“Everything that I have I owe to South Dakota. And so, my family and I are willing to risk all of that to fight for the future of South Dakota.” - Toby Doeden
Transcript:
Dave Roetman: This is the Making Waves Podcast. My name is Dave Roetman. We're here with Toby Doeden. Toby, welcome.
Toby Doeden: Dave, it is a pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you for having me on the podcast. I look forward to talking to patriots and conservatives alike all across the state. And so whenever I get a chance to catch up with you, it's a pleasure.
Dave Roetman : Thank you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You're from Aberdeen.
Toby Doeden: Yeah, I'm a businessman from Aberdeen, South Dakota. I was born and raised in a very small town near Aberdeen called Groton, South Dakota. I lived in Groton until about seven years ago when my wife and I relocated to Aberdeen to be a little closer to some of the stuff we had going on.
Pretty normal upbringing. My, you know, I guess, relatively speaking, my dad became disabled when I was very young and I was never able to work again. And so my mom worked multiple jobs just to kind of provide the basic necessities for me and my family. And I met my wife in high school, high school sweethearts. 35 years later, we're still here. We got married basically right out of high school, started our family.
We were very, very poor. Our first house, I like to tell people, was just north of 400 square feet. Most of the windows were busted out. And it had no furnace when I bought it.
And the only reason I was able to buy it, Dave, is because a very nice gentleman in Groton by the name of Ray Johnson sold it to me for 4,000 bucks. And he financed the entire thing for me with no money down.
Dave Roetman : wow,
Toby Doeden: And so, that's where I brought my first son, Jackson, home from the hospital.
And that's where we lived for quite a few years. And in fact, my oldest daughter, Josie, when she was born a year and a half later, we raised her, you know, for the first couple of years in that house. So, uh, very, very humble beginnings.
Um, looking back on it, people ask me like, like if you could change anything from your past or your childhood, or, you know, even after you got married, would you, I said, why would I, because if things had been even marginally easier, I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing today. Like, I truly believe that. I think people that have the hardest road to success are generally the ones that get there and are able to sustain it because they have that, they have that, that, that drive and they, and they have that, that foundation of, of what their life used to be like, and it keeps them getting out of bed every morning.
Dave Roetman : You still own that house?
Toby Doeden No, the house got tore down, um, about three years ago. Last time I looked, it still shows up on Google earth. So my wife and I look at it occasionally, but, uh, it got tore down.
Had I known it was going to get tore down, I would have bought it and I would have renovated it and, um, I would have just rented it or something, kept it as a rental property just because of the nostalgia.
Dave Roetman: Nostalgia about it, yeah. How did you get involved in politics?
Toby Doeden: Well, that's a great question.
Um, I was the least political person you've ever met up until about two years ago. And so, um, I had spent, you know, two and a half decades building companies, raising my family. And I woke up one day and I realized that the South Dakota that I had kind of taken for granted growing up in, uh, was starting to change.
And a lot of the things that were angering me, much like a lot of other Americans that were happening in our country, um, were starting to sift into South Dakota and it scared me. It was the first time in my adult life that I thought, you know, South Dakota could change to the point where we can't function the way we did 20 and 30 years ago. And so, um, based on that, I, I just felt like, like it was time for me to give back.
I mean, everything that I have, I owe to South Dakota. And, and so, you know, I'm, you know, my family and I are literally willing to risk all of that to fight for the future of South Dakota. And, and, and so, um, I mean, that's a really short answer.
It's, it's, it's, it's much more nuanced, much more complicated than that, but I never asked for this. I didn't look for politics. Politics found me, I guess is the way to say it.
Dave Roetman : Fair enough. You recently had an announcement. I'm sure you'd like to tell us about it.
Toby Doeden Absolutely. There is a very, very large, um, um, event coming up at the Aberdeen Wiley Park Pavilion on May 28th, the doors open at 5 PM. That night, it's going to be the beginning of the new future of South Dakota, Dave.
And so I'm going to go in depth. We're going to have, first of all, we're going to have some really like a lot, we're expecting almost a thousand people. We're going to have, you know, community leaders, political leaders, uh, from all over the state are going to be there.
A lot of grassroots people, just a lot of everyday folks, just like you and I are going to be there. And, um, I'm going to talk about what my role is going to be in serving the great people of South Dakota, moving forward and what my vision for the state is for the next decade.
