Senate race too close to call; Herseth leads House race

By Denise Ross and Dan Daly, Journal Staff Writers

With four-fifths of South Dakota's precincts reporting late Tuesday night, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was trailing former Republican Congressman John Thune by about 6,500 to 7,000 votes at Journal news deadline. At the same time, Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., appeared likely to hold onto the U.S. House seat she won only five months ago.

In the nation's most closely watched Senate contest, Daschle had inched ahead of Thune by as much as 2 percentage points as the first votes were counted. That lead quickly evaporated, and barely more than two hours after the polls closed in the Central Time Zone, the two men were dead even.

By 9:30 p.m. MST, Thune had inched ahead, and Republicans gathered at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Rapid City sent up a cheer, albeit a tentative one.

Two years ago, then-Congressman Thune had gained an equal lead in his challenge to Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. Thune campaign staffers popped champagne, and Johnson went to bed believing he had lost.

By morning, Johnson had crept back ahead and clinched a 524-vote victory.

At news deadline this election night, neither Thune nor Daschle would predict the outcome of a race that always was expected to be a nail-biter.

Nonetheless, Thune campaign manager Dick Wadhams was riding high as he watched his candidate's lead grow. The fact that a similar lead slipped away from Thune two years ago couldn't dampen his spirits.

"Going county by county, John has consistently done better than he did two years ago, except for a couple of minor exceptions," Wadhams, who was not part of South Dakota's 2002 election, said.

Those early returns did not include the heavily Republican West River counties nor the heavily Democratic reservation counties. Nor did they include about 15,000 absentee ballots from Minnehaha County, home to Sioux Falls, the state's largest city where Daschle traditionally has been strong. With regular ballots from all but one precinct counted, Daschle held a slim 1 percent lead in Minnehaha County.

Despite the gloomy scenario unfolding before him, Daschle's deputy campaign manager, Dan Pfeiffer, matter-of-factly ran down all the ballots that had not yet been counted, including 13 precincts and 5,300 absentee ballots in Democratic-leaning Brown County.

"This looks a lot like 2002, and it's very clearly going down to the wire," Pfeiffer, who was a top campaign aide to Sen. Johnson two years ago, said. "There are a lot of uncounted votes out there."

No matter how the Senate race turns out, Daschle and Thune will meet each other in court today. Thune appealed a federal judge's ruling governing the activities of Republican poll watchers in Charles Mix County.

Five hours before polls opened, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol of Sioux Falls partially granted Daschle's request to limit the activities of Republican poll watchers.

Daschle asked for a temporary restraining order late Monday afternoon to prevent Republicans from doing anything that would "harass, intimidate or discourage voters."

Thune appealed, and a hearing is scheduled for today.

House race

Meanwhile, in the race for South Dakota's lone House seat, incumbent Stephanie Herseth appeared to be building a comfortable lead in early East River polling.

At news deadline, with 601 of 827 precincts reporting, the Democrat had 53 percent of the votes to Republican Larry Diedrich's 46 percent. Libertarian Terry Begay had 1 percent of the vote.

Both Herseth and Diedrich were in Sioux Falls on Tuesday night. Russ Levsen, spokesman for the Herseth campaign, said the candidate won't be doing interviews until the race is called. Jessica Towhey, speaking for the Diedrich campaign, also said the candidate would remain silent until the votes are counted.

Tuesday's race between Herseth and Diedrich is an exact rematch of the June 1 special election to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Bill Janklow.

Janklow had to step down after being convicted of manslaughter in the 2003 highway death of motorcyclist Randy Scott. That set in motion the special election. Herseth, 33, who had lost to Janklow in 2002, became the Democratic candidate. Diedrich, 47, a farmer and longtime state legislator from Elkton, was nominated by the Republicans.

In the June 1 election, Herseth won by only 3,000 votes. She won in 32 of 66 counties. Her strongholds were on the state's American Indian reservations - Herseth won 94 percent of the votes cast in Shannon County on Pine Ridge Reservation - and traditionally Democratic East River counties.

In terms of numbers, Herseth outpolled Diedrich by more than 3,600 votes in Minnehaha County and by nearly 2,300 votes in Brown County, where the third-generation politician from Houghton grew up.

Diedrich's strong suit in the June 1 race was the far west end of the state. In the Black Hills, he outpolled by 4,000 votes, and in Harding County, he picked up 73 percent of the vote.

Before the June 1 special election, Republicans and Democrats vowed to run the same candidates in the special election and the November general election. Herseth ran on her scant five-month record in the House.

And Diedrich continued with his campaign that emphasized his legislative experience and his work with agricultural groups.

Contact Denise Ross at 394-8438 or denise.ross@rapidcityjournal.com or Dan Daly at 394-8421 or dan.daly@rapidcityjournal.com