Rapid City, South Dakota is the second largest city in South Dakota and is located in Pennington County. The city has a rich political culture with an active and engaged citizenry. Rapid City is served by a mayor-council form of government, with the mayor and city council members being elected to serve four-year terms. Recent elections have seen the election of Republicans to the Mayor's office and City Council, though Rapid City does not strongly favor one party over another. The city has played an important role in the state politics as well, often choosing candidates from both parties for statewide offices. In addition to electing local officials, citizens of Rapid City are heavily involved in advocating for policies that benefit their community, such as improved infrastructure and economic development.
The political climate in Rapid City, SD is somewhat conservative.
Pennington County, SD is strongly conservative. In Pennington County, SD 35.8% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 61.0% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 3.2% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Pennington county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 61.0% to 35.8%.
Pennington county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Rapid City, SD is somewhat conservative.
Pennington County, South Dakota is strongly conservative.
Rapid City Metro Area is strongly conservative.
South Dakota is strongly conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Rapid City, South Dakota: R R R R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Rapid City, SD
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 3,401 contributions totaling $271,399 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $80 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 1,808 contributions totaling $557,391 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $308 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)