Dave Roetman: What are some of the issues that you're going to discuss or are you going to talk about in the next year?
Toby Doeden: There are several issues that are very important to South Dakotans. When I got involved into this about a year and a half ago, I didn't understand who was involved in politics. I didn't know anything about politics. I didn't know who to talk to.
So I literally just started calling dozens and dozens of people. And eventually I parlayed that into traveling the state for 15 months and talking to community leaders, legislators, and, and more importantly, thousands of fellow, you know, residents of South Dakota. And through that process, I was literally able to get directly from the source, what people are suffering from and what people care about the most.
And at the top of that list right now is clearly property taxes. I know that's that buzzword, but it's not even a buzzword. Like it is taxes.
Okay. Property taxes right now are having the most negative impact on our economy of anything in my adult life. Small business owners are being crushed by property taxes.
Homeowners are being crushed by property taxes. Seniors are being driven out of their homes and young people can't buy homes. That's a very, very serious problem.
$2 billion a year are going into the coffers of the state government. And, uh, and so I, but having said that, and, and this is maybe way too much detailed than what you're looking for today, but I fundamentally believe that all of the serious problems in South Dakota, whether it's education, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's property taxes, all has a direct stem back to how inefficient our state government is. Our budget has doubled from, from less than 4 billion to being on the precipice of $8 billion.
And so how can a state government, which I like to compare to a company, like we're a $7 billion company now, South Dakota is, how can a company invest in their infrastructure and in their people if they don't have any money left over? Right. And so because our state government is so inefficient and because we're wasting so much money, we're so dependent on the federal government. We don't have the money or the resources to address these serious problems.
So the first thing we have to do is we have to shrink the size of our state government. We have to be the leanest, most efficient state government in the country. And then, and only then are we going to have the resources we need to go really fix these serious problems.
But the top of that list is clearly property tax. After that, probably the most common answer I get is, believe it or not, drugs, fentanyl. You know, I heard a statistic recently that the overwhelming majority of crimes in Sioux Falls have a direct tie one way or another to fentanyl.
And so with Biden's border policies for four years, people thought that was a southern border issue. That was a, that was a, that was an upper 48 issue because the, the, the cartel and the drugs and the fentanyl found their way into South Dakota too. So property taxes is certainly at the, you know, Uno number one on that list by a wide margin.
Dave Roetman : That's fair. I've heard a great deal about how South Dakota is a drug corridor that comes right here through Sioux Falls. And it's a very serious issue.
Toby Doeden Well, we have two federal interstates, you know, one east and west, one north and south, um, or a small rural state with a lot of trusting people. And I think largely, uh, that's the, you know, that, that makes, uh, it attractive to, you know, the cartels and the other nefarious people that are selling drugs.
And so I actually had a conversation. I think Marty Jackley was on your show a couple of weeks ago. I had a conversation with Marty recently, and we were talking about how they were, they were cutting his budget. And, and, and this is another problem.
It's a systemic problem from a bloated state government. When we have fentanyl that is coming in through our interstate system into South Dakota, we should never have a budget issue for the attorney general of our state. We should have a specific task force that has unlimited funds to go find every last drug dealer in this state and put them behind bars and throw the key away.
And so I was, I was very, very disheartened when I heard that they were, that they were cutting attorney Jackley.. , attorney general Marty Jackley’s budget when I know there's a rampant drug problem in this state. So, but again, these, Dave, I'm telling you, and people are going to like, think like I'm a broken record player, all of these issues go back to our bloated, inefficient state government period.
Dave Roetman: Do you have any other issues you'd like to discuss?
Toby Doeden: Another one that has come up a lot in the last year or year and a half as I've traveled the state and, you know, President Trump and specifically Elon Musk and the Department of Doge have made it cool to talk about waste, fraud, and abuse.
I have yet to meet a single taxpayer in the state of South Dakota that thinks our state government is efficient. Okay. So as community leaders, as political leaders, as a governor, as a legislative body, if we all acknowledge that our state government isn't a hundred percent efficient, shouldn't we be doing something to make it more efficient? And so I believe every agency, every department needs to be audited.
