Kristi Noem’s Record a Complicated Picture

Governor Kristi Noem has cultivated a certain image — that of defiant red-state outlaw bucking the diktats of nanny-state Fauci-ism.

Her profile, in this mold, rose considerably last year when her state of South Dakota emerged as the only one never to enter coronavirus lockdowns, defying the public-health bureaucracy’s warnings of catastrophe with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation alongside fewer deaths per capita than lockdown-happy New Jersey and New York. The governor quickly began to look like a real contender in the nascent battle for the next Republican presidential nod: In February, the Associated Press reported that she raised nearly $1 million in the last quarter of 2020, only around 20 percent of which came from within South Dakota. In March, she headlined CPAC, where she placed second to Ron DeSantis in the event’s 2024 straw poll that did not include Donald Trump. In May, she officially formed a federal political action committee, dubbed the Noem Victory Fund.

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Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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Governor Kristi Noem has cultivated a certain image — that of defiant red-state outlaw bucking the diktats of nanny-state Fauci-ism.

Her profile, in this mold, rose considerably last year when her state of South Dakota emerged as the only one never to enter coronavirus lockdowns, defying the public-health bureaucracy’s warnings of catastrophe with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation alongside fewer deaths per capita than lockdown-happy New Jersey and New York. The governor quickly began to look like a real contender in the nascent battle for the next Republican presidential nod: In February, the Associated Press reported that she raised nearly $1 million in the last quarter of 2020, only around 20 percent of which came from within South Dakota. In March, she headlined CPAC, where she placed second to Ron DeSantis in the event’s 2024 straw poll that did not include Donald Trump. In May, she officially formed a federal political action committee, dubbed the Noem Victory Fund.