SOUTH DAKOTA — Gubernatorial hopeful and Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden has been on a warpath through South Dakota since the announcement of his candidacy in May, hoping to garner grassroots support on populist messaging, his lack of background in office, and the core of his campaign: the complete elimination of property taxes.

According to Doeden, he has been spending much of his time meeting with the people of South Dakota, saying “I think it’s really important that people in leadership roles travel the state – meet with people face-to-face and find out in each and every county what the local issue is driving the most anxiety, and then working to help those people remedy those situations”. Doeden has made the foundation of this campaign on the political blueprint forged by sitting US President Donald Trump, and has proven himself an ardent loyalist, basing core pillars of his campaign on the elimination of immigrants and “woke” ideology from the historically conservative state.

Additionally, Doeden is hopeful to “Trim the fat” through the introduction of a South Dakota-specific DOGE program, taking inspiration from the organization empowered by President Trump this January, and which seems to have ceased operations as of November (Via Reuters) and which has been estimated to cost the US taxpayer at least 21.7 Billion dollars. (Via NPR)

However, with both cuts to state budget and taxes on the table, the issue remains that the current system of Property taxes in SD as well as in the wider US has been greatly exacerbated by a widespread high in property valuation over the past several years. The fact also remains that said property taxes go directly toward the funding of local governments and allow municipal and county bodies to maintain infrastructure, education, and first responder budgets, accounting for around 75% of local budgets. (Via Dakota Institute) So, if property taxes go away, what funds local governments? “We’re going to do more with less,” says Doeden.

Firstly, he expects government auditing initiated by his proposed DOGE to provide significant funding to local governments, who he hopes to provide with more autonomy. “Number two: under my leadership, I am going to use my CEO skills and I am going to attract amazing companies from all over the country – they’re going to want to work with a person that has my business acumen, that understands the lingo, understands what they’re looking for. I’m going to bring in small, medium and large companies to South Dakota that are going to come here on our terms, and our economy is going to grow. Oh, like, it’s never grown,” Following that lastly he would bring about a system of collecting “external revenue”, paralleling Trump’s initial Tariff proposal by instituting traveller taxes which would make up for lost funding. At this same time, he states that he is for cuts to taxes on groceries, which several previous governments in the state have attempted to put forward for the state for several years.

However in spite of his populist messaging, and vocal support for the opposition which has formed in reaction to the proposed construction of a limestone mine in residential areas of Piedmont, Doeden is less glowing in his stance on the blue-collar working class which provide the necessary infrastructure which facilitates day-to-day commerce, echoing sentiments given by officials on both ends of the American political spectrum for decades in no uncertain terms.

On the issue of securing livelihoods for working class families, Doeden gave glowing praise for trades, as well as stating an understanding for the importance of support for higher education, however as the cost of living edges out more working families, Doeden had this to say: “There are a lot of lazy people in this country. It’s just a fact, and if you are an able-bodied adult, and you work as hard as you can work every single day, and you have a great attitude, you will eventually get ahead,” following “I care about their health, their physical health, their mental health and I want everybody to do good, but I can’t care about their well-being more than they care about their well-being. if you can’t get out of bed in the morning, you can’t work at least 40 hours a week, if you can’t get a second full-time job instead of getting on some, you know, some type of social welfare, then you aren’t doing your part to be successful”.

Lastly, on the issue of mental health, specifically the dire need for greater access to mental health resources in Rapid City, Doeden stated that he did not have a detailed understanding of the specific issues in Rapid, but that “We have a mental health crisis in this country and South Dakota is not immune from that. 

People like Elon Musk and many other people that I respect, that are very intelligent, very smart and have access to all of the best data – they have talked about the negative effects of us. Ignoring mental health conditions for the past 30 years. When I was a child, they had things called mental institutions, insane asylums, etc. Whatever you want to call them. 

God is an amazing creator and for whatever reason not everybody is created equal, we’re all different. Some are tall, some are short, some are fat, some have red hair, some got black hair, some are smart, some aren’t that smart. Some people are just never going to be able to live in society in a way that is fruitful to their neighbors”.

Doeden seeks office in the coming 2026 Gubernatorial election, and in just two months following his campaign announcement spent a reported $187,000 in ads alone (Via South Dakota Searchlight). His official positions may be found on his website, tobydoeden.com