David Wheeler kicks off Brian Bengs week by welcoming the man himself, Brian Bengs, to the show. The episode dives deep into the current state of Bengs' Senate race, highlighting his strong polling performance against incumbent Mike Rounds. Bengs shares insights on the challenges of a three-way race, emphasizing that the presence of a Democratic candidate could hinder his chances despite his competitive edge in head-to-head scenarios. The conversation touches on vital issues affecting South Dakota, including rural healthcare, education, and the influence of big money in politics. As they wrap up, Wheeler passionately encourages listeners to support Bengs' campaign, framing it as a pivotal moment for the future of South Dakota and beyond. David Wheeler hosts a lively discussion with Brian Bengs during the inaugural Brian Bengs week, where they dive deep into the political landscape of South Dakota as Bengs campaigns for the Senate. The conversation kicks off with Bengs expressing gratitude for being recognized with a week named after him, a first in his career. They reflect on the successful start to the week with Jennifer Bengs, setting a positive tone for the discussions to come. Wheeler emphasizes the importance of raising awareness and support for Bang's Senate run, highlighting the encouraging polling data that shows Bengs in a competitive position against the incumbent, Mike Rounds. The guests analyze the unique dynamics of South Dakota's political environment, particularly the challenges posed by a potential three-way race that could split votes and favor the Republican candidate. Bengs candidly shares insights from his prior campaigns and the strategic decisions behind his current campaign approach, showing a deep understanding of the state's electorate and the significance of engaging with voters directly. As the conversation continues, they delve into the implications of polling data, illustrating how Bengs has been able to resonate with voters across party lines, especially as an independent candidate. Wheeler underscores the necessity for Bengs to garner support from Democrats, who traditionally face an uphill battle in South Dakota due to historical biases against the party. They discuss the systemic issues impacting voter turnout and the importance of building coalitions that transcend party lines. Bengs articulates his vision for addressing pressing local issues such as healthcare, education, and campaign finance reform, which resonate deeply with the electorate. Throughout the episode, Bengs's passion for serving the constituents of South Dakota shines through, marking him as a candidate who prioritizes the needs of the people over party politics. In conclusion, the episode wraps up with a call to action for listeners to support Bengs's campaign, stressing that the stakes are high in this election cycle. Wheeler encourages listeners to reach out to the South Dakota Democratic Party and advocate for a united front in support of Bengs, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing the future of South Dakota and the nation over traditional party affiliations. The episode is not just a campaign pitch; it is a rallying cry for political engagement and reform in a state that is at a crossroads.

Takeaways:

• Brian Bengs appreciates the recognition of having a week named after him, marking a significant moment in his campaign journey.
• The podcast emphasizes the importance of engaging with voters and understanding their needs, especially in rural areas like South Dakota.
• Poll results indicate that Brian Bengs is in a competitive position against Mike Rounds, highlighting the potential for victory in the upcoming Senate race.
• The discussion revolves around the challenges faced by Democratic candidates in South Dakota, with a focus on the structural difficulties of a three-way race.
• Brian Bengs stresses the need for campaign resources and grassroots support to effectively challenge the incumbent and raise awareness.
• The speakers agree on the critical importance of local engagement and the necessity of addressing systemic issues affecting constituents in South Dakota.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Bengsforsouthdakota.com
• voteroi.com/bb

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• PPP
• South Dakota Democratic Party

Hey folks, David Wheeler here with muck you It's Brian Bengs week. And guess who we got on the program. The one and only Brian Bengs.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I never had a week named after myself before, so I do appreciate that.

And it's a full week. We started yesterday. We're taping this on Monday. And we started Brian Bengs week with Jennifer Bengs, who I think you know,.

I hope you know, I've met her a couple times.

Yeah, okay, good, good. She was terrific and a great way to start the week when we've had a terrific response.

But.

I'm delighted to have you back on the show, Brian. The reason we're doing this is we think you can win and we want to help you in any way we can.

