South Dakota Sen. Johnson Draws Foe With Record - But Not Star Power

2007-07-06

Source: CQ

The Senate bid announced Thursday by South Dakota state lawmaker Joel Dykstra gives Republicans a candidate with political experience to take on Democratic incumbent Tim Johnson, and one with strongly conservative views that could rally the Republican activist base in the GOP-leaning state.

Dykstra, a member of the South Dakota House, had been exploring the idea of entering the Senate contest for months. He is the first candidate to officially enter the race against Johnson, who continues to recuperate from a brain injury he suffered in December (see related story).

Dykstra describes himself as "pro-life fiscal conservative Republican," and has cited health care, national defense and border security as high priority issues.

But Dykstra lacks the high statewide profile that was enjoyed by the candidate who stood for the Republicans in each of South Dakota's past two Senate elections: John Thune.

A three-term incumbent in South Dakota's only U.S. House seat when he ran his first Senate campaign in 2002, Thune missed unseating Johnson by just 524 votes of more than 334,000 cast. Two years later, Thune topped himself by defeating Democratic incumbent Tom Daschle, then the Senate minority leader, by a 1 percentage-point margin.

Dykstra thus enters the campaign as an underdog to Johnson, who has received widespread homestate public support during his progressing recovery from a near-fatal brain hemorrhage in December.

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