South Dakota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The state has a republican-controlled government, and citizens are represented in both the federal and state governments. Politically South Dakota is largely conservative. Its congressional delegation includes two Republicans in both houses of Congress, and its legislature is dominated by the Republican Party. Furthermore, the current governor of South Dakota is Kristi Noem, a Republican who was elected in 2018. Noem is strongly committed to reducing taxes, advocating for military veterans, and supporting work-based education efforts throughout the state. In addition, she seeks to improve rural infrastructure through increased funding for projects such as roads and bridges. Furthermore, Noem believes in limited government intervention within private industry. She has been praised for her fiscal conservatism as well as her willingness to reach across party lines to find common ground on important issues facing South Dakota.
The political climate in South Dakota is strongly conservative.
In South Dakota 35.6% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 61.8% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.6% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, South Dakota remained overwhelmingly Republican, 61.8% to 35.6%.
South Dakota voted Republican in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
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.
South Dakota, 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 for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R 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 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 four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in South Dakota
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 22,569 contributions totaling $2,285,213 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $101 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 14,725 contributions totaling $5,930,846 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $403 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)