Gov. Larry Rhoden, right, and Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, center, speak to members of the media after a town hall event in downtown Sioux Falls on Nov. 20, 2025. At left is the governor’s director of communications, Ian Fury. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden has been getting some flak recently from his Republican primary election opponents for using his office to bolster his reelection campaign. It will be interesting to see, should any of them displace Rhoden, if they use the office any differently.
At the top of the opponent complaint list is the governor’s penchant for roaming the state, handing out checks from the Future Fund. So far he has hit Aberdeen, Watertown and Brookings, offering payments to bolster economic development.
One of Rhoden’s opponents, Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden, questioned the timing of the $1 million grant to Aberdeen’s two new business parks. In a South Dakota Searchlight story, Doeden said Rhoden “uses taxpayer money the same way career politicians have been using taxpayer dollars for decades — largely for his own benefit.”
It’s easy to see Rhoden’s largesse in Aberdeen as a political jab at the wealthy Doeden, as though the governor is saying “you’re not the only one in this race with some money to throw around.”
Governor hits the road to award more state grants; opponents call it campaigning
In the same story, Rhoden’s other opponents also offered criticism of the timing of the Future Fund grants. U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson said it was concerning when award announcements turned into campaign rallies and state House Speaker Jon Hansen said that the Future Fund was funding Rhoden’s political future. Rhoden countered by saying he was just doing his job.
Created in 1987 at the request of Gov. George Mickelson, the Future Fund was designed to allow a governor to respond with funding quickly for an economic development opportunity. Gov. Kristi Noem’s use of the fund raised some eyebrows. She used it to pay for a series of commercials starring herself, a shooting range lawmakers had refused to pay for, a fireworks show and a rodeo. Basically, she used the Future Fund to pay for items that were too expensive for her to put on her state credit card.
Part of the Noem legacy that Rhoden is left to deal with is Senate Bill 1, a measure that would take some control of the Future Fund away from the governor and give it to the Board of Economic Development. As much as his opponents don’t like the timing of Rhoden’s Future Fund awards, they may be secretly rooting for SB 1 to fail, ensuring their own ability to make grants and influence people. A vote on the bill ended in a tie in the Senate State Affairs Committee. It’s likely to be resurrected in some form this session.
A case can be made for saying Rhoden began using the office to bolster his political career as soon as Noem left for a life of leading the masked marauders in the Department of Homeland Security. It’s likely the scent of her perfume still lingered in the governor’s office when Rhoden hit on the idea to embark on an Open for Opportunity tour of the state. The taxpayer-funded series of events was designed to introduce the state to its new governor and the new governor to business leaders and potential donors.
Well-timed economic development grants and taxpayer-funded travel aren’t the only benefits of incumbency. Rhoden also inherited a well-tuned communications machine that cranks out news releases aplenty. These releases rarely, if ever, include bad news. It’s usually a glowing report on state finances, grant announcements, task force recommendations, board appointments — with the appointee expressing what a pleasure it will be to work with the governor, pleas for Congress to do better and announcements about Rhoden’s Open for Opportunity itinerary.
In among those news releases is a weekly column from Rhoden. Anyone with experience in public relations knows that it’s unlikely the governor actually writes the columns. Still, they serve as inexpensive political advertising when picked up by the state’s newspapers. His pre-session column assured voters that he would be working hard for them with the Legislature.
It would be easy for Rhoden to quell this particular line of attack from his opponents. He could stay in the Capitol, emerging only for actual campaign events. He could put away the Future Fund checkbook, or if there’s a community in need, send an economic development minion to hand over the grant. That would keep the presentations from having the same air as a campaign event. He could cut back on the news releases and, out of fairness to his opponents, suspend his weekly column until he’s no longer a candidate for office.
It’s unlikely he’ll do any of those things. Using the perks of the office for his benefit is what happens when a politician runs for a job he already has.
As for the other Republicans running for governor, they may want to choose something else to complain about. By harping on the notion that Rhoden is using his office for political gain, they run the risk of reminding voters that he’s the governor and they’re not.
