Rhoden defeats Doeden by almost 50,000 votes in historic gubernatorial runoff election
PIERRE – On Tuesday, July 28, Gov. Larry Rhoden trounced challenger Toby Doeden in the historic Republican party gubernatorial runoff election in South Dakota.
With all 650 statewide precincts reporting, the unofficial totals show Rhoden winning with 83,582 votes (71%) over the 34,430 votes (29%) for Doeden, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
This represents a total of 117,907 ballots cast to bring in a 35.84% Republican voter turnout.
On June 2, in the full primary election, Doeden finished in first place among four candidates with 41,712 votes (31%). Rhoden finished next with 34,321 votes (25%).
U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson earned a third-place finish with 23% of the vote, and State Rep. John Hansen of Dell Rapids finished last with 21%.
Under Republican rules, with multiple candidates in a primary, the person selected to represent the party in the general election must finish with at least 35% of ballots cast.
For the first time in South Dakota history, that did not happen, and the runoff election had to be held to pick their candidate.
However, while Doeden finished with about the same percentage of votes as he had in the June 2 primary, Rhoden picked up a number equal to most of the vote percentages from the other two candidates.
In Minnehaha County, the ballot totals followed closely to the overall state percentages, with 72% for Rhoden and 28% for Doeden.
Rhoden, a rancher in Meade County, east of Sturgis, took over as South Dakota’s governor in January of 2025 when Gov. Kristi Noem resigned to go work for the Trump administration as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a position she was fired from last March.
Rhoden served as South Dakota’s Lieutenant Governor under Noem from 2019 to 2025.
Doeden, an Aberdeen businessman, was making his first run for public office in this race for governor.
Rhoden will now face Democratic candidate Dan Ahlers of Dell Rapids in the general election on Nov. 3.
