Northern Plains News reports that Democrats Susan Wismer and Corinna Robinson have not moved their poll needles since July. Nielson Brothers Polling surveyed over 600 likely voters from September 21 to September 25 and found the races for Governor and House looking statistically identical to the results two months ago:
| Nielson percentages | July | Sept |
| Daugaard | 53 | 53 |
| Wismer | 29 | 28 |
| Myers | 7 | 10 |
| undecided | 12 | 9 |
| Noem | 54 | 55 |
| Robinson | 37 | 37 |
| undecided | 10 | 9 |
Evidently Wismer's takedown of Governor Daugaard at Dakotafest went unnoticed by the electorate. So has anything else she or Robinson has done during or since the August fair ramp-up of the campaign.
Independent gubernatorial candidate Mike Myers's climb to 10% could be noteworthy as his first post-primary double-digit polling. But the three-point climb from Nielsons' July poll is still within the margin of error, meaning we can read no momentum into the result.
Nielson Brothers Polling has been branded a Democratic-leaning polling firm. It is thus interesting (or disheartening, depending on your inclinations) to see that NBP consistently scores Wismer, Robinson, and their Senate field counterpart Rick Weiland lower than the Survey USA poll published earlier this month.
Meanwhile, in Iowa, the Jim Mowrer campaign is crowing about a transportation union poll that shows the Democrat just three points under his incumbent Republican wingnut opponent Rep. Steve King. Managing Mowrer's aspiring campaign is Ben Nesselhuf, who used to run the South Dakota Democratic Party.
PP at the alternative universe blog is getting kinky. Claims Noem will "cream" her opponent. Wonder if he'd pay to watch? EWWWWWW!!!
Perhaps the perception that Nielson is a Democratic leaning poll is simply Wrong.
Go Mowrer! Geez. King is an embarrassment to the entire USA and especially my Iowan relatives.
Mowrer has my vote and I know nothing about him except he is not "Cantaloupe Calves" Kingbat. King may be dead. Haven't heard anything from him or about him in months and I know I can't tune him out that well.
There is a poll at the Pierre Capital Journal where the results suggest that among its readers Bendagate is mostly a political ploy by South Dakota's opposition party. I confess to some frustration that there will always be 47% of the state's electorate that will always be dependent on crony capitalism and corporate welfare.
Nielson is graded as a "D" by FiveThirtyEight, with a "mean-reverted bias" of 1.4 toward the Democrats. http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/pollster-ratings/
It is a relatively small sample size (6 polls evaluated).
An interesting comparison tool when comparing conflicting poll results. Quick takeaway: there are a lot of hacks out there.