Money Flows To SD Senate Race As Independent Challenges Republican Incumbent

Money is pouring into South Dakota’s U. S. Senate race as people and groups across the country sense a rare chance to support a potentially competitive challenger against a Republican incumbent. Both candidates have raised a majority of their campaign contributions from outside the state and have spent a combined $6. 1 million, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan, nonprofit money-in-politics website OpenSecrets. Additional spending by federally registered political action committees to influence the race has topped $3 million, pushing the total cost of the race near $10 million and counting. In a race with no Democratic candidate, about 40% of the spending has been in support of independent Brian Bengs or against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds. Bengs trailed Rounds by 8 points in an Emerson College/KELO-TV poll released last week, with 8% of respondents undecided.