Grover Cleveland, as every grade schooler learns, is the only U.S. President to serve two non-consecutive terms. Bill Janklow is the Grover Cleveland of South Dakota governors – he is the only former Governor of South Dakota to return to the office. Janklow was elected in 1978 and 1982, couldn’t run in 1986 due to term limits, and then returned in 1994, being again reelected in 1998.
Although Janklow is the only South Dakota governor to return to office, he was far from the first to try. In fact, six governors prior to Janklow sought, unsuccessfully, to return to the office. Here they are:
Andrew E. Lee
Lee was a wealthy Vermillion merchant who had served as the town’s mayor. A Populist, he ran for governor in 1896 on a “fusion” ticket that was supported by Populists and Democrats. Lee was elected governor in 1896, by 319 votes, and was reelected in 1898 by 370 votes (gubernatorial terms were two-years until 1974). He successfully advocated for a constitutional amendment creating initiative and referendum, but struggled otherwise to hold together a Populist-Democratic coalition in the legislature.
Lee didn’t seek a third term in 1900, instead making a failed bid for U.S. House. Following that election, the Populist Party collapsed, and many of its members, including Lee, became Democrats, although the reformist mantle of the Populists was also claimed by progressive Republicans. Lee was subsequently twice the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, during the era, prior to ratification of the 17th Amendment, when U.S. Senators were elected by State Legislatures. That meant that Lee’s nomination was largely honorary, as Democratic control of the South Dakota State Legislature in those years was a remote possibility.
In 1908, incumbent Governor Coe Crawford, the first progressive Republican governor, forewent a second term to seek election to the U.S. Senate. Lee was the Democratic nominee for governor in 1908, making him the first former governor to see a return to the office. He lost to Robert S. Vessey, a progressive Republican and the president pro tempore of the State Senate, by a margin of 55% to 39%.
Lee never again sought statewide office; he lived out his days in Vermillion, where he died in 1934, aged 87.
Samuel H. Elrod
Elrod was a politically active lawyer from Clark and friend of his fellow Hoosier, Arthur C. Mellete. In 1904, Elrod was nominated for governor at the State Republican Convention with the backing of the “stalwart” conservative faction, easily beating back a challenge from Coe Crawford, the progressive candidate. Elrod won a massive victory that fall, winning 68% of the vote. Elrod’s resistance, though, to progressive policies once in office emboldened progressives and, in 1906, Crawford defeated Elrod in a rematch at the state convention. (One of Crawford’s progressive reforms would be for gubernatorial nominees to be selected by a primary election, rather than at a party convention.)
Elrod’s 1906 defeat made him the first governor to lose reelection, and to this day he remains the only elected governor to lose a bid to be nominated for a second term. Following his defeat, he returned to his Clark law practice. In 1910, stalwarts once again called on Elrod to run for governor, and he challenged the progressive Republican incumbent, Governor Robert S. Vessey, in the primary.
It didn’t end well for Elrod; he lost not only to Vessey, but also finished behind disbarred Sioux Falls attorney George W. Egan, a colorful orator who ran against establishment figures. Vessey won 39%, to 32% for Egan and 30% for Elrod. Vessey’s defeat of Elrod also gave him the unusual distinction of being the only governor to twice defeat a former governor to win the governorship; he defeated Andrew E. Lee in 1908 and Samuel H. Elrod in 1910.
As for Elrod, he didn’t run for office again. He remained in Clark, where he died in 1935.
Carl Gunderson
Carl Gunderson was a successful farmer and member of a prominent family; he was the nephew of Governor Andrew E. Lee. Gunderson started his farm in Clay County and represented the area in the State Senate, where he served as president pro tempore (unlike his uncle, Gunderson was a Republican). Gunderson also served as the federal allotting agent for the Rosebud Reservation, surveying and naming towns including Timber Lake, Eagle Butte, and Dupree. Gunderson expanded his farming operation into Aurora and Davison counties, and moved to Mitchell in 1918, before being elected lieutenant governor in 1920 and 1922.
