South Dakota Governor
Candidates
| Candidate | Party | Poll avg | Latest poll | Raised | Cash | Outside for / against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Larry Rhoden | R | 54.6% (3) | 48% | — | — | — |
| Daniel P. Ahlers | D | 38.4% (3) | 39% | — | — | — |
Unweighted mean of the latest general-election poll from each of 3 pollsters since 2026-09-20.
Tracking the poll average daily since November 3, 2026; a chart appears after three days.
Polls 5 in the window
| Field dates | Pollster | Sample | Result | D − R |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 26 from Oct 22 | Concord Public Opinion Partners for Education Reform Now Advocacy D-sponsored | 448 LV | Larry Rhoden R 48 · Daniel P. Ahlers D 39 | -9.0 |
| Oct 21 from Oct 19 | Emerson College for KELO-TV | 803 LV | Larry Rhoden R 59.5 · Daniel P. Ahlers D 40.5 | -19.0 |
| Oct 14 from Oct 12 | Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. for Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota | South Dakota News Watch | 500 LV | Larry Rhoden R 56.2 · Daniel P. Ahlers D 35.6 | -20.6 |
| Oct 8 from Oct 6 | Concord Public Opinion Partners for Education Reform Now Advocacy D-sponsored | 400 LV | Larry Rhoden R 48 · Daniel P. Ahlers D 38 | -10.0 |
| Aug 30 from Aug 26 | Lake Research Partners D-sponsored | 500 LV | Larry Rhoden R 51 · Daniel P. Ahlers D 44 | -7.0 |
Money
Governors are regulated by state campaign-finance law. There is no federal feed for them, so this page carries no money figures for governor races rather than a partial or scraped set.
Platform ad spend
Meta's Ad Library Report, Google's Ads Transparency Center and Snap's political-ads library. An advertiser is tied to a candidate only when its name carries the candidate's surname together with this state or the candidate's full name; outside groups that do not name a candidate appear in the state and district totals, not here.
No advertiser on either platform names a candidate in this race.
Meta in South Dakota: $125k Oct 25, 2026 - Oct 31, 2026 · Google in South Dakota: $4.3M lifetime · Snap targeted at South Dakota: $15k in 2026.
All governor races → · The races hub → · JSON
Polls: PollResults.org (New York Times poll data), CC BY 4.0 (1,579 poll questions in the window). Money: FEC candidate totals and Schedule E independent-expenditure totals for the 2026 cycle. Platform ad spend: Meta Ad Library Report (U.S., 7-day preset, read from the report page), Google Ads Transparency Center CSV bundle and Snap political ads library, via Corvus Intel. Snapshot 2026-11-04 00:20 UTC, refreshed every six hours. No model wrote these figures, and no prediction-market price is used. Read how we work, or see the Politics desk for the analysis built on top of them. JSON.