Voters pick Kristi Noem for another term as South Dakota governor

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - Kristi Noem has been declared the winner in South Dakota’s governor race with about 64 percent of the vote at the time the election was called.

If that percentage holds up (as of 9 p.m. there was just 30 percent of the votes tallied), it will be a much-larger margin that she had in 2018.

Democratic challenger Jamie Smith (who was subjected to a barrage of last-minute negative campaign ads) was at 34 percent; with Libertarian Tracey Quint garnering 3 percent.

In 2018, Kristi Noem was just 3 percentage points ahead of Democratic candidate Billie Sutton (51-48).

This will be Noem’s second and last term as governor due to term limits. There has been talk of Noem having national aspirations, but nothing confirmed.