SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO/AP) — Republican Dusty Johnson of Mitchell has kept his seat representing South Dakota in the U.S. House, a victory similar to those he enjoyed in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
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“Well, it’s not me that’s good at winning,” Johnson said in response Tuesday night. “It’s our team. And I know I can lose this race alone, but I could never win it alone. It takes an incredible family, it takes a great team on the official side, and it takes a great campaign team.”
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The campaign is now over. Looking forward, Johnson has his eye on immigration.
“It is too easy to get here illegally, and it is too hard to get here legally,” Johnson said. “The number one thing I would do is put back into place the remain in Mexico policy that President Trump had.”
That policy mandated that people seeking asylum wait south of the border for their dates in court. Johnson will once again serve as a politician in Washington. But he’s not putting himself and his colleagues on a pedestal.
“I know we got people on both sides of the aisle that are trying to convince us that our whole country will fall apart if the other side wins,” Johnson said. “I gotta tell you, the strength of this country does not come from its politicians. The strength of this country comes from our soldiers, from our teachers, from our pastors, from our parents, from our business owners.”
In late 2024, the country he will once again help lead is not at all united: far from it. And there are plenty of South Dakota voters who might not be happy with Dusty Johnson today or tomorrow. KELOLAND News asked him about this, too.
Santella: What do you say to someone who says, ‘He’s not MAGA enough.’ Or someone who supported Sheryl Johnson and says, ‘No, he’s way too conservative for me.’ What do you say to that voter who is looking at you with arms crossed?
“Well, listen, I’m not Sheryl Johnson, and I’m not Donald Trump,” Johnson said. “I’m just Dusty Johnson. And I will work with anybody to do good. We have a government that is too big, that is too intrusive. We have a border that is in crisis. We have spending that’s way beyond our means. Let’s go tackle that together, and we can worry about the labels later.”
His Democratic challenger Sheryl Johnson of Sioux Falls told KELOLAND News on Tuesday about her takeaways from the campaign.
“I learned that the people in South Dakota are wonderful people,” Sheryl Johnson said. “I talked to people of all parties, and they all care about their families, their communities. They have different views on some things, but it’s nothing we can’t overcome. And I think we need to get back to civil politics, and I feel like Dusty and I ran a very civil campaign, a very civil debate that we kept it to the issues, and I wish more politicians would do that.”
As of early Wednesday evening’s unofficial results with all 691 precincts fully reporting, Dusty Johnson had received 72% of the vote compared to Sheryl Johnson’s 28%.
