The latest episode of Dakota Town Hall focused on the aftermath of South Dakota’s Republican gubernatorial primary and what comes next as Gov. Larry Rhoden and businessman Toby Doeden advance to the state’s first-ever statewide Republican runoff election.

Host Jake Schoenbeck was joined by Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, Nathan Sanderson and Alexander Rifaat to analyze the results and discuss how the race could unfold ahead of the July 28 runoff.

Venhuizen described election night as tense, with the race remaining close for hours as counties slowly reported results.

“It was a tense night,” Venhuizen said, noting that returns from larger counties took much longer to finalize.

The panel agreed that Doeden’s first-place finish surprised many political observers. Venhuizen noted that only a handful of participants in a political prediction contest correctly forecast a Rhoden-Doeden runoff.

Looking ahead, Venhuizen said the Rhoden campaign’s message will remain largely unchanged.

“We have a governor who’s been in office for about a year and a half and has had, I think, a strong record of getting things done,” he said.

A major topic of discussion was voter turnout. South Dakota has never held a statewide gubernatorial runoff, leaving campaigns with little historical data to guide strategy.

“It’s a very fair assumption that the turnout in the runoff will be lower than what we had last night,” Venhuizen said, while noting Republican turnout reached roughly 42% in the primary.

Sanderson predicted turnout will ultimately determine the winner.

“This is all going to come down to turnout. Turnout, turnout, turnout, turnout, turnout,” he said.

The conversation also examined legislative races across the state, where several incumbents were defeated and a number of former lawmakers won seats back, signaling significant turnover in both chambers of the Legislature. Panelists suggested the results point to a Legislature that could look substantially different when lawmakers return to Pierre in January.

South Dakota Republicans will return to the polls July 28 to decide their nominee for governor.