Political Smokeout

What happened with Noem’s official Facebook page?

A commenter on “100 Eyes” today asked about Rep. Kristi Noem’s official Facebook page, which no longer exists.

Noem used to have two Facebook pages — one for her campaign, one for her official office. But now the old page — which used to be at http://www.facebook.com/RepKristiNoem, per this old tweet — is no longer up. Was it taken down?

A Noem aide emails that official page was in fact taken down, a few months ago. It “makes sense to only have one,” the aide wrote.

That one is here. Mystery solved.

Someone mailed tea bags to Johnson, Thune

There was some tumult in Aberdeen today, as the local offices of South Dakota’s congressional delegation all received suspicious packages.

Hazmat teams were called in as the buildings were evacuated.

Late this afternoon, word came that at least two of those suspicious packages contained not ricin or anthrax but tea bags — a harmless, if politically symbolic item.

Read the full story here. It’s unclear who sent the packages, and indeed if we’ll ever know — the investigation could stop here or continue.

Later that day: Noem, less coy on the Senate

This morning, Rep. Kristi Noem told reporters she hasn’t “spent a lot of time thinking about a timetable” for making a decision about running for Senate and would “deal with politics a little bit later.”

Apparently “a little bit later” meant “that afternoon.”

A few hours after her morning interview, Noem told The Hill that she is “watching the (Senate) race,” has “had some conversations with organizations” about a Senate run. She even gave a timetable: 

“We haven’t made up our minds on what we’re going to do at all, and probably won’t for several months yet,” Noem said.

UPDATE: I’m told Noem’s comments to The Hill were actually made Wednesday, though the article was published today.

Read the new, more forthright comments from Noem here.

Rep. Kristi Noem still coy on Senate

Rep. Kristi Noem had some news to share.

“I also wanted to make an announcement about something new today I’m going to be doing,” Noem told reporters dialed in to her weekly conference call with the South Dakota media.

But the announcement was that she would be holding an ag-focused conference call with South Dakota citizens next week (at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m.).

The announcement a lot of people are waiting for Noem to make — whether she will run for U.S. Senate — will have to wait for another day.

“I’m still focused on doing the job I was elected to do,” Noem said when asked about the Senate. “With the farm bill going on right now I’m focused on that. So we’ll have to deal with politics a little bit later.”

That’s basically the same answer Noem has given for months to this question. It hasn’t changed despite some Noem advisers going further and confirming her interest in the race to the media.

Noem’s not out of this yet

Rep. Kristi Noem has stayed quiet lately about the U.S. Senate race, with intrigue focusing on the Democratic side of things. But in the past week we’ve gotten two indications that the GOP congresswoman still could very well challenge Mike Rounds in a primary.

First came some anonymous quotes from The Hill last week, after Rick Weiland declared his candidacy but before Stephanie Herseth Sandlin opted out.

And Weiland’s entrance into the South Dakota race makes it more likely that Republicans will face a potentially bruising primary as well. Conservative Republicans are frustrated with Rounds’s record and have been looking for a challenger, though none has yet emerged.

But a source familiar with Rep. Kristi Noem’s (R) thinking said the news that Democrats may face a contested primary “will certainly pique” the Tea Party favorite’s interest in the race.

“This could potentially make our path to a run for Senate easier,” the source said.

The source added that Rounds’s paltry first-quarter fundraising haul — she raised about $184,000 — had also increased Noem’s interest in the race, and she’s expected to have a decision made on her potential run soon after Labor Day.

Just a few minutes ago, Roll Call published an on-the-record quote from Justin Brasell, a respected GOP consultant who worked for Sen. John Thune for many years and is now working with Noem:

Rep. Kristi Noem, who defeated Herseth Sandlin in 2010, is still “taking a serious look” at the race, her consultant Justin Brasell said.

“Taking a serious look” is a lot further than Noem has gone, with her carefully phrased refusal to rule out a candidacy and indication that she would revisit the issue this summer.

South Dakota may not see a heavyweight Democratic primary this cycle, but a clash of Republican titans could still materialize.

Does Weiland make Noem more likely to run?

Rep. Kristi Noem has refused to rule out a run for U.S. Senate against Mike Rounds. Her decision here will have a big impact on the race, as the biggest Republican name out there who could challenge Rounds in the primary.

I think her chances of running this morning are considerably higher than they were 24 hours ago.

Why? It has to do with what I think are two of Noem’s key goals here:

1) She would like to be a U.S. Senator

2) She would like for the GOP to take South Dakota’s U.S. Senate seat

The problem is that with Mike Rounds already in the race, the two goals conflict somewhat — a bruising GOP primary could make it more difficult for whichever Republican wins to triumph in the general election.

But Rick Weiland’s candidacy eases that devil’s calculus a little bit.

That’s presuming you consider Weiland to be a less formidable general election candidate than either Brendan Johnson or Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. This point could be debated, but I’d bet Republicans agree with NBC News that whatever Weiland’s potential, he’s “not a top-tier candidate” compared to Herseth Sandlin and Johnson.

Weiland running for Senate means Republicans now face two dominant possibilities in terms of their Democratic opponent:

1) The Democrats nominate Weiland, seen as less formidable than Herseth Sandlin or Johnson

2) The Democrats nominate Herseth Sandlin, but only after she beats Weiland in a fierce primary

Either case would seem to strengthen the GOP hand over an alternative in which either Herseth Sandlin or Johnson cruises to an uncontested nomination.

And a strengthened GOP hand gives the party more margin for error. In other words, it makes the party better able to absorb a fierce primary of its own.

So if Kristi Noem is being held back from a Senate run by appeals to party loyalty, Weiland’s candidacy would ameliorate some of those concerns.

