SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Voting has started for the June primary election.
KELOLAND Media Group is helping people get to know the candidates for legislative primaries.
The South Dakota Legislature has 105 seats, 35 in the Senate and 70 in the House. South Dakota has 35 legislative districts and each district has one Senate seat and two at-large House seats (with the exceptions of House districts 26 and 28; each of those is broken roughly in half and each of the four halves elects one representative.)
Each party can have one candidate for the Senate seat and two House candidates for the House seats in a district. The June 7 primaries will decide a party’s nomination for the Senate seat and the party’s nominations for the two House seats, with those nominees advancing to the November general election ballots.
For the Senate seat in District 5, which is made up of Watertown, two Republicans are running Lee Schoenbeck and Colin Paulsen. There is no Democrat candidate.
In the House race, there is one Democrat (Kahden Mooney) and two Republican candidates (Byron Callies and Hugh Bartels) so there won’t be a primary.
This story will be updated with answers and photos from candidates when they are received.
