In recent years, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has become more and more well-known outside her state’s borders, even if sometimes it’s not for the reasons she might prefer.
But Noem has been in the political world for nearly two decades, long before the autobiographies, the vice presidential rumors and the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s a look at how Noem came to where she is now.
Kristi Noem' political career, from South Dakota's House to Congress
Noem’s first electoral victory came in 2006, when she was elected to the 6th district seat in the South Dakota House of Representatives.
She served two two-year terms before running for South Dakota’s seat in the U.S House of Representatives in 2010, successfully unseating Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a Democrat who had held the seat since 2004.
She served four terms in the House before running for the position she now holds: South Dakota’s governor.
After defeating Attorney General Marty Jackley in the state’s Republican primary, Noem went up against Billie Sutton, who was at the time the minority leader of the South Dakota Senate.
She won a narrow victory — only 51% of the vote over Sutton’s 47.6% — and became the first female governor of South Dakota on Jan. 5, 2019.
In the first year of her term, notable stories included the Oglala Sioux Tribe banning her from Pine Ridge Reservation — mirroring her current status there — the often-mocked “Meth. We’re On It” campaign and a fight with the state’s legislature over industrial hemp, which she repeatedly compared to legalizing marijuana.
COVID-19 sends Noem's stock rising
But it was the COVID-19 pandemic, and Noem’s response to it, that made her a household name and set her on the path to Donald Trump’s shortlist for vice-presidential candidates.
While what happened often runs counter to the rhetoric she’s adopted since then about how South Dakota handled COVID-19, Noem did in fact declare a state of emergency on March 13, 2020, recommended that the state’s public schools close for the rest of the academic year in early April and issued an executive order directing people older than age 65 in Minnehaha and Lincoln counties to stay at home.
More:As Noem scores points for her pro-liberty approach to COVID-19, here's a look at what she's done
But it wasn’t long before Noem began emphasizing personal responsibility as the primary factor through which she wanted to address the pandemic.
Events like an Independence Day celebration attended by Trump and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally were held in the state, and Noem said in November 2020 that she would not enforce a lockdown or mask mandate should President Joe Biden call for it.
Noem's time as South Dakota governor eventful
Other significant markers in Noem’s time as governor included an investigation into whether her daughter, Kassidy Peters, received preferential treatment as she tried to get a real estate appraiser’s license. (A legislative panel determined that she had, though Noem has pushed back on the panel’s ruling.)
Then there’s Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who hit and killed Joe Boever while driving in late 2020. Ravnsborg took a plea deal in a 2021 misdemeanor criminal trial, avoiding any jail time while pleading no contest to charges of using a phone while driving and making an illegal lane change.
Noem said she was “outraged” at the result, calling for either Ravnsborg’s resignation or impeachment — the former of which Ravnsborg had directly stated he would not be doing.
Ravnsborg was eventually impeached and convicted by the South Dakota Senate, removed from office and barred from ever holding office in the state again.
"After nearly two years, the dark cloud over the Attorney General's office has been lifted." Noem wrote on Twitter at the time. "It is now time to move on and begin to restore confidence in the office."
Throughout March 2021, Noem went from saying she was “excited” to sign a bill preventing transgender girls and women from playing in girl’s and women’s sporting events to saying she wouldn’t sign it just 11 days later, amid concerns that the move could cause the loss of national events such as NCAA tournaments.
The move was criticized by conservatives at both the state and national level, with Tucker Carlson telling her on his show that she was “caving to the NCAA.”
Noem would sign a bill in February 2022 requiring that sports participation in the state was mandated by the sex an athlete was assigned at birth.
Kristi Noem a longtime Trump ally
Noem was reelected in November 2022 to a second term as governor, handily beating South Dakota House Minority Leader Jamie Smith with 61.9% of the vote.
Throughout that time, she’s been a strong ally of Trump, casting doubt on the validity of his loss to Biden in the 2020 election and giving him an early endorsem*nt in his 2024 presidential run.
That’s led to plenty of discussion as to whether Noem could be a potential vice-presidential pick for Trump — though the possibility has seemed less likely following the scandals that erupted from her book “No Going Back.”
Controversy erupts from Kristi Noem's book 'No Going Back'
Noem wrote in the book, released earlier this month, that she had shot and killed a 14-month-old dog named Cricket that the family had owned, calling the dog “untrainable” and recounting that the dog had killed several chickens owned by another family.
“I hated that dog,” Noem writes in the book.
She also wrote that she had met North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, a falsehood that Noem spokesperson Ian Fury has said will be removed from future editions of the book.
"It was brought to our attention that the upcoming book ‘No Going Back’ has two small errors,” Fury told the New York Times, according to reporting from USA TODAY. “This has been communicated to the ghostwriter and editor. Kim Jong-un was included in a list of world leaders and shouldn’t have been."
And Sen. Mike Rounds' office said they got the book's publisher to also correct a passage in future printings where Noem falsely claims that the senator called for Trump to drop out of the presidential race in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape scandal.
As for Trump’s VP pick, he’s given little indication as to who might be highest on his list, though he didn’t rule out Noem when asked on May 14 about her recent controversies, saying she “had a bad week.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum have been among the names often rumored to be on the shortlist. One person who definitely won’t get the pick? Nikki Haley, who Trump explicitly said was not under consideration within the last two weeks.
