![Trump has sizable lead in South Dakota but shy of 2016 and 2020 numbers | Keynote USA Trump has sizable lead in South Dakota but shy of 2016 and 2020 numbers | Keynote USA](https://i0.wp.com/local.keynoteusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/AP24139825488890-e1716078692680.jpg?resize=1170%2C656&ssl=1)
SIOUX FALLS, SD – Republican candidate Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden by nearly 20 points in South Dakota, but is struggling to get more than half the vote statewide, according to a co-sponsored scientific poll of 500 registered voters. by South Dakota News Watch. .
Trump scored 50%, well ahead of Biden’s 31% in the poll, which was also sponsored by the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota.
Outside challenger Robert Kennedy Jr., who is not yet on the ballot in the state, garnered 11% of the vote, while 7% were undecided.
Those obstacles prevent former President Trump from matching his previous voter turnout of 62% in South Dakota in the last two presidential cycles, against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Trump won the presidency in 2016 and lost in 2020.
A similar Mason-Dixon poll in October 2020 showed Trump at 51% in South Dakota (with 6% undecided), but the former Manhattan real estate mogul and reality TV star scored 11 points higher than that number on the day of the elections.
There could be a major move this time, too, said Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen.
“The support you’re seeing for (RFK Jr.) is not unusual for a near-significant third-party candidate at this stage of the game,” Schaff said. “When you get closer to an election and people realize that the candidate has no chance of winning, voters tend to turn to the candidate of a major party. That’s why I suspect that 11% (for Kennedy) will go down.”
Johnson, Thune and Rounds weigh in on Noem’s banishment
The only third-party candidate to reach double digits in South Dakota in the last century was Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who finished third in 1992 with 22% behind Republican George H.W. Bush (41%) and Democrat Bill Clinton (37%). Clinton won nationally against incumbent Bush.
The Republican Party’s preference for Trump is 70%
Respondents were randomly selected from a telephone-matched South Dakota voter registration list that included landline and cell phone numbers. Quotas were allocated to reflect voter registration by county. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
There is no doubt that Trump will receive the state’s three electoral votes in November. No Democrat has won the state since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and support for Trump remains stable in the Mount Rushmore State among the Republican base, with only a few cracks visible.
Of Republican respondents in the survey, 70% said they had a favorable opinion of Trump, compared to 10% who were unfavorable. Overall, his favorability in the state is 47%, including 13% among Democrats and 36% among independents.
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem earned an overall favorability rating of 39% in the poll.
Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election and be charged with four criminal cases could be eroding support among undecided voters he needs to corral to win nationally, the poll showed. Independents surveyed in South Dakota had a 46% unfavorable opinion of the former president, compared to 44% of Biden.
Why Every Tribe Banned Noem
“This will be the third consecutive presidential cycle in which there will be significant discontent with both major party candidates,” Schaff said. “It does leave room for (an independent candidate). But the structural obstacles to third-party candidacies are so severe that they spend a lot of time and money just trying to get on the ballot.”
President Joe Biden’s favorability among South Dakota voters is 26%, including 60% among Democrats and 5% among Republicans, according to the poll. (Photo: Tia Dufour/Department of Homeland Security via Wikimedia Commons)
Biden’s Democratic favorability is 60%
The preference for Biden is 26% statewide, including 60% among Democrats and 5% among Republicans. Her popularity among the state’s independents is similar to Trump’s, with 35% favorable and 44% unfavorable.
The last Democrat to finish within 10 points of a Republican candidate in a South Dakota presidential election was Barack Obama, whose 48% fell short of John McCain’s 53% in 2008. Obama won the presidency.
Julia Hellwege, associate professor of political science at USD and incoming director of the Chiesman Center, said Trump probably doesn’t need to worry about winning South Dakota, but he could learn some lessons from the poll numbers.
Among Republicans, for example, 77% said Trump was their preference, compared to 8% for Kennedy, 7% for Biden and 9% of those undecided. With about five months until the November election, that means nearly a quarter of Republican voters prefer someone other than Trump in deep red South Dakota.
“It’s a winner-take-all system, so it doesn’t really matter on Election Day (in this state),” Hellwege said. “But those numbers suggest that a decent number of Republican voters would like to have another option.”
Kennedy Jr. faces August 6 deadline
Kennedy Jr. first entered the national spotlight through associations with his famous family. His father was a U.S. attorney general and senator and was a Democratic presidential candidate in 1968 before being assassinated in June of that election year. His uncle was former President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963.
Inside KELOLAND: Beef It Up, South Dakota
RFK Jr.’s political agenda, previously focused on the environment, turned in the 2000s toward skepticism about vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry, endearing him to a segment of conservatives during the COVID-19 pandemic. .
Four of his brothers, including former Democratic U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, issued a statement in October 2023 calling RFK Jr.’s candidacy “dangerous to our country” because of his views on vaccines and his accusations of anti-Semitism.
Third-party challenger Robert Kennedy Jr., who is not yet on the ballot in South Dakota, polled 11 percent in the random poll of 500 registered voters. (Photo: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons)
The News Watch poll showed that despite his family’s political legacy, RFK Jr. is an unproven commodity in South Dakota. Nearly 40% of respondents statewide were neutral when asked about favorability, compared to 21% favorable and 38% unfavorable.
His greatest favorability was among Democrats (26%), followed by independents (24%) and Republicans (18%). But more than half of Republicans (54%) remain neutral on the third-party candidate, who initially challenged Biden in the Democratic primary.
Kennedy Jr. has made it to the polls in six states so far. His campaign needs to submit 3,502 signatures from registered voters by Aug. 6 to get on the South Dakota ballot.
Aberdeen Marching Band to Play at Washington DC Memorial Day Parade
Rachel Soulek, director of election divisions for the Secretary of State’s office, told News Watch that her office has not had any communication with Kennedy’s team about ballot access in the state.
Biden is the most favorable in Sioux Falls
Trump is more popular among male voters in South Dakota than among women, reflecting a national trend. His favorability among men was 53% in the survey, and 28% said they had an unfavorable opinion of him. In the case of women, it was 43% favorable and 42% unfavorable.
Biden’s approval failed to reach 30% among either gender in South Dakota, but his approval is higher among women (29%) than men (21%). Disapproval of the president in his first term is 66% among men and 51% among women.
Geographically, Trump’s highest approval rating (50%) came from the East River/North region, including cities like Aberdeen, Brookings and Watertown. He also remains popular (49% favorable; 31% unfavorable) in the West River region, including Pennington/Rapid City County, which he won by 61% in 2020.
The poll found that Biden was most popular (32% favorable) in the Sioux Falls area, where the state’s largest county, Minnehaha, gave him 44% of the vote in 2020.
Although political analysts see Biden struggling with young voters nationally, that is not the case in South Dakota, at least relative to other age groups.
Of South Dakota respondents ages 18 to 34, 34% view the Democratic president favorably, by far his best age group. In fact, when asked about presidential preference for 2024, Biden leads Trump 44-34 among those young voters.
Keynote USA
For the Latest Local News, Follow @Keynote USA Local on Twitter.