Makenzie Huber, South Dakota Searchlight
SIOUX FALLS – Attendees of a Tuesday evening town hall focused on the impact of Trump administration policies voiced worries about federal funding cuts, the impact of tariffs and a lack of communication from elected officials.
The event, the second of four sessions held across South Dakota and led by prominent South Dakota Democrats, took place at Augustana University’s Hamre Recital Hall.
Nikki Gronli, former U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development director, said she wanted to organize the sessions to listen to people and offer resources to those who feel ignored by South Dakota’s congressional delegation as they face fallout from federal funding cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“We know that people are concerned, afraid and have seen impacts in their lives already from grants and loans and things that have been paused,” Gronli said.
Attendees rallied around calls to unseat South Dakota’s U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson and Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune, all Republicans.
The state’s U.S. senators are in South Dakota this week, but not for town halls. Sen. Rounds spoke to the group Americans for Prosperity on Monday in Rapid City. Thune will be on hand for a ribbon-cutting at an Amazon delivery station in Box Elder Wednesday morning, and speak at a Pennington County Republican Women’s monthly luncheon in Rapid City shortly thereafter. A group called Indivisible Rapid City is planning a silent protest to coincide with the luncheon.
Gronli described the Sioux Falls event as bipartisan, but it was organized by the South Dakota Democratic Party. Many attendees identified themselves as Democrats when they rose to voice their concerns in the packed auditorium.
Brandon resident Michael Nitz said he changed his party registration from Republican to Independent shortly after President Trump took office this year. There are efficiencies to be found in federal government, he said, but he doesn’t like the approach of the Trump administration or the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Nitz voiced frustration over a lack of public events with the state’s Congressional delegation.
“You’re the only people who are answering my questions,” Nitz told the speakers, a group that included Gronli, as well as former South Dakota state Sen. Reynold Nesiba and 2026 Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Julian Beaudion. “I fired off emails and phone calls like you’re supposed to do to Rounds, Johnson and Thune. I’ve not gotten any response for that, so I’m getting tired.”
Tim Sundet, from Lake Preston, was visibly angry as he took the microphone and held up a copy of the U.S. Constitution. He took issue with Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s plan to monitor immigrants’ social media activity for “antisemitism” and college students and faculty across the country being detained for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
“You have the right to assemble. It is in the Constitution and yet they don’t care. Where are our members of Congress? What are they doing about it?” Sundet said.
Attendees also expressed discontent with Trump’s cabinet picks, including Noem, the former South Dakota governor, spoke of what they see as an uncertain future for Medicaid and other federal programs, and about Trump’s unstable tariff policies.
Nesiba said tariffs will hurt South Dakota farmers.
Soybeans are China’s top agricultural import from the U.S., totaling $12.8 billion in 2024, according to the USDA. Soybeans are South Dakota’s top agricultural export, valued at $1.6 billion in 2022.
“What I worry about is that this might not be temporary. When a country starts to have relationships with somebody else – that they’re getting their soybeans from Brazil and their beef from Australia – then it’s harder for us to get those markets back,” Nesiba said. “We spent a lot of money building those trade relationships over time, and in a matter of 100 days we’ve burned a lot of goodwill around the world in those relationships.”
Beaudion, Gronli and Nesiba encouraged attendees to engage respectfully with elected officials at all levels, as well as with family members and neighbors supportive of Trump administration policy.
“If we put a lot of pressure on those local officials, then I promise you our state Legislature will hear it because they’ll be pressured,” Beaudion said, “and then our federal officials will hear it because our legislators and the state will be pressured.”
Beaudion also suggested that attendees could run for state and local office.
Gronli said stories collected from the sessions and through online forms will be compiled into a report that’ll be sent to Johnson, Rounds and Thune’s offices.
Town halls will also be held in Vermillion on April 24 and in Aberdeen on April 28.