Congressman Dusty Johnson has a potential challenger from his own party, and he’s decided to meet that challenge where it arose: West River.
Johnson, a first-term Republican, is from Mitchell. But he https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8B0OqDrYQw">launched his re-election campaign Wednesday exclusively in Rapid City and also said he’s putting his campaign headquarters there.
“Normally when announcements like this are made, if they’re going to be made in just one community, it would be Sioux Falls,” Johnson said. “Often it would be in Sioux Falls and Pierre and Rapid. We’re not doing that. We’re here. This is our one big launch. And there are some reasons for that, which of course might be obvious to you.”
Those obvious reasons include Pennington County’s reputation as a hotbed of conservatism. There are more than twice as many Republicans in the county as Democrats.
But there’s another possible reason Johnson is focusing on West River. That’s his potential challenger, former legislator Liz May, who’s a West River rancher from Kyle.
Several hours after Johnson’s event Wednesday at the Hotel Alex Johnson in downtown Rapid City, May hosted her own campaign event. It was directly across the street at the Elks Theatre, where her crowd was significantly smaller than Johnson’s.
She hosted a screening of the documentary “No Safe Spaces,” which argues that free speech is under attack in America. People involved with the documentary helped May make https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FhjjB3md8A">an attention-grabbing campaign video that features her riding a horse, working cattle and talking about “culling the herd” in Washington, D.C. She released the video online.
At the screening Wednesday evening, May said she wants to go to Washington to advocate for farmers and ranchers.
“We’re a minority. We’re a minority group, and yet we feed the world," May said. "Our farmers and ranchers feed this country and we feed the world. So it’s important to have somebody there that’s had that life experience. We can go to school and we can learn a lot of things, but there’s nothing that replaces the experience of actually doing it for a living.”
At Johnson’s event, he touted his support of a Mexico border wall, his votes against budget bills that failed to address the debt and deficit, his contribution to new work requirements for able-bodied adults on food stamps, and his opposition to the impeachment of President Trump, among other positions and accomplishments.
With their campaigns launched, a first order of business for both candidates is getting on the ballot. To do that, they each need petition signatures from 1,730 registered South Dakota Republicans by March 31. The primary election is June 2.