Notes from the Campaign Trail

I wrote the following entry in April of 2022.

It has been a month since I submitted my signature petitions to run for a seat in the South Dakota state house of representatives, serving District 30, which is, in one word, expansive, encompassing part of Rapid City to the north, to Hot Springs in the south, Hermosa, where I live, west into the Black Hills.

The reaction to my decision to run has fallen along two lines, sometimes the same person evoking each: good for you, followed by why? Many people have expressed support and admiration, which is great and frightening, heady and enervating. By turning in the paperwork, going public, what have I done? Honestly, not much. The excitement from others and my trepidation are about a future, about possibility, not necessarily what is happening in the present reality.

The reality, if one were to look at past election returns, is not exactly a rosy one for any left-leaning candidate in a blood-red state like South Dakota, where our prevaricating, insurrection-inciting, prostitute-bribing blob of a former president won the state by twenty-five percentage points; in my district by more than two to one. The tax cheat bumbling fool of a “real estate tycoon” won by these margins in my area. These stats might be enough for a wiseman to rethink.