Matt Shinners
South Dakota's U.S. Senate race collapsed into a two-candidate contest on August 4, when Democratic nominee Julian Beaudion withdrew, leaving independent Brian Bengs in a one-on-one race against Republican incumbent Mike Rounds.
State law required any such petition to be filed by 5pm on the first Tuesday in August, and Beaudion filed right under the deadline. The Secretary of State certified the request the same day. The state Democratic Party has said they don’t plan to nominate a replacement.
The structural argument Bengs made when IVN interviewed him in June was that the party label, not the candidate, was a key obstacle in a state where his own 2022 run as a Democrat ended at 26.1% against John Thune. He now gets to test that claim without a Democrat on the ballot.
Rounds is treating the consolidation as confirmation of his own framing, calling Bengs a “fake independent” being run by the Democratic Party in recent fundraising emails.
South Dakota is now the third Senate race where a Democrat cleared the field for an independent. David Roth exited in Idaho for Todd Achilles and Cindy Burbank withdrew in Nebraska ahead of Dan Osborn's challenge to Pete Ricketts (since that article was written, the challenge to her withdrawal has ended).
Contrast this with Montana, where Democrat Alani Bankhead has said she is staying in against Seth Bodnar, even as behind-the-scenes maneuvering suggests that that might change ahead of the August 10 deadline.
None of this changes the underlying reality on the ground in South Dakota.
Trump carried the state by just under 30 points in 2024, and Cook Political Report rates the seat Solid Republican. However, it significantly changes the math. In a three-way race, the anti-Rounds vote would be split between two candidates. Now, in a head-to-head without a Democrat, the test is whether the Independent can build a coalition that overcomes the strength of the incumbent.