Olson handicaps SD Earth hater gubernatorial primary

Editor's note: South Dakota's favorite former teevee anchor, Shad Olson has seized the bullhorn.

In the deepening grassroots divide fostered by the 2026 South Dakota Governor's race, new polling data should signal a rightful end of conservative infighting and a reunifying of the Trump-DeSantis style schism between the Doeden and Hansen-Lems camps that remains the unpopular RINO establishment GOP's only pathway to a Dusty Johnson victory. Should rightfully be. Common sense pending. Fingers and rosaries crossed.

A new Dakota First Action poll shows Dusty Johnson clinging to a small (fitting) lead over Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden, 24 to 20%. Interim Governor Larry Rhoden is tied with Doeden at 20%, while the nearly single issue "property rights" ticket of Jon Hansen and Karla Lems tallies just 4%. Hansen draws only 1% support among voters West River, a region crucial to the grassroots given the disproportionate concentration of conservative MAGA voters out west.

As I've written previously, campaign funding disparities alone made Jon Hansen's gubernatorial bid a longshot at best and perhaps a prematurely timed first run for an executive seat he still might win at some date future tense, assuming animosities, bad organizational bedfellows (AFP) and self-inflicted legislative wounds from the disappointingly unproductive 2025 legislative session are quick to heal.

Best case scenario, Jon Hansen and his better known lieutenant governor choice, Karla Lems, agree on a graceful exit from the Governor's race, including a public condemnation for the petty sniping and frankly, ugly leftist cancel proclivities exhibited by some Hansen-Lems backers, the conservative base unifies splendidly and delivers a rightfully crushing body blow to the dying aristocracy of the establishment RINO turds, perhaps allowing Hansen a chance for Attorney General in a Governor Toby Doeden cabinet.

Worst case, heels are planted, scars are inflicted, and Hansen-Lems persist to the bitter end, likely with significant help from the Dusty-Thune-Rounds cheering section at Americans for Prosperity, terminally splitting the grassroots all the way to the ballot box and allowing tiny Dusty to inexplicably and undeservedly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

If defeating the South Dakota swamp is truly the priority of both grassroots camps in this spirited election cycle, calmer heads and altruism will win the day, keeping a comparatively deep grassroots bench fresh and unsullied by things like circular firing squads and self-inflicted defeat.

Time, tide, and a tidal wave of conservative political cash are still on the side of the populist political realignment both in America and here at home. It's time to put minute differences and teapot tempests aside and make the names on the deskplates, policies and priorities actually match all the ideological platitudes long emenating from ivory towers and cosemtically [sic] altered lips in Pierre. People who rack up the state credit cards with cosmetic procedures and Valentine's Day soirees, and nearly double the state budget in eight years before jetting off for adjacent condominiums with their 2028 Presidential campaign advisors.

We're all hoping and praying for the same thing: A Dusty Johnson defeat, and a state senate and chief executive that actually resemble the conservative house supermajority and the will of the people long ignored in South Dakota politics.

The numbers tell the time:

Dusty Johnson 24%

Toby Doeden 20%

Larry Rhoden. 20%

Jon Hansen 4%