Unaffiliated candidate Bengs gaining on incumbent Earth hater

NPR also reported this on Wednesday. "Major super PACs and investment-backed groups have injected close to $1 million into South Dakota’s 2026 U.S. Senate race, significantly outspending the contributions from local residents. According to a report by WIRED, Rounds has received roughly $600,000 in outside backing. The majority of this funding originated from Defend American Jobs, a super PAC that receives financial backing from a separate super PAC funded by the prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz."

Only four individuals funded Mike Rounds’ Super PAC this cycle. One of them appears in the Epstein files hundreds of times, years after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. https://t.co/Q8P4cRDm5w

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) October 7, 2026

VoteHub ratings change US Senate South Dakota Safe R—>Likely R https://t.co/dek82LMCxW

— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) October 4, 2026

SDSU Student's Association recognizes college land grab

Despite the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862 that distributed unceded lands in the public domain to raise funds for colleges. 

After the defeat of the 7th Cavalry at Greasy Grass in 1876 and the Great Sioux War Congress abrogated that treaty in 1877 and the Utes, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne and others who migrated, lived and hunted all along the Front Range were driven into concentration camps.

In 1980 attorney Mario Gonzalez filed the federal court case stopping payment of the Black Hills Claim award to the Oglala Lakota Nation. Gonzalez contends that the commission charged to make peace with tribes inserted language into the Fort Laramie Treaty signed in 1868 that Red Cloud had neither seen nor agreed to in negotiations. 

In 2019 during an episode of The Keepers, a podcast produced by the Kitchen Sisters and NPR, the lead Archivist at the National Archives told listeners lawyers are combing the records for treaties with tribal nations none of which have been honored by the United States.

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are directly linked to the Native American Genocide and South Dakota State University is just one of those offenders. SDSU was funded using 160,000 acres of land-grant scrip or parcels. A significant portion of the lands allocated for South Dakota's land-grant fund came from territory originally recognized under treaties with the Sioux (Oceti Sakowin) nations, including the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and subsequent agreements that were systematically altered or violated by the federal government as white settlement expanded.

Ordinance 26-1-O passed during Monday night’s Students’ Association (SA) meeting, establishing a formal and acknowledgement for all SA Senate Meetings. The ordinance was created in collaboration with the American Indian Students’ Association (AISA). SDSU’s land acknowledgement, created through the Wokini Initiative, will be read after the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each SA meeting. Senator At-Large Paul Fasen said he spoke with members of his constituency after initially reading the ordinance and asked them whether or not they care about the land acknowledgement. “Resoundingly, the constituents that I talked to said that they didn’t care,” Fasen said. “One person actually said that he would prefer it if we didn’t include this land grant.” [Students’ Association passes land acknowledgement]

Earth hater Mike Rounds declines debate chance

Unaffiliated US Senate candidate, Brian Bengs took the opportunity to expose short guy career politician and Earth hater, Reich Mike Rounds on Bill Janklow's idea of public teevee.

Sunday, I wrote about how I would participate in a one-man debate on South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I say “one-man” because my opponent, incumbent Senator Mike Rounds, refused to accept the invitation and refused to work out an alternative date.

Fortunately, his absence moved the debate into more of a conversation, which I am much more familiar with from my time standing at the front of classrooms speaking to a hundred or more people. It was a great conversation, and I appreciate the opportunity SDPB provided through their invitation.

In most of my Substack articles, I try to focus on a specific subject. Today will be a little different. I got to make the case for my candidacy to the people of South Dakota. Now, I’d like to make that same case to you. If you happened to tune in to the “debate” last night, this will all sound familiar.

Readers who have kept up with the campaign know that I try to keep a wide view of all issues, because the role of U.S. Senator is an important job that impacts millions of people, not just the constituents in my home state. However, I have four main priorities right now, shaped by the concerns I’ve been hearing on the campaign trail for the last several months:

1. Get Big Money out of politics.

2. Halt new data center construction.

3. Establish term limits.

4. End this forever war with Iran.

Some of these priorities are sweeping issues in our political system that I am running to address, and some are more recent developments that have taken shape over the course of this campaign. However, it all ties into one concept: Corruption.

Corruption has seeped into our politics and planted roots in our government. It is causing our career politicians to focus their attention on interests that do not share the same priorities as regular folks back home.The most clear and plain corruption is the legalized bribery we see through our campaign finance system. Wealthy interests and individuals can write checks for huge sums of money to candidates, while regular people’s voices are crowded out of the room. It needs to be stopped.

It ties into the next point about data centers. As I wrote on Sunday, my opponent has accepted more contributions from Big Tech data center interests than he’s gotten from South Dakotans. They don’t spend that kind of money without a goal in mind, so I think it’s simply logical to pump the brakes on data center construction until we can get a strong, reliable framework of guardrails up to protect local communities. That is the job of a U.S. Senator, and my incumbent opponent isn’t doing it.

Next, term limits. I know this is one of my more contentious position. Many folks argue that with experience comes better governance, but we haven’t seen that in reality. Despite the widespread adoption of the internet decades ago, most of Congress has no idea how it works. With AI on the horizon and the nationwide push from Big Tech for more data centers, do we really want the same career politicians who can’t keep up with the times? I certainly don’t think so.

Finally, this forever war with Iran. It shouldn’t have started in the first place. Congress didn’t fulfill its Constitutional responsibility to approve or disapprove of military action beforehand. It didn’t ask questions like “what are the objectives?” or “what does victory look like?” Now, we’re apparently stuck in an endless war, with diesel prices climbing and pushing up the cost of everything else regular folks need. You might have thought the “Endless War” lesson would have been learned long ago by Washington politicians. You would be wrong.

It all goes back to corruption. Career politicians like my opponent have grown too comfortable in their positions, as their campaigns rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from Big Money. They’ve abandoned their duties in favor of power, but I’m running to put a stop to it.

South Dakotans want something new. They are as furious as I am that Washington is fueled by corruption. I’ve spoken to thousands and thousands of people who have said so. What started as a little idea to be an Independent voice for South Dakota has grown into a full-blown movement. This November, we’re going to start delivering some real change.

Thank you for reading.

Brian L. Bengs, Lt Col (Ret)

Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate

Mike Rounds thinks it’s appropriate to have a META data center lobbyist on his staff receiving a salary funded by South Dakotan taxpayers.

I’m calling on him to terminate this staffer, release the paperwork that allegedly approved this arrangement, and commit to a ban on… pic.twitter.com/YYLBQ1qRTf

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) September 14, 2026