First Primary Night Win: Clark Schmidtke Files Indy to Beat Russ Olson!

Clark Schmidtke, Sr., of Trent, Independent candidate for South Dakota District 8 Senate, and Trudi Nelson of Madison. Trudi is 5'2"; Clark is not.

Five minutes until West River polls close, so no results yet... but the Secretary of State's office has already provided District 8 voters a nice early present: Clark Schmidtke, Sr., of Trent has officially made the ballot to run as an Independent for State Senate against incumbent Republican Russell Olson of Madison.

You may recall that Schmidtke failed to make the ballot as a Democrat back in April after a volunteer sent his petitions to Pierre certified instead of registered mail. No such blooper this time: Schmidtke is in to win!

(Note also that I spelled Schmidtke's name wrong back in April. My apologies, Clark! And thank you for bringing yet another orthographic challenge to the general election!)

Tea Party friends, don't let tonight's results dishearten you. I'll expect you to be at the polls in November to exercise your anti-incumbent fervor and replace GOP establishment lapdog Olson with a new voice: Clark Schmidtke!