And we think one way to do that is to raise the volume with our listeners and supporters across the board. And so let's have a little discussion. What is the state of the race from your perspective? And then we'll have a couple more questions. All right.

Well, that sounds good. Well, the state of the race is we are full steam ahead at this point. We're still living high off the hog with the poll we got back at the end of May.

We'd run some went all in on the a gamble to run some TV ads throughout May that were very well received.

So South Dakota is kind of a unique media market where 70% of the population is in one market, sioux Falls, and 30% is in the other market, Rapid City. So for efficiency purposes, we weighted obviously heavily towards Sioux Falls and had a lighter presence in Rapid City.

But it did what we wanted it to do in terms of getting my name out and some of the message out of what I'm offering. And the poll that we got back at the end of May after the TV ads was very encouraging.

It has me down in the initial ballot by 4, Mike Rounds 44, me 40. And then after the informed bio where we do positive bios for both rounds and I then I end up too ahead by two, actually.

So it is a very good position. I think if we have the resources going forward, I think we can in fact take this Senate seat.

Well, I think you can too. And that poll, which we've had your pollster on or one of your consultants on to kind of digest it.

And that poll shows that in a head to head, Brian Bengs can beat Mike Rounds, who's a MAGA king and obviously done nothing for South Dakota other than probably enrich himself. But before we get there, there's A Democrat in the race.

So give us a little bit of information about how a three way race would look based upon the poll and, and your own gut instinct, because you've run before as a Democrat. Yeah. In 24, 22, 22. So you know, what do your instincts tell you about a three way race?

Well, in a three way race, I think we all know the answer to that.

Our system is just not designed to handle more than two candidates, which is why we end up with the, the default Republican, Democrat fight each other and you very rarely have an independent involved. The, in a three way race, the polling is clear.

It validates what you'd expect that Mike Rounds comes out on top, I come out number two and the Democratic candidate, Julian comes out number three. So when you get your standard response in a three way race is, oh, somebody's a spoiler. That is true, unfortunately.

And in this case it is the Democratic candidate. So he and I actually have talked about that in the past.

He knows it, I know it, that there's not much value in both of us being on the ballot because we're both spinning our wheels. Mike Rounds wins by default.

Well, that. Yeah. And so what was, what's the outcome of that discussion in the past? I want to talk too much about the past, but where are you with that?

Yeah, so we spoke last year.

We haven't spoke too much since then, but we spoke last year when things were just getting started, before anybody knew where we were, how we were going to be doing or anything like that. And I made him the offer that if he is in a better position than me to go forward more competitive based on polling and fundraising that I, it's.

I'm not in this for ego. I would, I would step aside because I think the state and the country is better served if Mike Rounds does not go back to D.C. for a third term.

So looking forward to what is best for South Dakotans. I have that. I made that offer in the past and I stand by that offer. So I consider it a valid offer.

Right now I don't know what his assessment of the situation is, but my assessment of the situation is I have done skimmingly better for fundraising and the polling obviously is quite good. I would note in the same poll that he is down 25 points to Mike Rounds when I'm down four. So he's got a little bit deeper hole to start from.

But that is kind of what you'd expect in South Dakota with the favorability of the Democratic Party in our, in our prior polls being about 23%, which is roughly equivalent to what the voter registrations are for Democrats in South Dakota. So the Democratic candidates just start in a deep hole that they have to dig themselves out of. And I experienced this myself before.

You even get to start fighting to build something that makes you competitive.

Yeah, it's just structurally, it's. It's almost impossible for a Democrat to win.

And that's, you know, we're not saying anything against Julian or against any other Democrat running, but it's just structurally very difficult. Not. And I live in a part of North Carolina, as listeners know, that's the same thing. And I've run for office, and people say, well, you're a.

You're a loser. Well, yeah, I'm a loser because I ran in a drunk district. But that's. The poll says a lot different, though, about an independent candidate.

And I think part of it is the folks know you and they like you, but I think it's also that you don't have Democrat behind your name.

