, that’s Dan, Julian and Nikki.”
Ahlers, Beaudion and Haley, who spoke after Biden at the McGovern Day Dinner, were officially nominated during the party’s state convention on June 6. Ahlers has yet to select a running mate.
The SDDP also nominated candidates for constitutional offices, including Raeann Mettler of Spearfish, who is running for commissioner of school and public lands. Mettler sought a Spearfish City Council seat in 2025 and ran for a school board position on June 2.
Tom Cool of Sioux Falls, who is running for state auditor. Cool also sought the office in 2018 and ran for secretary of state in 2022. He also has ran for the state Senate five times, losing each race.
Frank Kloucek of Scotland, a former longtime state legislator, is running for a seat on the Public Utilities Commission. Margaret Kuipers of Sioux Falls, who ran for a state House seat in 2022, is running for state treasurer. Terrence Davis of Sioux Falls is the party’s candidate for secretary of state. Davis, a former state trooper, has been campaigning for a year.
The party did not nominate a candidate for attorney general. It’s the second straight election without a Democratic candidate for the office.
State Reps. Erik Muckey of Sioux Falls and Eric Emery of Rosebud co-chaired the party gathering, with 192 of 204 eligible delegates from 37 counties present.
“Together, these delegates nominated our constitutional officer candidates for November, built a platform that reflects the best of South Dakota, and passed resolutions on what matters at our kitchen tables: investing in our kids' education, guaranteeing access to healthcare and housing, protecting the Constitution and our right to vote, restoring competitive markets for our farmers and ranchers, and guarding our communities and our grid from unregulated hyperscale data centers,” Muckey said in a Facebook post. “None of it came together overnight. It took weeks of deliberation, with every delegate sharing their voice and their ideas that now stand as the platform and policies of the South Dakota Democratic Party.
“I’m proud of the work delegates performed and was honored to hold the gavel throughout the deliberations over the platform and resolutions. The ideas proposed by everyday South Dakotans only get better when more people are at the table. I can only imagine how much richer the conversations would have been with even more representation from across the state.”
He said the SDDP has a lot of work to do to have a louder voice in state government. It has not elected a governor since 1974 and has not won a statewide race since 2008. Republicans hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers.
“Plenty of South Dakotans have walked away from this party over the past dysfunction, and plenty are frustrated with Democratic leaders in Congress and with the DNC,” Muckey said. “And right now, I see countless friends who feel so disenfranchised in South Dakota that they’re registering as Republicans to vote in primaries. While I’m sad to see that this is the state of things in South Dakota, I know it’s bigger than me and any one person. And I will do everything in my power to see that fellow South Dakotans have their rights to the democratic process preserved.”
Muckey said the people who came to the convention are willing to work to make a difference and enact change.
“A party platform or a candidate’s journey doesn’t begin in the halls of Congress or the White House,” he said. “It comes from the people, your neighbors in Parker and Timber Lake, Chamberlain and Webster, Vermillion and Mission, who answer you. That’s how this system works.”
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.
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