South Dakota

South Dakota is a Great Plains state, solidly Republican in federal elections, whose 2026 relevance runs through three separate threads: 8th Circuit judicial appointments, its senators' AI-era legislative work, and a state law that has become a template for the anti-data-centre backlash. In April 2026, Justin D. Smith was confirmed to the 8th Circuit by unanimous consent, part of Trump's broader confirmation push tracked through the midterm cycle.

The state, governed by Larry Rhoden after Kristi Noem's move to lead the Department of Homeland Security in January 2025, has no competitive federal races in 2026: senators John Thune (Senate Majority Leader) and Mike Rounds are not up for election, and its single at-large House seat is safely Republican. Rounds co-sponsors the bipartisan Warner-Rounds Economy of the Future Commission Act, which Microsoft and Google publicly endorsed in April 2026 as the most viable legislative vehicle on AI workforce policy after rival bills stalled or died. Separately, South Dakota's SB 135, authorising local governments to ban data-centre construction outright, had already passed by May 2026 and is tracked nationally as one of the more permissive local-control statutes in the fast-growing wave of state and municipal data-centre pauses.

Taken together, South Dakota's 2026 profile is that of a solidly conservative state whose national relevance is structural rather than electoral: a seat on the federal appeals bench that reaches seven states, a senator co-authoring the leading AI workforce bill, and a state law shaping how FAR local governments can go in resisting data-centre expansion.