I would say 100%. Yeah, the lack of the D behind my name, because my experience in.

In 22, when I ran, it was kind of a Don Quixote mission to run against the current majority leader of the Senate because he started the campaign with, I think, 7 million or $8 million in his bank account and raised another, basically double that over the course of the campaign while just ignoring me. And he ended up spending $7 million. But I did not get to have what I wanted, which was the exchange of ideas.

And as an independent, I can say definitively the reception I get when I go up and talk to people wearing Trump hats, wearing cowboy, whatever, wherever they are in the conservative areas of this state is significantly better. And I can. I can engage with people.

I don't get all the people, but I get a serious number of people going like, yeah, I agree with you on these things. And that just does not happen with a Democratic label.

Right. And. And the poll was also interesting in that rounds was what, at 20 per 28 approval?

Or let's see, in this, he's been as low over the last six polls that have been done. Four of them are mine and two of them are independent. Over the last six polls, he fluctuates between 32 and 40%.

I think in our most recent poll, he was at 39 approval.

39. Okay. So, you know, an incumbent that is only liked by 39 of the electorate of the populace is not a very good position to start from.

But the problem is in a head to Head with the Democrat. The Democrat still loses by 25 points. Right?

Yeah, that's what the polling sews right now.

And, and you, you were essentially even with him.

Yeah, I'm in the head within the margin of error essentially.

Right. And, and folks need to understand that this is a PPP poll. This is not just an internal poll that Brian put out to you know, try and fool folks.

You know, all you have to do is look up PPP and they're one of the best polling firms out there and they don't do polls, they do real polls. So you know the, the net net here folks is Brian Bengs can win if he's in a head to head race with, with Mike Rounds.

Brian Bengs cannot win if it's a three way race with the Democrat in there. So I would suggest, and I'm not going to speak for Brian, this is me speaking.

Anybody that is interested in, in winning in South Dakota, number one, you need to support Brian Bengs his campaign.

It's Bengs B E N G S for South Dakota.com and I put a little accent in there South Dakota and, and then the second thing you can do is pick up the phone and we'll put this in the show notes and call the South Dakota Democratic Party or Julian, the Senate candidates offices and ask, ask him to pleasant pleasure. Pleasantly asked. Don't berate him, don't be mean about it. Just say hey listen, we want to win. I'm a Democrat, I want to win.

I'm not going to support you. I'm supporting Brian because I'm convinced he can win. So let's, let's do that. We also may put up a, a petition.

Maybe we can get folks to encourage Julian to run for lieutenant governor or insurance commissioner or something. But, and if he does that we'll support him 100. We'll help him raise some money, we'll have him on the show.

We've invited him to the show but he hasn't responded. So listen listeners, you know, we're not just doing this because we want to make Brian popular.

We want, we're doing this show in this Brian Bengs week because I honestly believe he can win.

And I'll have another question here in a second Brian, but I a lot's on my mind on this race and it's a little bit bottled up and I'm the guy that said we can beat Madison Cawthorn. Now Madison Cawthorn was a first term member of Congress out here in North Carolina and he was very popular.

Anybody that listen to this show knows that that's not my style. But I've got to know Brian.

I looked at this race from a structural standpoint and gone in depth on the poll, and I think Bengs is the right guy for South Dakota. So having said that, Brian, where. Where is your head? You think we can get Julian to see the light or what. What's your.

Where are you thinking things are headed right now?

We. Obviously, the decision to run or not run or withdraw is an individual decision made by the candidates themselves.

So I. I make mold over that decision myself, and I continue to do that every day about what's in the best interests of the people, the constituents, which should always be the premier question for every candidate of any party or no party, or what is in the best interest of my constituents or would be constituents. And my assessment is that Julian cannot compete, given the difficulty he has with the D label behind him. And the polling backs that up.

And the favorability of the Democratic Party in South Dakota being, you know, the Republican Party is not that much better, but it is substantially better than the Democratic Party in terms of broad favorability, given the voter registration. So I would note that the polling that. That we've got back. I'm hitting my numbers I need in the Republican respondents.

