SDSU Poll shows race for governor's seat is heating up between Kristi Noem, Jamie Smith
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The race over who will live in the Governor's Mansion is tightening less than four weeks from the Nov. 8 election, according to a poll released from South Dakota State University on Tuesday.
Gov. Kristi Noem, who's running for her second term, against Democratic challenger Rep. Jamie Smith is leading the race 45% to 41%, with a margin of error of 4%, according to the SDSU Poll, which is part of the School of American and Global Studies at the university in Brookings. The poll also states 14% of voters have not yet decided.
The 4% lead is "roughly the same difference as in the 2018 election," when Noem faced Democratic challenger Billie Sutton, according to the poll.
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The poll surveyed 565 registered South Dakotan voters between Sept. 28 and Oct. 10, according to the SDSU Poll.
"We've got ourselves a tight race, I wouldn't say a statistical tie," said David Wiltse, the director of the SDSU Poll, on Tuesday in an interview with "In the Moment," a daily South Dakota Public Broadcasting show.
Wiltse told the Argus Leader on Tuesday it's important to focus on the undecided voters who "are still showing some hesitation as to who they're going to vote for."
"For the most part, these people are probably not truly undecided and a large chunk of these folks are Republicans," Wiltse said. "There's more than twice as many undecided Republicans as there are Democrats, which tells us that we're probably going to see a healthier majority of those undecided voters break towards the Republicans."
He added the poll is only a snapshot of how voters feel in the moment.
Previously, preliminary numbers on Oct. 5 from the SDSU Poll showed the race between Noem and Smith was within a few points, with Noem ahead at 45% and Smith trailing at 42%.
Those numbers have essentially been confirmed by Tuesday's poll results.
Four years ago, a week before Election Day, Noem and Sutton were involved in a tight race, according to an Argus Leader and KELO TV poll. Noem was leading with 47% to Sutton's 44% with a margin of error of 4.5%, marking that the race was still up for grabs.
Noem slid across the finish line on Election Night with 51% of the vote to Sutton's 48%, one of the smallest margins of victory since 1986, according to Argus Leader reporting at the time.
What else did the poll look at?
The SDSU Poll also broke down preferences for the candidates based on registered voter's gender.
Nearly half of women said they were supportive of Smith, while a bit over half of men said they were supportive of Noem, according to the poll. But, 12% of both men and women said they weren't sure what their candidate preference was.
National trends have shown women prefer Democrats, according to the poll.
The last day to register to vote is Oct. 24.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: SDSU Poll shows Kristi Noem, Jamie Smith close for governor's seat
