Jackley Leads with Majority Support in Election for U.S. Congress
A new Emerson College Polling/KELO-TV survey of the Republican primary election for Governor finds U.S. Congressman Dusty Johnson leading with 28% support, followed by businessman Toby Doeden at 18%, incumbent Governor Larry Rhoden at 17%, and State Rep. Jon Hansen at 14%, while 23% are undecided.
“Incumbent Governor Larry Rhoden, who came into office after Kristi Noem was appointed to the Trump administration, faces a difficult election campaign as Rep. Dusty Johnson has garnered plurality support ahead of the June primary,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “Johnson’s support is highest among voters under 40, where he leads Rhoden by 23 points, and women, among whom he leads by 14 points.”
A majority of voters (51%) support Attorney General Marty Jackley in the election for U.S. Congress, while 7% support James Bialota and 41% are undecided.
A majority of South Dakota voters (55%) approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as President, while 40% disapprove. A plurality, 35%, approve of the job Larry Rhoden is doing as Governor, while 30% disapprove.
A majority of voters, 52%, disapprove of the job John Thune is doing as Senator, while 34% approve. Forty-one percent disapprove of the job Mike Rounds is doing as Senator, while 37% approve. A plurality, 46%, disapprove of the job Dusty Johnson is doing in Congress, while 35% approve.
Thirty-five percent of voters think the economy is the top issue facing South Dakota, 13% threats to democracy, 13% housing affordability, 11% education, and 9% healthcare.
Just over half of South Dakota voters (51%) oppose data centers being built in or near their communities, while 30% support them.
Methodology
The Emerson College South Dakota survey was conducted March 7-9, 2026. The sample of South Dakota likely voters, n=1,000, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, and education based on U.S. Census parameters and voter file data.
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.
Data was collected by contacting a voter list of cellphones via MMS-to-web text and email, voter lists provided by Aristotle. Additional online panel responses were collected via PureSpectrum; panel responses were matched to the Aristotle voter file using respondents’ full name and ZIP code. The survey was offered in English.
All questions asked in this survey with exact wording and order, along with full results, demographics, and cross tabulations can be found below. The survey is sponsored by KELO-TV / Nexstar Media.
