SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Dissatisfaction with the “status quo” is driving Jon Hansen and Karla Lems to run for South Dakota governor and lieutenant governor, they said.
The pair officially announced their 2026 campaign to hundreds of supporters Thursday at the South Dakota Military Heritage Alliance in Sioux Falls. The crowd included property rights advocates against eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines, “election integrity” activists and over a dozen Republican lawmakers.
Hansen, who currently serves as state House speaker, will seek the Republican Party’s nomination for governor, with Lems, his second in command in the House, running to serve as his lieutenant governor.
The two, along with speakers who introduced them, said elected officials too often put the “people’s interests” second to special interests. To resounding applause, they said that’s caused a wave of opposition to establishment politicians, a referred state pipeline law that voters rejected in November, and ousted incumbent state lawmakers in last June’s primary election.
“Grassroots patriots from all across the great state of South Dakota are standing up and we are saying in record numbers, ‘No more corruption, no more waste and abuse, no more tax on our land and our liberties and our way of life,’” Hansen said to the crowd. “Today renews the coming of the end for all of that.”
If elected, Hansen pledged to “clean up” the system by cutting state government and spending. He also promised to create “education choice grants” for alternative and private school education, and sign an executive order to “define man and woman, end the woke and restore common sense.” Hansen said he plans to stop offering “corporate welfare” as well.
Republican governors and lawmakers for decades have invested millions of tax dollars in bonds, loans and grants to entice businesses to build and expand in the state. That includes funding for farmers and value-added operations, as well as support for larger investments such as Tru Shrimp.
Hansen cited the Tru Shrimp deal as an example of “corporate welfare.”
State and local officials committed $6.5 million in taxpayer money for a low-interest loan six years ago for Tru Shrimp to build a facility in Madison. The company has not built the facility, even though it was expected to break ground in 2024. The company, which has since changed its name to Iterro, announced it’s “more than halfway” to its fundraising goal to begin the Madison project earlier this year.
“I think it’s just unnecessary government mingling, and it’s risky business, and they’re wasting our taxpayer dollars to do it,” Hansen said of the deal. “It’s that sort of stuff that we want to say ‘no more’ to. Let’s just get back to the free market, low tax and low regulation.”
A Dell Rapids lawyer, Hansen has spent a decade in the South Dakota House of Representatives. The 39-year-old was elected House speaker for the most recent legislative session after serving as speaker pro tempore from 2021 to 2022.
Lems, from Canton, owns a coffee shop and property management business. The 56-year-old entered the state political fray in 2022 and was elected as House speaker pro tempore during the most recent legislative session, the first woman to hold the position in state history.
The two are riding the momentum of private property rights and anti-abortion successes in the last year.