That leaves the primary obstacle being the personal uncertainty — giving up her current job, where she’s the incumbent and presumably has a better chance of winning than an open Senate seat primary battle against a popular former governor.

Noem’s still no lock to run for office. But whatever Stephanie Herseth Sandlin does, Rick Weiland has made Noem’s choice a little easier.

Noem, Rounds speak back to back but avoid 2014 news

Two potential rivals for the South Dakota Senate spoke back-to-back Friday night at the Minnehaha County Republican dinner, but stayed away from primary politics.

Former Gov. Mike Rounds, a Senate candidate, focused his brief speech on attacking federal disfunction.

“Year in and year out, from statehood, we balance our budget,” Rounds said. “How about the Feds? Sorry, the Senate doesn’t even pass a budget the last four years… Wouldn’t a little bit of South Dakota common sense go a long way in our nation’s capital?”

Meanwhile U.S. Rep Kristi Noem, who has refused to rule also running for the Senate, didn’t mention that race at all in her remarks. She also concentrated on criticizing national Democrats and discussing congressional battles.

“The House passed two bills to replace that sequester,” Noem said, referring to the automatic spending cuts that went into effect a month and a half ago. “While the president stands on TV and talks about the devastation of the sequester… what we need to understand is, the president never once put a proposal on the table to avoid that sequester.”

The two spoke back-to-back at the Minnehaha County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, held at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.

Also speaking were Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican Party chairman Craig Lawrence, and Republican National Committee co-chair Sharon Day.

Thune, who has said he plans to stay neutral in any possible GOP Senate primary here, had kind words for Rounds but stopped short of endorsing him.

“I’ve known Mike and worked with Mike for over 20 years. He would be a great addition to the United States Senate,” Thune said, before praising Noem in the next breath as a “strong voice” who “votes the right way, and you don’t have to worry about what she’s going to do.”

Lawrence, in the evening’s longest speech, closed by urging Republicans to not waste energy on infighting.

“We must stop shooting at each other,” Lawrence said. “We are often divided by ourselves, giving one another conservative litmus tests.”

Where Noem’s money came from

Because House rules, unlike those for the Senate, actually put campaign finance reports online in a timely fashion, here’s a look inside Rep. Kristi Noem’s first-quarter fundraising:

Top 10 individual donors:

Top states for individual donors:

Top South Dakota cities for individual donors:

Top employers of donors:

Note: Most of these companies are represented by a single donor. Only Moyle Petroleum and Wall Drug have more than one donor, of these top companies.

Top occupations:

Note: This is actually a pretty similar list to Democrats, with the exception that “attorney” usually makes their top lists.

Top PACs:

Top expense categories:

Note: The $30,000 for “political strategy consulting” is a holdover from the 2012 election year.

Rounds’ fundraising

One thing is not in dispute: Mike Rounds’ $184,000 is not a great total for a U.S. Senate candidate to raise in a quarter.

It’s not awful, either. Nothing about that is so low that it suggests that donors are shunning Rounds’ candidacy or that he’s not willing to put in the work to raise money, especially not in the context of Rounds’ $270,000 opening money.

But it’s also lower than many people expected. It’s not a total that’s going to give, say, Rep. Kristi Noem or Brendan Johnson pause about jumping into the open Senate race. It’s not a result that’s going to give Rounds an insurmountable head start.

Frankly, even Noem’s better quarter of $270,000 isn’t great, either. It’s one of the lowest fundraising quarters of her federal political career — only last quarter is lower, if you don’t count the aborted quarter when she first declared for Congress. Especially after spending almost all her money in the 2012 race, raising $270,000 in three months isn’t going to intimidate anyone. It’s a workmanlike number, not a stunner — even while low for Noem, it’s still higher than all but one quarter of Matt Varilek’s fundraising.

In my story this morning, Rounds’ campaign defends his fundraising, pointing to his lack of national connections and a lack of emphasis on raising money the last few months — that will come later, his senior adviser said. They also argue the better context is Rounds’ four-month total since entering the race, saying $455,000 in four months looks pretty good. (It’s an average of $113,000 per month, better than the $60,000 average he turned in the first quarter and the $90,000 average for Noem this quarter.)

But whatever the defense, this isn’t the phenomenal fundraising quarter an establishment candidate like Mike Rounds needs to quell grassroots sentiment by showing he’s locked up the money. Groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund probably saw yesterday’s results and came away emboldened.

This last bit is mostly speculation, but perhaps Noem’s uncertain status is dragging down both candidates’ fundraising. Some Republicans may not want to give money to Rounds until they know whether Noem will enter the race; others may not want to give to Noem until they know if she’ll be challenging Rounds.

To put this quarter’s fundraising in context, here’s a spreadsheet showing all fundraising for South Dakota federal candidates going back to 2007. (I’d have gone back further, hoping to capture at least the 2004 Senate race, but there’s some missing information on the Federal Election Commission website.)

Mike Rounds raises $184K

Republican Senate candidate Mike Rounds raised around $184,000 the first three months of 2013.

Rounds’ report with the Federal Election Commission is not yet online, but an aide says the former governor has about $385,000 $369,000 in the bank.

The $184,000 quarter is a decrease from Rounds’ torrid fundraising pace after he got into the race — he took in $270,000 in just over one month in late 2012. That’s a monthly pace more than four times faster than the first quarter — though that first quarter also saw Rounds take in the low-hanging fruit, early supporters who max out their donations.

So far Rounds is the only declared candidate. Potential Democratic rivals such as Brendan Johnson and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin aren’t raising money and so don’t have to file FEC reports. Rep. Kristi Noem, who has refused to rule out a Senate run, topped Rounds this quarter with $270,000, though Rounds has more in the bank, $385,000 $369,000 to $285,000.