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SD

South Dakota Governor

Tue, Nov 3 · Governor Larry Rhoden Republican since Jan 2025

Dan AhlersDemocraticAge 52

Dan Ahlers 40.0Larry Rhoden 54.0

Average of 2 polls, Oct 19 to Oct 26, from VoteHub · how it’s calculated

Newest poll

1 is a partisan pollNewest · Concord Public Opinion Partners, field dates Oct 22 to Oct 26, released Oct 30, 448 likely voters, partisan (D), per VoteHubPoll sponsored by Democrats for Education ReformPolls fetched Oct 30, 2:02 a.m. ET, from VoteHub

Larry RhodenRepublican · IncumbentAge 67

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South Dakota Governor: Dan Ahlers vs Larry Rhoden

Preview card: South Dakota Governor: Dan Ahlers vs Larry Rhoden

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Polls over time

2 polls, through Election Day Nov 3
30%40%50%60%70%Nov 2026Nov 3Emerson College, Oct 19 to Oct 20: Ahlers 41Concord Public Opinion Partners, Oct 22 to Oct 26: Ahlers 39Emerson College, Oct 19 to Oct 20: Rhoden 60Concord Public Opinion Partners, Oct 22 to Oct 26: Rhoden 48Rhoden54.0Ahlers40.0

Each dot is one published poll. The thick line is the 7-week average, not a forecast. How it’s calculated. All polls. Polls fetched Oct 30, 2:02 a.m. ET, from VoteHub.

The polls in this chart (2)

2 polls released in the last 14 days · latest results range from 39–41% (D) and 48–60% (R) (newest 2 polls on the chart)

Each dot is a poll with both names, 2 of the 2 for this race. Dots and lines follow the field end date. The table adds the day each poll was released.

Polls shown in the chart, newest field end date first, with the day each was released
PollsterField datesReleasedSampleAhlersRhoden
Concord Public Opinion PartnersOct 22 to Oct 26Oct 30448 likely voters3948
Emerson CollegeOct 19 to Oct 20Oct 23803 likely voters4160

Side by side

Ahlers left, Rhoden right
Age on Election Day
52
67
How these are counted

What changed in this race

Newest first

  1. NEW POLLSouth Dakota Governor

    South Dakota Governor: Larry Rhoden 48, Dan Ahlers 39

    Concord Public Opinion Partners, Oct 22 to Oct 26, 448 likely voters · via VoteHub (CC BY 4.0)

  2. NEW POLLSouth Dakota Governor

    South Dakota Governor: Larry Rhoden 60, Dan Ahlers 41

    Emerson College, Oct 19 to Oct 20, 803 likely voters · via VoteHub (CC BY 4.0)

All changes

More about this race

Candidates on the ballot

Some names come from filing lists and may not be on the ballot.

Source: vip.sdsos.gov, dated Oct 28

Vote in South Dakota

Trouble voting? Election Protection hotline: 866-OUR-VOTE. A nonpartisan coalition of civil-rights and voting-rights groups, not a government service. 866ourvote.org

Official results for South Dakota

History (5 elections for this seat)

All rows: Cha, Kuriwaki and Snyder, Candidates in American General Elections, version 3.1 (2006-2023 governor rows), retrieved Oct 28, 2026

Governor races before 2006 are not loaded yet.

