Kristi Noem's MAGA star is rising—but she isn’t running away with her Trump-country race.
to campaign with her in Rapid City and Sioux Falls.showed her with a 19-point lead. She is also buttressed by an enormous financial advantage, with her campaign reporting back in May that it had raised $15 million in support of her reelection. Smith told me in October that his campaign was “closing in on a million.
Smith has criticized Noem for her legal challenge that overturned an amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that was approved by voters in 2020, and he supports a new legalization proposal that will appear on this year’s ballot. South Dakota voters will also decide on an amendment to expand Medicaid in the state, a proposal that Smith has championed.
Noem’s close call four years ago may have emboldened him to mount a long shot challenge, but Smith has drawn the recipe for an upset from another past campaign in the state.
Smith believes that message is striking a chord with the state’s GOP-heavy electorate, saying he’s been told by “people from the farthest-right portions of the Republican Party” that they intend to vote for him. It might not just be anecdotal. The SDSU poll suggested a softness in Noem’s support among South Dakota’s dominant bloc, with 7% of Republican voters backing Smith and 13% saying they are undecided.
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