I'm hitting the numbers I need in the independent respondents. The deficiencies were, it's really costing me.

And why I'm not ahead of Mike Rounds is the Democratic respondents to these polls are not coming my direction, as much as I need them to be. So will Julian withdraw? So far, he's resisted that.

And the arguments have been, you know, one of the arguments to the point of what you were just talking about, he's come back, or his. His surrogates have come back and said, oh, your money's coming from out of state. I've got a lot more from South Dakota.

And I don't know that that's true, actually. But I do know that you cannot raise the type of money it takes to win a senate race anywhere in South Dakota. You just can't.

So we are dependent on people from across the country. And my average contribution is, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 bucks, 31 bucks, something like that.

So regular folks keep kicking in what they can here and there, and that's just the. The state of the situation right now.

And I don't know if the South Dakota Democratic Party or Julian understands how this system, broken as it is, works right now and needs to change, of course, but this is how it is. This is a game that you play right now, unfortunately.

Yeah, well, and, and my frustration, Brian, is that the data is clear, that you could beat rounds, but, you know, the party, Democratic Party and others can't see beyond their nose and, and realize.

That, you know, we're at war.

This is, you know, not to, not to be too dramatic, but good God, Trump is taking this country in a direction that is very frightening for me and others. And if people don't see the need to think outside of the typical electoral and election box, they're part of the problem.

I mean, they're compounding the problem. So this isn't just about you winning. This isn't about Julian not winning or not being able to win. This is about the future of the country.

And if you're in this United States Senate, you're going to be an independent voice that's not going to listen to the either party tell you how to vote. You're going to vote based upon the Constitution, I assume.

And, and that's the position I've taken, certainly, that I'm a law, law and order, rule, rule of law guy. I've spent the bulk of my life as an Air Force officer and a jag, you know, defending good order and discipline. What are the rules?

We should be following them. Why are we not following the Constitution? These were things that I was trained to do and I believe in.

I was sold on the Constitution in junior high school and in high school.

What I learned then, I want what I was promised back then, and I want everybody else to have what they were promised by their teachers when they were little. We don't have it right now.

And, and again, we're at war, folks. And do folks in South Dakota understand that, Brian?

I mean, are voters realize that this election has enough import that they better get off their asses and work a little bit harder to win?

Well, there's some people that certainly do. There's others that until the consequences swing at them, they're just going to be kind of going along and things are fine.

And I've, I've talked to plenty of them, of course, as well, but, yeah, something big has to wake up people, I think.

Okay, well, I don't want to be too much, too gloomy and doomy, but, folks, do me a favor. Please check our show notes. Call the South Dakota Democratic Party and. And other Julian's campaign. And.

And let me check here that this is your idea, not mine. I'm not.

No, I know, I know, I know.

This is not something that I suggested that you. You advocate for.

No, I don't. Again, I think anybody listen to the show knows that I usually take the opposite direction when somebody asked me to do something, so.

And you certainly have not. And I don't want you to get tagged with this.

But again, my feeling is this is war, folks, and we have to start thinking like compatriots and revolutionaries and, and less about party lines and traditional. So, again, we're here with Brian Bengs, who's running for the United States Senate from South Dakota.

You're listening to Muck U with David Wheeler, who's nothing but trouble. And we're delighted to have you, Brian. So where. Where are you headed this on the campaign trail in the next couple months? What's, What's.

How do you win? Let's say. Let's say we get things headed in the right direction. How do you win this race, Brian?

Yeah, this is. Well, the retail politics is where I'm going to be heading basically, in the next few months.

For example, this week I'm heading to Sioux Falls, which is about six hours from where I live. South Dakota is a very large state for those people that don't know.

I will be driving six hours at 80 miles an hour to get to the largest city in the state from the corner where I live.

