As Governor Daugaard serves out his final year in office, here are some the historical milestones he has set. A number of election-related milestones are included below under a separate heading.
- Daugaard is the 1st governor in the history of the United States known to be a child of deaf adults, or “CODA,” and is fluent in American Sign Language.
- Taking the oath of office at the age of 57 years and 211 days, Daugaard was the oldest newly elected governor to take office since Warren E. Green in 1930. (Walter Dale Miller was 67 when he succeeded to the governorship in 1993, but he was never elected.) This blog looked at each governors’ age in an earlier post. Daugaard will be 65 years old when he leaves office in early 2019; only Miller was older while serving as Governor of South Dakota.
- Daugaard is the only governor to hold degrees from two different universities, USD and Northwestern University. He is the 10th and most recent USD alumnus to serve as governor. USD has had more graduates serve as governor than any other school. As a graduate of Northwestern, Daugaard is the 7th and most recent governor to graduate from a current member of the Big Ten Conference. Daugaard is also the 1st governor to hold a doctoral degree. Earlier governors who were attorneys earned law degrees before American legal education transitioned to the juris doctorate degree in the 1960s.
- Daugaard is the 8th Lutheran to serve as governor. Lutheranism is the most common religious affiliation among SD governors, as was discussed in an earlier post.
- Daugaard is the 7th and most recent lieutenant governor to be elected governor, and the 1st since the constitutional amendment that provided for the governor and lieutenant governor to run as a ticket.
- Daugaard is the 22nd governor to have served in the State Legislature, and the 13th to have served in the State Senate.
- Daugaard is the 4th governor from Minnehaha County, following Foss, Boe and Janklow. Minnehaha County is the only county to have produced more than two governors, and along with Day and Spink counties, one of only three to have produced more than one. Minnehaha County residents have run for governor 38 times – by far the most of any county.
- Matt Michels, Daugaard’s lieutenant governor, is the longest-served presiding officer in the history of the State Legislature. Michels has presided in twelve legislative sessions – four as speaker of the house while he was a state representative from Yankton, and eight as president of the senate while serving as lieutenant governor. This blog looked at Michels’ record last year. Michels also presided over four special legislative sessions, further extending his record.
Election milestones
- Daugaard’s 2014 general election vote margin of 124,928, as well as his percentage margin of 45.0%, are both the largest in state history in an election for governor. His 80.9% vote share and 61.7% percentage margin in that year’s Republican primary are the most ever in a primary election for governor.
- Daugaard’s reelection was the tenth consecutive Republican victory in gubernatorial elections, continuing the longest streak of partisan control of the governor’s office in state history, going back to 1979. South Dakota has the longest current period of single-party control of the governor’s office of any state in the nation.
- Daugaard was the 1st gubernatorial candidate to exceed 50% of the vote in a five-way Republican gubernatorial primary, joining Sigurd Anderson in 1950 as the only candidate to win the nomination outright in a five-way primary.
- Daugaard’s 195,017 vote total in 2010 is the highest ever won in an open seat election for governor, as is his vote margin of 73,014 votes. Daugaard’s 61.5% of the vote that year was the largest for an open seat since George T. Mickelson in 1946.
- The Republican Party reached a modern high-water mark in the state during Daugaard’s tenure, winning every statewide election from 2010 to 2016 and winning control of the state’s entire congressional delegation for the first time since 1962. In 2016, Republicans elected 89 of 105 legislative seats, the most since 1952.
- Daugaard’s 2014 opponent, Susan Wismer, was the first woman nominated by a major party for Governor of South Dakota. The Democratic ticket of Wismer and Susy Blake was the first all-woman ticket in South Dakota history, and the fourth in U.S. history, following Dawn Clark Netsch and Penny Severns of Illinois in 1994, Peppy Martin and Wanda Cornelius of Kentucky in 1999, and Barbara Buono and Milly Silva of New Jersey in 2013. There has yet to be an all-female ticket elected in any U.S. state. This blog looked at the history of female candidates for SD governor in an earlier post.
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