Prior to the election, all seventeen news organizations making predictions for the election considered this a state Romney would win, or otherwise considered as a safe red state. South Dakota has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon B. Johnson carried it in his 44-state landslide in 1964. South Dakota, just as all of the other states in the Great Plains, is among the most Republican states in the country. According to a 2012 Gallup poll, South Dakota is the 9th most conservative state in the country, with Republicans having an 11 percentage point advantage over Democrats in terms of party affiliation or identification.[1] It is also the 10th whitest state in the country as of 2012, at 83.8%,[2] and has the 4th highest gun ownership rate in the country at 56.6%, according to The Washington Post.[3] Both of these voting blocs are relatively solid for the Republican Party.[4]
While Obama lost the state by only 8.41% in 2008, illustrating a potential resurgence of Democratic strength among the agrarian population as seen in states such as Iowa, the state was returned to the safe Republican column in 2012. Romney won South Dakota by an 18.02% margin of victory. Romney was able to win back southeast Dakota: Obama became competitive there in 2008, when he won Minnehaha County (and many of its suburbs), home to the state's largest city of Sioux Falls, by only 587 votes.[5] Romney carried upwards of 60% of the vote in many counties, with his best performance in the West River. He also flipped Brown County, where Aberdeen is.