I think every nickel that comes into the state and more importantly, every nickel that comes out of the state should be looked at, and I can guarantee you when we do that, and again, Attorney General Jackley will tell you this, he's been, he's been finding large cases of, you know, seven figure, you know,
Dave Roetman: fraud,
Toby Doeden: fraud all across the state. And I'm telling you, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot of people, myself included, that think there's more corruption in politics and state government per capita based on dollars and spending in South Dakota than just about any other state.
And, uh, what I would do as governor, the first thing I would do as I would have a task force, a very competent, high level, high skilled task force, and we would go find every single dollar that's being wasted, that's being defrauded, and that's being abused. And we would send it back to the, to the hard, hardworking taxpayers immediately.
Dave Roetman: You're going to bring Doge to South Dakota. Maybe you could hire some of those guys that have those skillsets.
Toby Doeden: And I've, I've had the great pleasure of meeting numerous, really good people that care as much as you and I do about the future of South Dakota, that know where some of the bodies are hidden to be, you know, I guess that's one way to say it, that are, are willing and able to get involved and be part of that process. And so you got to remember, like the closer you get to the fraud and the waste and the abuse, the more the establishment starts pulling their hair out and starts attacking you.
And so, I mean, that's what the establishment politicians have been doing for as long as I can remember is, is they will push out a narrative that redirects the attention from them to whoever dares to get involved in their arena. Right. And so when I dipped my toe into the swamp 18 months ago, I got viciously attacked by the establishment, not the candidates directly, but the people that relied on the establishment candidates and system, the swamp, right.
As they referred to it. And so, um, I think it's more important than ever that we have a bold executive CEO leader as governor that has the backbone to actually follow through on these things, because for decades, we've had placeholders as governors largely. And, um, I tell people this all the time, and I think this is the most profound thing that you're going to hear about the 2026 governor's race.
I think it's important that people hear this. The most frequent question I get, Dave, is people say, Toby, what sets you apart from the Jon Hansens of the world or the Dusty Johnsons of the world, or anybody else that wants to run in a 2026 governor's primary? And I say, well, there's many, let me tell you the number one, anybody not named Toby Doeden that enters this Republican governor's race primary is running for governor because they want to be governor. Governor.
Dusty Johnson has been plotted to be governor since he was 25 years old. The other candidates, every single one of them that gets into this race are getting in because they liked the idea of running and being the governor. The last thing I ever wanted to be was the governor or involved in politics at all.
Dave Roetman : What sort of obstacles do you expect to encounter on the campaign trail and throughout South Dakota?
Toby Doeden I think it's largely going to be the same obstacles I've been facing the last 15 or 16 months, just amped up exponentially higher, right? The swamp doesn't like people like me, an outsider, reformers, reformers with decades of business experience, uh, you know, a track record of holding people accountable, building successful team, building consensus. Right. Um, you know, I, I, I tell my leaders in my company all the time, they get tired of hearing it.
100% accountability, 100% transparency, 100% of the time. Like that's how we operate, which is the complete opposite of the state government. Right.
And to me that there is no accountability, there is no transparency and nothing happens all the time. Right. So, you know, the establishment is going to attack me with everything because they see me as a threat to everything they have and everything they built up the last 20 or 30 years in South Dakota.
And so it's a dangerous, it's a dangerous time. It's a dangerous thing to be doing what I'm doing. And I know that I came into this with my eyes wide open and, uh, I'm not stopping.
I don't stop. The people that have known me for decades know when I set my mind to do something, um, I go all out and I don't stop until I win.
Dave Roetman: Toby, final thoughts.
Toby Doeden Well, I've got a lot of thoughts, but so if you want to call him final, then we will call him final, Dave. I appreciate that. First of all, it was great to be on here with you again.
Great, great to see you. Uh, I would just like to remind folks that we're going to have this massive event in Aberdeen on May 28th. It's going to be the beginning of the new future of South Dakota.
I'm going to lay out how I think I can help South Dakota moving forward. And what I think the vision of South Dakota should look like for the next 10 years. And so I want to welcome anybody that's listening to this with open arms to make the trip to Aberdeen on Wednesday, the 28th of May, you can go to Toby Doden.com and you can register, you can RSVP, you can share the link.
Um, and I really, really do genuinely look forward to seeing everybody on that night.
Dave Roetman: Toby, thank you for being with us. This has been the Making Waves Podcast. My name is Dave Roetman. We've been with Toby Doden.
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