But the, the getting out and the meeting people, we did that on the front end in January through April, trying to get valid nominating petition signatures to talk to a lot of people that way now talk to the people that are perhaps less engaged but are now starting to pay more attention. And I'll be going to parades, that sort of thing, and just getting out and talking to people.

One of the big lessons that I got in 22 when I ran is that I would.

I would literally go up to people, introduce myself as a candidate and tell them I'm going to guarantee with 100 certainty that you and I will agree on at least two, but probably three things. Then I'd run down my list. And they're not in the long agree to generally all three. I'd say, can I count on your vote in November?

And they get around to asking, so what are you. And when you say, well, I'm a lifelong independent, but I'm running as a Democrat, I'll never vote for a Democrat. So that is not happening.

I'm doing Essentially the same thing now. And they say, well, I'm running as an independent, and people stick with me and like, oh, what a. Okay, yeah, they all look you up online. What.

I'll find out more about you. So doing more of that and just engaging people. And then they tell their friends and everything.

And I tell people, like, hey, if you like what you see on my website, or what I'm saying, tell your friends. If you don't like it, tell me. So that personal engagement is definitely what I'm going to be doing a lot more of.

Well, good. I think that's the way you win in a smallish state. And what are the two or three population centers you got? Sioux Falls. What else?

Sioux Falls is a big one. And in the west, west river, it is Rapid City. Then, of course, the i29 corridor on the eastern side of the state, you've got Watertown, Brookings.

There's Mitchell. That's more kind of towards the middle. And then where I lived before is Aberdeen in the northeast corner.

So the population, if the state were balanced in the middle, the population on the eastern side would tip it very much that way because that is the 70% of the population lives east of the Missouri R. Oh, really?

Okay, that's interesting. So, and I assume indigenous population is fairly important?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

In 22, I visited all the reservations and all the counties, and I will be visiting the reservations again and trying to get more in contact with the leadership of the reservations as opposed to the individual people themselves, who I spoke to at great length in the past. But one of the things that struck me when I did it in 22 is I heard the exact same thing to the same.

Same answer to the same question that I asked at every reservation. We have nine of them, by the way. And I'd say, so what. What do you need? What would help the reservation population the most?

And every single reservation answered me with, we need better education, we need better health care, we need better law enforcement, and we need better roads. Every single one, same answer, which obviously indicates there's a systemic problem that needs to be addressed at these places where we've.

We've set aside the territory as an exchange for surrendering, you know, treaties in the past, surrendering the territory that is now the bulk of South Dakota.

So we need to do a better job taking care of the native population, certainly, and going to be out there talking to them and finding out what they need.

Well, that's terrific. And I guarantee you Mike Rounds is not spending very much time on those on the reservations is he?

You generally don't find, yeah, too many Republicans hanging out on reservations.

And what other issues? Oil and gas is a big deal. What else?

Well, the cost of fuel certainly contributing to the affordability crisis. South Dakota is a very rural state, if anybody didn't know that. Very rural state. So health care, rural health care is a big deal.

And Mike Rounds willingness to cut the Medicare Medicaid funds funding is going to imperil a lot of rural health care places that are often the only health care availability within hours.

So if these places go under because they depend on Medicaid reimbursement, for example, which they do, then you now are looking at, hey, it could be a three hour drive to go to a hospital or more in some cases, depending where you live. So that is an important issue. We need to talk about more.

And the feds can certainly have an impact there. Here in North Carolina, the Republicans resisted Medicaid expansion and they finally did it. And lo and behold, people are healthier people.

These rural hospitals are, are not closing at the rate that they were in the past.

So yeah, it's the same recipe everywhere that, yeah, we had to actually have a popular vote. The legislature did not want to expand Medicaid and it got, we got it on the ballots.

And so when the people voted to, to do it, then, okay, we, we got it through. But then they look like, oh, you know, we'll just put some work requirements in there to try to limit it further. So it's constant back and forth.

And what, what is, what are two other important issues that matter in South Dakota and matter to you?

Well, when I was talking to people gathering nominating petition signatures, and basically part of my approach when I engage with anybody is I tell them that I think big money controls our politics.

