On Tuesday night, a flood rolled across America’s political map, and when the water receded, Republican strongholds from coast to coast lay in ruins. Texas Democrats flipped 21 state House seats. New Hampshire Republicans were on track to see their chamber majority collapse from 222 seats to barely 107. In Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan, the GOP lost control of at least one legislative chamber.
Ron DeSantis called it an “extinction-level event.” He wasn’t exaggerating by much.
Even in deep-red territory where Republicans held on, the margins told a grim story. Idaho and Wyoming saw their gubernatorial vote shares shrink well below Trump’s 2024 numbers. Florida’s Republican candidate barely cleared 50 percent – a six-point drop from the presidential baseline. Everywhere you looked, the red wall was cracking.
But not everywhere.
The Dakotas stood firm
Out on the northern plains, South Dakota’s Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden won with 63.5 percent of the vote – virtually identical to Trump’s 63.4 percent in the state two years earlier. Republicans swept every statewide race and kept their commanding legislative majorities intact. Democrats managed to flip just four seats, all clustered around Sioux Falls.
South Dakota’s House Speaker Jon Hansen didn’t mince words about why.
From Fox News Digital:
“South Dakota Republicans did well because we took on the issues that mattered to the people of our state and delivered real results for them. The bottom line is that we ran on tackling the issues that mattered to people, and then we delivered real results for the people on those issues. Not just talk, not just excuses, but real solutions.”
Those results are hard to argue with. South Dakota’s unemployment has hovered around 2 percent since last September – roughly half the national rate. Wages grew 4 percent in 2025. The legislature cut property taxes, regulated utility costs amid data-center buildouts, curbed corporate eminent domain, and balanced the budget. Bread-and-butter conservatism, executed without fanfare.
Next door in North Dakota, the story was nearly identical. Every Republican statewide candidate won reelection. Democrats gained a handful of points over their 2024 numbers – what one local columnist called “basically nothing” on a night of national upheaval.
A blueprint hiding in plain sight
You want to know what’s maddening about Tuesday night? The formula for survival was never a secret. Cut taxes. Keep government lean. Deliver measurable results. Then – and here’s the part that apparently trips people up – run on those results instead of whatever circus is dominating the national news cycle.
South Dakota House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach put it better than I could: “Those Republicans who lost on Nov. 3 did so because their actions – or inaction – didn’t match their promises to voters. We didn’t have that problem in South Dakota.”
I suspect a lot of Republican officials in newly purple states are about to spend the next two years commissioning polls and hiring consultants to figure out what went wrong. Save the money. The answer is sitting right there in the Dakotas – two states that built their houses on rock while everyone else was building on sand.
The flood came for the whole map. It only swept away the ones with nothing solid underneath.
Key Takeaways
- South Dakota Republicans matched Trump’s 2024 margins while red states crumbled nationwide.
- Tax cuts, low unemployment, and balanced budgets kept Dakota voters loyal to the GOP.
- Republicans who delivered tangible results held their ground; those who didn’t got swept away.
- The GOP’s path forward runs through competent governance, not political spectacle.