In 1924, Gunderson won the Republican nomination for governor without opposition, a first for a year with no incumbent running. Once elected, though, things didn’t go well. A conservative, Gunderson initiated investigations into progressive-era programs such as the rural credits program, alienating the progressive Republican supporters of his predecessors, Peter Norbeck and William McMaster. In 1926, he withstood a primary challenge from Secretary of State Clarence E. Coyne by only a 62% to 38% margin, and then lost the fall campaign to Democrat William J. Bulow by a vote of 47% to 40%. Bulow became the first Democratic governor, and his victory came as Republicans held every other statewide office, making the defeat a personal one for Gunderson.
Gunderson returned to Mitchell. He didn’t run against Bulow in 1928, but ran for the open seat in 1930 as one of five candidates in the Republican primary. Secretary of State Gladys Pyle won the primary with 28%, with Gunderson a close second at 27% and three others trailing behind. No candidate had won the required 35%, though, and at the state convention, twelve deadlocked ballots ended with the nomination of Warren E. Green, who had been the last-place primary finisher with only 7% of the vote.
Gunderson made a second comeback bid in 1932, making him the only former governor to try to return more than once. He challenged Governor Green’s renomination, losing by a 58% to 33% margin. Embittered, Gunderson endorsed the Democratic nominee, Tom Berry, in the general election; Berry defeated Green amidst the FDR Democratic wave that year. Gunderson died shortly after Berry took office, in February 1933.
Sigurd Anderson
Sigurd Anderson was born in Norway and came to the United States as a child, settling with his family Lincoln County. He became a teacher and debate coach in Webster, then returned to the town after completing law school. Anderson was a state’s attorney and assistant attorney general and, after interrupting his career to serve in World War II, was elected attorney general in 1946. In 1950, he was elected governor, narrowly defeated Joe Foss in the Republican primary and easily defeating Joe Robbie in the general election. Anderson was reelected in 1952, and served during a time of post-war prosperity and development.
After leaving office in 1953, Anderson was appointed to the Federal Trade Commission by President Eisenhower. In 1962, he was among several prominent Republicans who sought the nomination for U.S. Senate at a special state Republican convention following the death of U.S. Senator Francis Case, but the nomination went to Lt. Governor Joe Bottum. Anderson was ready to reenter state politics, though, and he left the FTC and returned to South Dakota to run for governor in 1964, hoping to succeed Archie Gubbrud.
Anderson was the early favorite for the nomination in 1964, but he lost the Republican primary to Lt. Governor Nils Boe by a margin of 7%. Boe had been speaker of the house and had also sought the U.S. Senate nomination in 1962; he withdrew in favor of Bottum at a critical juncture, and was nominated for lieutenant governor to replace Bottum soon thereafter.
Boe was narrowly elected governor that fall, defeating Democrat John Lindley, the former lieutenant governor, by a 52% to 48% margin. He magnanimously appointed Anderson as a circuit court judge, a position Anderson held from 1967 until his retirement in 1975. Anderson remained in Webster until his death in 1990.
Ralph Herseth
Ralph Herseth was a Brown County farmer and state senator. A Democrat, he was the first to be considered “senate minority leader.” Herseth also holds the distinction of being the only South Dakotan to be nominated by his party for governor in four consecutive elections. He challenged Governor Joe Foss’s reelection in 1956, capitalizing on public dissatisfaction with the Foss administration’s attempts to make property tax valuations more uniform, which had led to higher taxes. That wasn’t enough to defeat the war hero Foss, but Herseth won a respectable 46% of the vote, which propelled him to victory in the following election, in 1958, against Republican Attorney General Phil Saunders by a 51% to 49% margin.