And literally to a person, every single individual that I speak with says, yeah, tell me something I don't know, that the politicians work for the big money donors that are writing them large checks rather than us. So I would say the single biggest issue for me is getting money out of politics to the maximum extent possible.

And I know that's a big uphill fight, but we did that over a century ago and South Dakota was a leader in that effort. So what I'm trying to do is tap into, hey, South Dakotans, do you know your own history?

They just need to be reminded of it because they already believe that.

So tapping into that sentiment, because I believe big money is a cause of a lot of the other divisive issues that we have, using that to keep us at each other's throat. So there's that issue and, of course, reforming the tax code. So the big money interests that have bought the tax.

Tax code that they prefer do not get to continue driving us deeper and deeper into debt. And everybody wants to address that sort of thing, in my experience.

Everybody that cares about somebody other than themselves. That's true.

Everybody but the billionaires, I guess I should call them.

Exactly, exactly. And how about data centers? Is that an issue in. In South Dakota or.

No, it is. There was an issue in Sioux Falls that really highlighted it for us. So I get asked about that fairly regularly as well.

And my position on that has been, because there's been people that come out and argue like, oh, no, data centers. We've got one. I think there's one in North Dakota that was not far from where I lived in Aberdeen before that.

The local community seems to be happy with, and they think that it brings in money and everything to their area.

So my take on this is, hey, data center people, if you want to build something somewhere, you sell it to the people, and then they have a popular vote on it. And if you've sold it, then, yes, they will vote for it. If you've not sold it, they will vote against it. But the key is to ask the people.

Don't just ram it down their throat by some backroom deals with the. The legislature or the local town council or something like that, which seems to be what's going on. And most people are. Are not pleased by that.

Yeah, no, that's. That's a very South Dakota approach to things. You know, let local. Let the locals decide. I. I think that's a really good position to have.

All right, folks, so we're with Brian Bengs, who's running for United States senate from South Dakota. He's an independent, and I've been done a deep dive on this race, and I think Brian can win. So Bengs, B N G S for South Dakota dot com.

Go make a donation. Or you can go to Vote roi dot com bb. That's Brian's landing page on a new fundraising site that I actually run.

That's vote r o I.com BB and make a donation. It goes directly to Brian's campaign at about half the cost of ActBlue.

That's a good thing.

That's a very good thing. So, Brian, I hear that you're not much of a skier.

So you've been talking to my old boss.

Yes, I have. He's a terrific guy.

You grew up in Iowa too, I think, right?

That's right.

That's right. I grew up in North Iowa where the fields are flat and you don't really, you know, you don't go skiing in Iowa.

So I, when I tried to ski, living in the Bavarian Alps where everybody skis and my children who were going to the German school, they like, they had ski week where they would go up and teach the kids how to ski at, in whatever second grade or something like that. And everybody just learns to ski. So I tried to learn to ski because, hey, this is the, this is the world class place where you do this.

And when you're 6 foot 8 and you're trying to learn to ski when you're 43 years old and you've not really done it before, things don't go well. It, it was not, it was not a good experience for me. I did not have any broken bones in the end though. So that was a positive.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I can only imagine. Oh my God. Six, eight.

Can you imagine trying to ski you and talk about skiing over your skis or whatever that phrase is? Yeah.

So, yeah, I contend that that was my biggest limitation is that I'm very large and like my center of gravity is a little bit different than other people.

Yeah, yeah. Well, blame it on the skis. There you go.

All right, Brian, well, thank you so much for spending some time with us and opening up your life and campaign to muck you today again, folks. Bengals B E N G S for South Dakota.com is Brian's website and you can drop a donation there.

You can send Brian a note, send him some support, or you can go to voteroi.com bb as well. This has been muck you with my friend, Brian Bengs. I'm David Wheeler and again, thank you for joining us, Brian.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you to all your listeners as well.

Okay, that's it for muck you for now and as we always sign off, Muck you.