Data notes (15)
  • Source priority per race: (1) a state election office's own certified results parsed in scripts/data/gov_results.py (NJ Division of Elections PDFs, Virginia Department of Elections, the Civera ElectionStats databases run by CT, VA, VT, CO, NY, NM and SC, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, the NC State Board of Elections archive); (2) the open Cha/Kuriwaki/Snyder 'Candidates in American General Elections' file (Harvard Dataverse, CC0), which copies each state's statement of vote; (3) OpenElections county files and the 2020 Dataverse official-results tables, used only to add named candidates the Dataverse file omitted and to add the write-in count; (4) MEDSL precinct sums, used the same way and only when their Democratic and Republican totals agree with the Dataverse rows to 0.3 percent. Each race's source is listed in web/data/sources/gov-results.json.
  • total is the sum of the candidate rows in the file, and pct is votes divided by that total, rounded to one decimal. Blank, void, over and under votes are never in total. Write-in votes are in total as a 'Write-ins' row (writein: true) wherever a source reports them: the official databases, OpenElections, and MEDSL precinct returns. The Dataverse file leaves write-ins out, so MEDSL's write-in sum is added when MEDSL's count for every named candidate equals the Dataverse count exactly (for example AK 2022, 784 write-ins, and AL 2022, 9,432, both matching the state's statement of vote). Each race's source ids are in the race's source and sourceAlso fields and in the gov-results-<st> entry of sources.json.
  • 151 races not taken from a state's own results file have no write-in row. Either the state counted no write-ins, or the sources on file leave them out (MEDSL's precinct sums did not match every named candidate exactly, or MEDSL has no file for that year); where they were left out, total is short by the write-ins and pct can run slightly above the state's printed percentage: AK 2006, AK 2010, AK 2014, AL 2006, AL 2010, AL 2014, AL 2018, AR 2006, AR 2014, AR 2018, AR 2022, AZ 2002, AZ 2014, AZ 2022, CA 2014, CA 2018, CA 2022, DE 2008, DE 2012, DE 2016, DE 2020, DE 2024, GA 2014, GA 2018, HI 2006, HI 2010, HI 2014, HI 2018, HI 2022, IA 2006, IA 2010, IA 2014, ID 1998, ID 2006, ID 2010, ID 2022, IL 2010, IL 2014, IL 2018, IN 2004, IN 2008, IN 2012, IN 2016, IN 2020, KS 2006, KS 2010, KS 2014, KS 2018, KS 2022, KY 2007, KY 2011, KY 2015, KY 2019, LA 2007, LA 2011, LA 2015, LA 2019, LA 2023, MD 2006, MD 2014, MD 2022, ME 2006, ME 2010, ME 2014, ME 2022, MI 2006, MI 2010, MI 2014, MI 2022, MN 2006, MN 2010, MN 2014, MO 2020, MS 2007, MS 2011, MS 2015, MS 2019, MS 2023, MT 2000, MT 2004, MT 2008, MT 2012, MT 2016, MT 2020, MT 2024, ND 2008, NE 2006, NE 2010, NE 2014, NE 2018, NE 2022, NH 2008, NH 2010, NH 2012, NH 2014, NH 2024, NM 2010, NV 2006, NV 2010, NV 2014, NV 2018, NV 2022, OH 2014, OH 2018, OK 2006, OK 2010, OK 2014, OK 2018, OK 2022, OR 2006, OR 2010, OR 2014, OR 2018, OR 2022, PA 2002, PA 2006, PA 2010, PA 2014, PA 2018, PA 2022, RI 2006, RI 2010, RI 2014, SC 2006, SD 2006, SD 2010, SD 2014, SD 2018, SD 2022, TX 2014, TX 2018, TX 2022, UT 2008, UT 2010, UT 2012, UT 2020, WA 2008, WA 2012, WA 2016, WI 2006, WI 2010, WI 2014, WI 2018, WV 2008, WV 2011, WV 2012, WV 2016, WV 2020, WV 2024, WY 2002, WY 2006.
  • party is D, R, I, L, G, O or N from the party label in the source; party_label keeps the source's wording. The Dataverse file prints short labels (Lbt, Grn, Const, DFL, NPA); those are expanded to Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Democratic-Farmer-Labor and No Party Affiliation. Fusion candidates (NY, CT, SC, and the Democratic-Progressive line in VT) are one candidate with all of their ballot lines added together.
  • Names: the Dataverse file stores 'LAST, FIRST MIDDLE (NICKNAME), SUFFIX'; the display name uses the nickname when there is one (Josh Shapiro, Bob Riley) and otherwise the given names. All-caps source names were title-cased by rule and can be wrong for internal capitals (DiGiulio, DeWine). Official lists that print only surnames (NJ 1997; MA tickets from 2010 on) take the full name from the Dataverse row of the same race where the surname and party match, otherwise stay surname-only.
  • incumbent is true or false only for races built from the Dataverse file (it carries an incumbency code; code 3, a governor who succeeded to the office, is treated as incumbent). It is null for official-source races and for candidates added from OpenElections or MEDSL.
  • Louisiana uses an open primary with a runoff. One race per election is stored: the round that decided it (the October primary when someone won more than 50 percent, otherwise the November runoff, marked runoff:true). Exact dates for those rounds come from the Dataverse/official files where present and are set in the script otherwise (LA_DATES); check them before showing a date.
  • Recall elections (Wisconsin June 2012, California September 2021) are not included. Only regular and special general elections for the office are stored; primaries and runoff primaries are not.
  • scripts/data/federal_results.py, if it is re-run, rewrites every web/data/results/governor/{ST}.json to []. Run scripts/data/gov_results.py after it, or remove build_governor() from that script.
  • SD: No governor general-election result in this file for 4 of 9 expected election years between 1990 and 2025: 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002. No open or official bulk source was found and parsed for them yet; they are gaps, not zeroes.
  • 2006: built from the Dataverse candidates file only; no second source agreed with it at candidate level, so a minor-party candidate who is missing from that file would be missing here too
  • 2010: built from the Dataverse candidates file only; no second source agreed with it at candidate level, so a minor-party candidate who is missing from that file would be missing here too
  • Candidate name is the sitting governor's officials-file spelling for 16 rows (the race's winner, same state, race within the governor's tenure, same surname and a compatible first name). Text encoding and casing are repaired by scripts/data/names.py.
  • Governor races earlier than the first year listed are not loaded yet for 50 states (AK from 2006; AL from 2006; AR from 2002; AZ from 2002; CA from 2002; CO from 1990; CT from 1990; DE from 2008; FL from 1990; GA from 2002; HI from 2006; IA from 2002; ID from 1994; IL from 2006; IN from 2004; KS from 2006; KY from 2007; LA from 2007; MA from 1990; MD from 2006; ME from 2006; MI from 2006; MN from 2006; MO from 2008; MS from 2007; MT from 2000; NC from 1992; ND from 2008; NE from 2006; NH from 2006; NJ from 1993; NM from 2002; NV from 2006; NY from 1994; OH from 2002; OK from 2006; OR from 2006; PA from 2002; RI from 2006; SC from 2006; SD from 2006; TN from 2002; TX from 1994; UT from 2008; VA from 1993; VT from 1990; WA from 2008; WI from 2006; WV from 2000; WY from 2002). The sources on file start later; nothing was filled in from memory. Each governor page says so under History.
  • 1 duplicate candidate rows merged: a 0-vote placeholder row beside the real row is dropped. governor/CO 2022 Paul Noël Fiorino

Download and cite

Cite this page

Election Wrld. (2026). Governor of South Dakota. https://www.electionwrld.com/sd/governor. Retrieved October 30, 2026.

Sources

Sources

Make your pick in the map maker

DataState data (JSON)Sources: Cha, Kuriwaki and Snyder, Candidates in American General Elections, version 3.1 (2006-2023 governor rows), VoteHub polls (CC BY 4.0), Photo of Larry Rhoden: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem, CC BY 2.0 (cropped)Data as of Oct 28, 2026

Where this sits

Governors2426Governors: 24 Democratic, 26 Republican.