Senate Minority Whip John Thune, despite sparking the ire of former President Donald Trump, does not face a viable primary challenge to his reelection campaign.
Trump attacked Thune after the 2020 election and claimed the longtime officeholder’s political career was over after the South Dakota Republican criticized efforts to overturn the results of the election. Trump has backed primary challengers to other elected Republicans he perceives as disloyal to him or to his unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Trump even publicly suggested he would back South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a close ally of the former president, should she challenge Thune. But Noem called Thune a friend and declined a bid.
Thune seems to have avoided a Trump-backed challenger, unlike some other elected Republicans who contradicted Trump’s claims.
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Several GOP candidates are seeking to challenge Thune. But multiple South Dakota Republicans interviewed by the Washington Examiner said they lack the campaign infrastructure to mount a serious threat to Thune, who became a GOP hero of sorts from his 2004 victory over Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a key Democratic antagonist of then-President George W. Bush. Thune was previously a House member for six years, before losing a razor-thin Senate bid in 2002.
Thune had $15 million in his campaign account at the end of 2021, Punchbowl News recently reported. And as the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, he is considered a possible successor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell should the lawmaker from Kentucky choose to retire.
But those aren’t the only deterrents to Republican challengers to Thune: The senator had an 80% approval rating in the state in January,
Michael Card, an associate professor of political science and criminal justice at the University of South Dakota, told the Washington Examiner that in South Dakota, “we still have a large amount of what I would call traditional or stalwart Republicans.”
“There are a lot more never-Trumpers here than people would admit,” Card said. “They’re just never-Democrats, also.”
Card said the state is “individualistic” and that Democrats tend to also be more conservative than their counterparts in some other states.
Divisions between pro-Trump and Republicans more critical of the former president sometimes play out in the South Dakota Legislature, Card said.
More traditional Republican voters in the state, combined with Thune’s style of retail politics and his efforts to meet many of the voters in the state, helped protect his favorability rating in South Dakota despite Trump’s criticisms.
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Although Thune did not back Trump’s claims of a stolen election, he did vote to acquit Trump in his impeachment trial in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. A FiveThirtyEight analysis of his voting record in the Senate found that he voted with Trump’s position over 90% of the time.
