Herseth Wins Election for S.D. House Seat
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Stephanie Herseth, a lawyer who left the East Coast for a career in politics in her home state, narrowly defeated a Republican former lawmaker Tuesday in a special congressional election that was closely watched by national parties looking for momentum heading into November.
Herseth will immediately fill the seat of Bill Janklow, who went to jail over a deadly auto accident.
With all but three precincts reporting, Herseth led with 51 percent, or 131,672 votes, to 49 percent, or 128,888 votes for Larry Diedrich, a farmer and former head of the American Soybean Association. Herseth’s advantage amounted to 2,774 votes out of more than 260,000 cast.
“We ran a positive, truthful campaign based on issues, not negative attacks,” Herseth told a room of cheering, chanting supporters early Wednesday. She vowed to “always do what’s right for the entire state.”
Herseth is a 33-year-old Georgetown-educated lawyer and a member of one of South Dakota’s most distinguished political families. She gained name recognition after running a close race in 2002 against Janklow, a Republican who moved to Congress after four terms as governor.
He resigned from Congress in January after being convicted of manslaughter in an accident that killed a motorcyclist. He served 100 days in jail and was released last month.
Herseth now will serve out the seven months left in Janklow’s term. She and Diedrich will meet again in November to compete for a full two-year term, but Herseth will have the advantage of incumbency in holding South Dakota’s lone House seat.
Her victory gave the Democrats two straight triumphs this year in special elections waged for GOP-held seats, and coincided with Democratic claims that a national tide is running their way ahead of the fall campaign. Recent polling shows support slumping for President Bush as well as for the Republican majority in the House.
Despite the gains in South Dakota and in Kentucky earlier this year, the Democrats must pick up 11 more seats in November to gain control of the House.
Underscoring just how closely watched the race was, the Republican and Democratic House campaign committees waged media blitzes in South Dakota, pouring $2 million into TV ads in a rural state of just 765,000 people. In March, Vice President Dick Cheney campaigned for Diedrich in South Dakota, which leans heavily Republican. The parties also sent waves of supporters to the state to mobilize voters.
Republicans disputed Democratic claims about an anti-GOP trend. They noted that Herseth began the race with a huge lead, the residue of having run unsuccessfully for the seat in 2002. They also emphasized that Diedrich had managed to close the margin in the polls dramatically in the race’s final weeks.
Diedrich, 46, and Herseth have both supported President Bush on the war in Iraq. The campaign instead focused on prescription drugs, Medicare, Bush’s tax cuts and veterans issues.
Herseth’s grandfather was governor and her father a longtime state lawmaker. She grew up on the family farm in north-central South Dakota before leaving for Georgetown, where she received both her undergraduate and law degrees.
The razor-thin contest was reminiscent of another recent high-profile South Dakota election that also went down to the wire. In 2002, Sen. Tim Johnson narrowly defeated Rep. John Thune after a campaign also marked by heavy advertising from both national parties.
“Compared to 524 votes, over 2,000 is a landslide here in South Dakota,” Herseth said, referring to Johnson’s margin over Thune.
Diedrich did not talk with the supporters, nor had he conceded the race.
Once Herseth is sworn in, Republicans will have 228 seats, to 206 for the Democrats with one Democratic-leaning independent.
Elsewhere Tuesday, Alabama voters chose Republican nominees for three seats on the Alabama Supreme Court – races that became a referendum on ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments monument. Moore was expelled from the bench by a judicial ethics panel for refusing to remove the 2 1/2-ton granite monument from the state courthouse rotunda.
Former Moore aide Tom Parker defeated Justice Jean Brown, another pro-Moore court candidate lost, while another was trailing in a four-way race that could lead to a runoff. With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Parker had 51 percent to Brown’s 49 percent.
The Ten Commandments dispute also figured in the GOP primary for a U.S. House seat. Moore’s attorney, Phillip Jauregui, was soundly defeated by six-term Rep. Spencer Bachus.
In New Mexico, Gary King, a former legislator and deputy Energy Secretary, won a Democratic congressional primary and will face GOP Rep. Steve Pearce in a district Democrats view as competitive in November. King is the son of former three-time Gov. Bruce King, the longest serving governor in state history.
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On the Net:
Diedrich: http://diedrichforcongress.com
Herseth: http://www.hersethforcongress.org