The Battle for South Dakota

Editor, TTN, June 24, 2026

Anxious

I am headed to the Republican conference in Rapid City, SD. I don’t know anyone there. I have never been to this conference or one like it. Although I have been to many, many technical conventions and conferences. I hope to see Scott Presley (@ScottPresler) there (AKA The Persistence). Scott has made a name for himself by doing voter registration drives, holding events in states whose legislators are not supporting what people voted for when they gave Republicans the White House, as well as Senate and House majorities and has energized the base - in way that incumbent Republican’s don’t seem interested in doing. But I don’t know Scott, I only know of him. Hopefully that changes if we connect.

You can just do things.

But sometimes the “just doing “ will take you clean out of your comfort zone. And the “just doing” in this case is to gauge the temperature and the readiness of South Dakotans for moving on from John Thune, the current senate majority leader.

Senator Thune has clearly been acting to thwart President Trump’s agenda wherever possible. He certainly (or his political funders) don’t care for election integrity and so he is not pushing the Save America Act through the Senate. The No Cash For Terrorists act has also been sitting on his desk - and we’ve sent ~$750 million to the Taliban since it landed there. He has also been refusing to recess the Senate even though they have only been in D.C. about 50% of the time - and blocking the President’s appointments via pro forma sessions while they do it. As I write this the Senate has decided to take a 19 day break... because they've been working so hard apparently.

Even though Tillis (NC), Cassidy (LA), and Cornyn (TX) have all been primaried or decided not to run in the face of being primaried, as they faced the wrath of voters, Thune is still stonewalling the President's agenda. Clearly the message has not been getting through, so we’re taking the fight to him, on his home turf.

I’m ready to be a little bit uncomfortable in an effort to make Thune even more so. Tomorrow, the battle for South Dakota begins.