The election is officially over and the results are in. The Libertarian Party of South Dakota had six candidates this year running for office, four statewide candidates and two legislative candidates. Unfortunately we did not see any victory’s on election night, however we did break a few personal records along the way and on Tuesday. We would like to thank each candidate who took the time and effort to run for Office this year. We appreciate it immensely and are grateful that these people gave voters a choice on the ballot when there was none in a few cases.
- Tracey Quint & Ashley Strand Governor/Lt Governor
- Collin Duprel US House of Representatives
- Tamara Lesnar US Senate
- Rene Meyer Auditor
- Sean Natchke District 29 State House
- Darren Freidel District 33 State Senate
The first thing we would like to mention is that the LPSD has officially doubled in size since regaining ballot access in 2016, going from 1351 registered Libertarians to 2,801 by election day. So thank you to everyone who has joined us these last few years!
Another great thing we achieved on Tuesday was continued ballot access. All of our statewide candidates received over the 2.5% threshold to retain ballot access. Now the LPSD will have guaranteed ballot access through the 2026 elections.
Another thing to be happy about is we had our second highest vote total ever with 121,446 votes total. The only year we had a higher vote total was in 2014 when we had three candidates running in two way statewide races.
Our candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor Tracey Quint and Ashley Strand broke a few LPSD records on election night. They had a record number of votes for a (L) Gubernatorial candidate, and doubled our vote total from 2018 in that race. They also nearly doubled the percentage total coming in at 3%, the previous high was 1.69% all the way back in 1998.
US House candidate Collin Duprel broke a LPSD record as well. He received the highest percentage in a US House race coming in at 23%, beating the previous record of 19% set in 2020. He also tied for the highest percentage for a candidate in any statewide race in LPSD history going back to our beginning in 1992. Collin also won two Counties outright on Tuesday, Oglala Lakota County and Todd County.
Tamara Lesnar received a record percentage of the vote for a (L) US Senate candidate coming in at 4%. Over double the previous record of 1.45% set in 1998.
Darren Freidel had the second highest total of any legislative candidate in Party history coming in at 24% in his District 33 State Senate race.
You can check out the results of all the races in the below screenshots for more detailed information. We look forward to breaking more records in 2024. Its never to early to start thinking about running for office next time, reach out to us if you may be interested! You can also sign up for our email list here to keep up to date with the LPSD.
