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During four terms in Congress, South Dakota’s Dusty Johnson has emerged as a leading voice on American agricultural policy, U.S.-China relations and fiscal responsibility.
Often known as the “problem solver,” he recently sat down with Fox News Digital at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas to discuss his congressional career, his South Dakota gubernatorial bid and his future plans as his time in the U.S. House draws to a close.
Long respected for his detailed analysis of China policy, Johnson believes the United States is routinely underestimating the geopolitical and economic threat posed by Beijing.
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“I think the biggest mistake is that we’re basically sleepwalking through this competition. I mean, every day the leaders of China get up, and they try to figure out how to beat America, how to destabilize our country, how to get an advantage.
“And we’re, frankly, in this country spending more time fighting one another than we are trying to think about how to compete with the Chinese Communist Party.”
Johnson is the former leader of the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group of center-right Republicans focused on commonsense governance and pragmatism. He has approached his career aspiring to break the famed Washington gridlock.
However, recently Johnson lamented that “it’s a tough time to be normal,” observing that the loudest and angriest voices seem to be increasingly dominating the national conversation.
“Well … looking a little further than the New York primaries last week, where just an insane bunch of really out there democratic socialists beat some pretty liberal but still kind of mainstream American political thought Democrats, I just think you see that happening in both parties.
“Primary turnout is rarely great. Those who do turn out are generally the most interested in purity rather than in progress. And, so, when you’re trying to swim upstream, when you are trying to deliver a message of nuance and thoughtfulness, that sometimes doesn’t go over as well as just saying, ‘Let’s go fight.'”
Even as the GOP has controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress on several occasions over the past generation, it has been perennially unable to tackle the problem of balancing budgets and reducing the national debt.
Johnson argues that only a bipartisan approach has hope of offering a solution.
“Well, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” he said. “I’ve certainly rolled out a number of plans that would have some pretty substantial reforms to our entitlement programs. I’m not looking to take away grandma’s Social Security or Medicare. But we simply are not going to restore solvency to those programs with a status quo approach.
“And, unfortunately, candidate Harris, candidate Biden, candidate Trump … they damn near swore on a stack of Bibles that they were not going to touch Social Security or Medicare. That approach guarantees failure.
“The other thing we have to acknowledge is one party’s not going to get this done. And I know that’s hard for Republicans to hear because so many Republican office holders have sold the American people a bill of goods that this can be done with one party alone. It cannot.
“The last time we made much-needed reform to Social Security in 1983, it took Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan to get it done. If we do not start thinking about avoiding fiscal calamity as a bipartisan problem, we will fail.”
Johnson entered the 2026 South Dakota GOP gubernatorial primary as the frontrunner but ended up placing third in a tight race behind real estate executive Toby Doeden and incumbent Gov. Larry Rhoden.
He acknowledges that a congressional pedigree, once seen as a boost in a bid for a higher office, now appears to be something of an albatross.
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“Well, I think an absolute onslaught of negative ads the last three or four weeks against me, they really worked. Told people I was a career politician, that I was a RINO, that I was a liberal, and we saw in the polling that that was resonating. Those ads worked so well because they tapped into kind of the spirit of the times.
“I have 13 of my colleagues in Congress who have lost their races for governor or senator. Normally, running as a House member, that gives you a bit of an advantage if you’re running for a different office. That’s no longer the case. People are fed up with Washington, D.C. And that clearly is a drag on my many colleagues like me who’ve lost their races.”
Despite the outcome of the crowded primary, Johnson looks to his future plans with optimism, not bitterness, and pledges that his work is not yet finished, citing previous success in the business and non-profit sectors.
“Well, I don’t know yet. Of course, I’ve got to spend most of my time focused on my day job, which is being South Dakota’s only voice in the U.S. House of Representatives. I’ll do that until January, but listen, I know you can lead a life of consequence.
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“You can make a better society in business. I’ve done that before. In the nonprofit sector, in lesser elected office or government office. So, I don’t really know yet, but I do know that I’m surely not ready to retire. I’m 50, but I feel like a real young 50, and I’m still filled with plenty of piss and vinegar. Let’s go get it done.”
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