Once in office, Herseth appointed a Citizen Tax Study Commission, chaired by Republican former Governor M.Q. Sharpe, to advance his proposal for a state income tax. The Republican State Legislature rejected that proposal, though, and House Speaker Archie Gubbrud challenged Herseth’s reelection in 1960. Herseth was favored to be reelected, but Gubbrud won by a 51% to 49% margin, riding the coattails of U.S. Senator Karl Mundt, who defeated Congressman George McGovern, and Vice President Richard Nixon, who carried South Dakota even as he lost the presidency to U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy.
Herseth made his fourth bid for governor in 1962 in a rematch with Gubbrud, but he lost by a widened margin of 56% to 44%. He didn’t seek office again, and died of a heart attack in early 1969, aged only 59. The Herseth family would remain a force in state politics though, with his wife, Lorna, serving as secretary of state, son Lars becoming a legislative leader and the 1986 Democratic nominee for governor, and granddaughter Stephanie becoming the first woman elected to the U.S. House from South Dakota.
Richard F. Kneip
Dick Kneip was a native of Arlington who made his home in Salem, where he operated a dairy equipment wholesaler. A Catholic Democrat, he was elected to the State Senate in 1964 and became the senate minority leader. Kneip was elected governor in 1970, defeating Governor Frank Farrar, and was reelected in 1972 and 1974.
At the age of 37, Kneip was the youngest governor in state history and, able to be elected three times due to a constitutional anomaly, he also became the longest-serving governor to date, serving nearly eight years before he resigned in July 1978 to become U.S. Ambassador to Singapore.
Kneip is remembered as an active and successful governor who led the state at a time of modernization. Voters approved new executive and judicial articles, and during a rare period of Democratic control of the legislature, legislative rules were modernized to create a more open process. Kneip backed the creation of the State Investment Council, the South Dakota Retirement System, and Bureau of Finance and Management, and the four-year medical school at USD. His most significant failure was his persistent effort to create a state income tax, which legislators rejected every year, mostly famously when Lt. Governor Bill Dougherty declined to cast a tie-breaking vote that could have passed the proposal.
Kneip served as Ambassador to Singapore until 1980, leaving shortly before the end of the Carter administration. He returned to South Dakota, where he became president of Nelson Laboratories, a Sioux Falls company owned by Joe Robbie.
In 1986, Kneip mounted a comeback bid, seeking to succeed the term-limited Governor Bill Janklow. Early polls showed Kneip as the favorite for the Democratic nomination as the Republican frontrunner was former Congressman Clint Roberts. Both parties would forsake the early frontrunners, though, as Roberts lost narrowly to former House Speaker George S. Mickelson, and Kneip lost by a 43% to 39% margin to Lars Herseth, the house minority leader and son of former Governor Ralph Herseth.
It was the first loss of Kneip’s political career, and an evocative photograph in the Argus Leader captured him at the moment of defeat. Tragically, it would also be Kneip’s last campaign, as he soon learned that he had a malignant abdominal tumor, and he died less than a year after that 1986 primary, on March 9, 1987 at the young age of 54. Had he been elected in 1986, he would have lived only two months into his new term.
Looking ahead
South Dakota has two living former governors. Dennis Daugaard left office in 2019 and has made it clear that he will not be seeking further office. Mike Rounds, who was governor from 2003-11, now serves in the U.S. Senate. He can seek a third term in 2026, the same year that Kristi Noem’s current gubernatorial term ends. Rounds has recently addressed the possibility that he could seek a return to the Governor’s Office, although he emphasized his focus on his work in the U.S. Senate. (A return as governor in 2027 would make Rounds the oldest governor in state history and the first to serve while in his seventies; he would take office at age 72 and be 76 at the end of a four-year term.)
And what about Kristi Noem? Term limits will bar her from seeking a third gubernatorial term in 2026. Her next move seems likely to be at the federal level, but she will be only 54 years old when her current term ends, which means she could be a factor for several elections to come.
SoDak Governors 