Poll: Republicans Trump, Dusty Johnson hold sizable leads in South Dakota
The Public Utilities Commission race is also lopsided in favor of the GOP candidate, according to a statewide survey co-sponsored by News Watch.
Nearly 6 in 10 South Dakotans plan to vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election, according to a scientific poll of 500 registered voters co-sponsored by South Dakota News Watch.
Trump holds a lead of 59% to 33% over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the survey, which was also sponsored by the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota.
The other two statewide candidate races on South Dakota's Nov. 5 ballot are also lopsided in favor of Republicans, according to the survey, which was conducted Oct. 12-16 by Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Those interviewed were selected randomly from a telephone-matched state voter registration list that included both landline and cellphone numbers. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter registration by county.
Stu Whitney
U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson and Public Utilities Commissioner Kristie Fiegen are well ahead in their re-election bids, with Johnson leading Democratic challenger Sheryl Johnson 61% to 24% and Fiegen polling at 50% in a three-candidate field.
"In most Great Plains states, the Democratic Party 'brand' is toxic to 50% of the electorate and probably 50% of the independents," said Michael Card, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. "Few seem to deviate from party registration, and these numbers reflect that."
Trump's 59% showing is up since a similar poll in May, which had him at 50% and President Joe Biden at 31%. Biden dropped out of the race July 21 and was replaced on the ticket with Harris, who chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Trump's favorability stays steady at 48%
In the May poll, some of Trump's support was siphoned by Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was at 11% at the time in South Dakota. Kennedy suspended his campaign Aug. 23 and asked his supporters to back Trump, though his name still appears on the South Dakota ballot.
Stu Whitney
Trump's odds of seizing three electoral votes in deep-red South Dakota were never in doubt, considering the state has not favored a Democrat presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
But a closer look at the numbers shows the immutability of the former president's support in the Mount Rushmore State, where his favorability rating is 48%. That rating, which gauges a political figure's popularity, has remained between 47% and 50% for Trump in five consecutive Mason-Dixon polls dating back to October 2018.
The most recent poll found that 35% of statewide voters have an unfavorable view of Trump, the same percentage as the survey in May.
Harris eclipses Biden's support from Dems
With RFK Jr. still technically on the ballot, it's an open question whether Trump will match his previous vote share of 62% in South Dakota the last two presidential cycles – against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Trump won the presidency in 2016 and lost in 2020.
The former Manhattan real estate mogul and reality TV star remains one of the most polarizing figures in American political history. The poll of South Dakotans has his favorability at 72% among Republicans and 8% among Democrats. He's also more popular overall with men (54%) than women (42%).
In terms of vote share, Trump is strongest in the West River region that includes Pennington County/Rapid City, where he won with 61% in 2020. The News Watch poll has him at 64% in that region, compared to 55% in the Sioux Falls area.
The switch from Biden to Harris moved the meter somewhat for Democrats in South Dakota, but not to significant effect. It's hard to compare Harris' 33% vote share in the most recent poll to Biden's 31% in May because of the RFK Jr. factor.
The vice president's 85% vote share among Democrats surpassed Biden (75%) from the poll in May, reflecting the energy of her campaign and concerns about Biden's age, even before a poor June debate performance accelerated the end of his candidacy.
Among all South Dakota voters polled, Harris was at 34% favorable and 57% unfavorable, compared to Biden's 25% and 58% in May. That includes 39% favorability among female voters and 27% among males.
Poll shows Dusty Johnson over 60%
Three-term Republican incumbent Dusty Johnson holds a commanding lead of 61% to 24% in the News Watch poll over Democrat Sheryl Johnson, a retired education assistant from Sioux Falls who is seeking her first elected office.
The 48-year-old congressman, facing his first major-party general election challenge since 2018, is favored by 88% of Republican respondents, along with 36% of Independents (24% undecided) and 29% of Democrats (28% undecided).
Dusty Johnson's name recognition and mainstream Republican support – not to mention his opponent's financial inability to challenge him on air – has allowed him to tamp down criticism that he's focused on running for governor in 2026.
"The proof is in the pudding," he told News Watch. "I think anybody who knows me knows that I am driven every single day to be effective. No matter what the future holds, nothing's going to change that."
Part of Sheryl Johnson's strategy was to curry favor among populist Republicans and Independents by siding with landowners in the dispute over carbon pipelines, an approach that saw her attend several "No on Referred Law 21" community meetings.
Stu Whitney
At the same time, she voiced her support for Amendment G to put an end to South Dakota's abortion ban, though she framed it as a federal issue. Dusty Johnson responded that he would respect the will of voters but that he planned to vote against the measure.
Sheryl Johnson has nearly 40% support among Independents in the poll, with plenty of undecideds. But her failure to crack 50% among Democrats and the fact that 88% of Republicans are sticking with Dusty – who has clashed at times with the populist wing of his party – shows the daunting challenge that she faced.
Despite the well-worn maxim of all politics being local, Card said the current predicament facing South Dakota's junior party is more about politics becoming national.
"While local Democrats may not go for all policy planks of the national party, their opposition focuses on those more extreme (national) positions," said the USD professor. "With confirmation bias, people focus on what they already believe about the party."
Fiegen has solid PUC lead, with room to grow
Another Republican incumbent, Fiegen, has a comfortable lead in her re-election bid as chairperson of the Public Utilities Commission, according to the poll.
The statewide survey shows her at 50%, followed by Democratic nominee Forrest Wilson (23%) and Libertarian Party candidate Gideon Oakes (8%), with 19% undecided.
Fiegen, a Chancellor native who served in the South Dakota House of Representatives from 1994 to 2001, was appointed to the PUC by former Gov. Dennis Daugaard in 2011 and was elected to new terms in 2012 and 2018.
She has campaigned on her experience and leadership roles on the three-member PUC, which regulates electric, natural gas and telephone utilities and issues permits for energy projects and pipelines.
Fiegen won with 66% of the statewide vote in a two-person race in 2018.
Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen, expects her election night share to be higher than the 50% reflected in the poll because of a large number of undecided voters. The survey showed that 76% of Republicans plan to vote for Fiegen, with 12% undecided.
"The only reason she isn’t up by more is that when you poll a lot of people on PUC, that polling question is the first time they’ve ever heard of the PUC," said Schaff. "Thus, the high number of undecideds. So she’ll win based on party ID."
Fiegen's challengers haven't run high-profile campaigns, making it harder to cut into the GOP incumbent's electoral advantages. Wilson, the Democrat, does lead with Independent voters with 33% compared to Fiegen's 21%, but he only has a 54% vote share within his own party, with nearly 30% still undecided.
This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit news organization. Read more in-depth stories at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email every few days to get stories as soon as they're published. Contact Stu Whitney at at stu.whitney@sdnewswatch.org.
