Dan Ahlers speaks with supporter Billy Stevens at the downtown library in Sioux Falls on Feb. 10, 2026, after Ahlers announced his campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor of South Dakota. (Photo by John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
SIOUX FALLS — Bringing a Democrat back to the South Dakota Governor’s Office will mean building a coalition of support for education, small business, family farms and affordable health care, the party’s highest-profile entrant into the 2026 governor’s race said Tuesday.
Dan Ahlers, executive director of the state Democratic Party and a three-term former state lawmaker, announced his candidacy via press release Monday.
On Tuesday, Ahlers made a more public announcement at the downtown library in Sioux Falls to a crowd of around 60, some of whom showed up early to sign Ahlers’ nominating petitions and pick up campaign signs that read “Dan’s our man.”
“I know some people will say a Democrat can’t get elected in a conservative state, so let me ask you this: Who would you rather have representing you? A Republican who expects your vote, or a Democrat will work for it?” Ahlers said.
The last time a Democrat won a race to lead South Dakota’s executive branch was 1974, when incumbent Dick Kneip won reelection as governor.
In his speech, Ahlers noted that Kneip’s term included the expansion of South Dakota’s only medical school at the University of South Dakota to a four-year program, and the establishment of the South Dakota State Retirement System for public officials.
Ahlers pledged to keep lines of communication open across party lines, and to listen to the “regular people” he said politicians don’t take seriously enough.
“The truth is, no matter our party, we share the same core values,” Ahlers said. “We want good schools for our kids, affordable health care for our families, the opportunity to buy a home, to work hard and to live a good life.”
Policy positions
On eminent domain, opposition to which served as a motivating force in the 2024 legislative primaries, Ahlers said there are “good actors and bad actors” that seek to use it. Eminent domain is the ability to take private property for public use, with just compensation.
Summit Carbon Solutions, a company that wants to collect and sequester carbon dioxide gas via underground pipeline to take advantage of federal tax credits, sparked fierce opposition in some quarters for its attempts to use eminent domain to secure easements.
“I don’t think that private companies should have access to eminent domain like they do here in South Dakota,” Ahlers said, adding that he prefers Minnesota’s stricter requirements for the invocation of eminent domain.
On property taxes, an issue that’s inspired dozens of tax relief proposals in the Legislature, Ahlers said the state needs a “comprehensive” look at the state’s tax structure to address disparities in tax burden across geographic regions.
If the state wants to find property tax reforms that don’t short the schools that rely on those taxes for funding, Ahlers said, leaders need to listen to not just stakeholders, but state employees.
“We have a lot of intelligent state employees that will tell you exactly where the problems are,” Ahlers said, adding that “too often,” lawmakers aren’t relying on that expertise.
The Republican candidates for governor are Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, Gov. Larry Rhoden and South Dakota Speaker of the House Jon Hansen.
Those candidates have sparred on state incentives for economic development, with Hansen and Doeden critical of what they see as a misplaced focus on recruiting large, out-of-state companies and providing them with tax breaks and other incentives.
Ahlers said he supports economic development incentives, but that the state ought to be transparent about how it spends taxpayer dollars and diligent in tracking whether incentive programs spur the creation of well-paying jobs.
“I would like to see more investment and opportunities and programs for small businesses,” Ahlers said. “We don’t have that at the state level. And I mean, like real small businesses, the mom and pop type.”
When asked about Rhoden’s support for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations through cooperative agreements with ICE, Ahlers said that “there’s space for cooperation” in South Dakota, but that “I don’t like the heavy handedness that you see in places.”
“I don’t like officers wearing masks,”Ahlers said, a reference to agents in Minnesota who’ve been engaged in a large-scale immigration crackdown.
Field of play for governor’s race
Ahlers is not the only person to publicly express an interest in the Democratic nomination for governor. Twenty-year-old Dakota State University student Robert Arnold announced last year that he intends to seek the nomination. The primary election is June 2.
On Tuesday, as Ahlers was making his announcement at the downtown library, Arnold sent a press release calling for the creation of a “Bank of South Dakota” to fight “the affordability crisis.”
Such a bank could be modeled after the state bank of North Dakota, Arnold said, to “finance projects, expand local lending, and keep profits here at home instead of sending them out of state.”
“This is a proven model, built by those before us in North Dakota, it’s been serving them for more than a century,” Arnold said in his press release.
Arnold told South Dakota Searchlight he had “no idea” that Ahlers planned to announce “until after it happened,” and that he welcomes a primary in a party that typically doesn’t see one for its gubernatorial candidates.
“It only serves to make the winner stronger,” Arnold said.
South Dakota’s independent and non-politically affiliated voters (those who don’t write any affiliation on their registration), collectively outnumber Democrats. Arnold said they want candidates who “stand firm on working-class issues over standing on establishment party politics.”
Ahlers also said he “likes primaries,” and said he hopes any candidates who wind up on a Democratic primary ballot and don’t succeed stay involved in politics by running for the Legislature.
“The great thing about this process is that anybody can run, right?” Ahlers said. “If you meet the qualifications, anybody can run.”
Prospective nominees need to gather 1,232 nominating petition signatures from registered South Dakota voters by the end of March to appear on the Democratic primary ballot.
In addition to the announced Democratic and Republican hopefuls, Allison Renville, a community activist and member of the Native American tribe known as the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, announced in October that she plans to run as an independent. Anthony Sitter, an independent from Aberdeen, has formed an “Anthony Sitter for Governor” campaign finance committee.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
