Logan Manhart, the January 6 rally attendee who withdrew from the 2022 ballot under threat of being kicked off, only to be hired by SD Secretary of State Monae Johnson, on Saturday declared his intent to the seat again:
As the Dakota Scout's Austin Goss reported in Former Secretary of State staffer to make second run at House seat:
A recently departed staffer of the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office will make a second run at a House seat in the state’s First Legislative District. . . .
Manhart previously ran for the same position in 2022, but removed himself from the race in the face of a legal challenge over the status of his residency by the state’s Democratic Party. Manhart’s Democratic opponent for the seat had initiated a lawsuit seeking to remove Manhart from the ballot, contending that he did not live in South Dakota for the prior two years as required by state law to run for the Legislature.
Manhart, a native of northeast South Dakota, was registered to vote where he attended college in Wisconsin. The complaint alleged that he had lived in the state as recently as 2021, just a year before the General Election.
Members of the district’s central committee eventually voted to replace Manhart on the ballot with Joe Donnell, who along with incumbent Rep. Tamara St. John, went on to handily defeat two Democratic challengers.
Neither Donnell nor St. John responded to inquiries Saturday morning indicating whether or not they would seek re-election in 2024.
A former staffer on the Trump campaign, Manhart was brought on early to Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s campaign. Manhart was one of two staffers to depart the office recently, along with Reggie Rhoden – son of Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden. . . .
Both St. John and Donnell are enrolled members of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a Dakota nation at home on the Lake Travese Reservation. St. John has recently earned the highest accolades for her determined work as tribal archivist and historian to bring home the remains of two young men who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School over 140 years ago.
Donnell, who runs the Warrior Circle and serves s Outreach Coordinator for the Sisseton Wahpeton College, is an anointed apostle in the New Apostolic Reformation who drew national attention earlier this year when Right Wing Watch's Kyle Mantyla reported South Dakota State Rep. Joe Donnell Claims Mount Rushmore Is a Demonic Portal Spreading Communism Across the Nation.
Earlier this month, a group of QAnon conspiracy theorists and self-proclaimed “prophets” held an “Open The Heavens: Let God Arise” conference in Rapid City, South Dakota, where some attendees claimed to have seen an image of former President Donald Trump appear in the sky over Mount Rushmore.
Among the participants was South Dakota state Rep. Joe Donnell. Prior to the event, Donnell appeared on a program hosted by conference organizer Meri Crouley, during which he asserted that Mount Rushmore is a demonic portal that is spreading communism across the nation.
“If you go back and do some search history on Mount Rushmore, it actually is a Freemason shrine,” Donnell said. “It was set up to enshrine democracy or the Declaration of Independence. … How do we worship the great thing we did with our government? So that was the idea behind it.”
“What the Lord revealed to me is that Mount Rushmore has a direct ley line to Washington, D.C.,” he added. “And he said, basically, that as we continue to work in prayer and do the work of the ministry, that God was going to break that connection. Because in order to understand the spiritual realm of what we’re facing, we have to realize that in order for the enemy to do anything, he needs the agreement of human beings. In order to be empowered to do more damage, he needs the agreement of human beings, and oftentimes that comes in the form of an altar, an active altar that acts as a portal for demonic things.”
“And so that’s what we’re dealing with,” Donnell declared. “I just know that God is doing something. Even Donald Trump’s landing in the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore on July 4, when the governor Kristi Noem put the message out that fireworks are returning to South Dakota, that was a prophetic word. And God spoke to me said, ‘When Donald Trump steps foot on this territory, there’s something that’s going to be done as far as the Constitution being upheld. It’s gonna bring a breakthrough with the Constitution.’ And I kinda got the feeling that what we’re really dealing with in that portal was communism. That witchcraft altar and those things that are happening in the Black Hills; what we’re really dealing with is communis.m; it’s the ideology and all the demonic entities and spirits behind that.” . . .
KELOLAND reported in Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe dismisses Donnell’s Mt. Rushmore comments:
The Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux {Tribe says Joe Donnell’s comments about Mount Rushmore are “not based on any traditional Dakota teachings.”
Donnell, a Republican Representative from District 1, claimed that Mount Rushmore is a “Freemason shrine” and a portal for demonic entities to enter and spread communism throughout the country on a recent podcast.
“Representative Donnell’s views are not based on any traditional Dakota teachings. His beliefs are his own and are not reflective of anyone else around him nor a reflection of Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe,” the statement, signed by Tribal chairman J. Garret Renville, said.
The statement also says many Native American tribes take issue with Mount Rushmore because of the sacredness of the Paha Sapa and legal issues with the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty which gave the land to the Great Sioux Nation.
Donnell, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, replaced Logan Manhart on the 2022 general election ballot for District 1 House after Manhart withdrew from the race.
Donnell earned 28% of the vote in District 1 to beat out Democratic candidates Steven McCleerey and Kay Nikolas, who got 22% and 17% of the vote respectively. "
Perhaps there's some retirement announcement coming out from Donnell or St. John that Manhart knows about. in the meantime, Bluestem doesn't envy our Republican neighbors and friends in having to pick from the NAR Mount Rushmore vision nutbar and the January 6 rally election denier.
We're in dig dung if the district Republican central committee endorses these two guys over St. John, given the once-Democratic leaning district's swing to the right.
Screenshot: Manhart in DC on January 6, 2021. Screengrab of photo montage via Manhart's Twitter account. Given that he himself was registered to vote in two different states at the same time, we certainly can understand why he needed to travel to Washington to own the libs about election integrity.
- Here's hoping Jesus grants state rep Joe Donnell a vision about changing SD housing fund laws
- SD District 1 Republicans select Joe Donnell to fill ballot slot created by Manhart withdrawal
- SD SOS response to 32CIV22-92, asking SD1 House candidate's removal from ballot
- Dakota Free Press post: Manhart voted in Wisconsin in 2021, thus ineligible to run for South Dakota House in 2022
- Manhart candidate integrity questioned: docs from 32CIV22-92; McCleerey vs Barnett
- In SD District One, GOP candidate & operative doesn't want to talk to press about January 6
- Media scrutiny of SD District 1 House Logan Manhart candidate integrity questions continue
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