The Buzz in Kristi Noem’s Home State

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has faced intense scrutiny from Republicans and calls for her firing from Democrats since the January 24 shooting of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. Now Noem’s tenuous standing with the Trump White House is creating concern in her home state of South Dakota that she might leave the Cabinet to challenge Senator Mike Rounds in the state’s June Republican primary.

Political allies of Rounds have begun preparing for this scenario, even though they remain skeptical that Noem will actually make the move, three people familiar with the discussions told me. To get into the race, Noem would have to register for the primary and collect the 2,171 supportive signatures statewide by the end of next month. A Noem adviser told me today that she has no plans to leave. But Noem could have an incentive to seek elective office if Democrats remain on track to win back control of the House and launch investigations into her tenure at the Department of Homeland Security. A Senate seat would give her both a professional staff and a fundraising platform to help defend herself.

“It’s something people are talking about across the state,” one Republican involved in South Dakota’s politics told me; this person, like others I spoke with, requested anonymity to discuss the rumors. “And based on everything I’ve been hearing, Mike Rounds would handily win that race.”

In recent weeks, Noem has ceded some of her public-leadership role overseeing immigration-enforcement operations, and President Trump has relied more on the White House “border czar” Tom Homan to lead those efforts. White House officials have grown frustrated with her performance as Republican midterm strategists raise alarms about the political damage her deportation strategy is doing to the party’s chances. One person familiar with the discussions told me that Noem’s position in the Cabinet is no longer secure, even though the president has not yet moved against her and has repeatedly praised her in public comments.

[Read: Battles are raging inside the Department of Homeland Security]

The situation has been complicated by the refusal of congressional Democrats to vote for a new budget for Noem’s department, which has caused a partial government shutdown that is expected to last at least into next week. Republicans say that Democratic calls for Noem’s removal make Trump pushing her out in the immediate future less likely. In his second term, Trump has been deeply reluctant to allow political pressure to force him into firing Cabinet members.

Several weeks ago, before the Pretti shooting, Republicans in South Dakota learned that pollsters were asking voters whom they would prefer in a matchup between Rounds and Noem, two people familiar with the calls told me, adding that they don’t know who is paying for the polling and have not seen the results.

The possibility of Noem running against Rounds has also prompted discussion among advisers to the president about possibly waiting to make a change to DHS leadership until after next month’s filing deadline, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others have been supportive of a move. “Mike Rounds is so unpopular amongst Republican primary voters, he’d lose to a dead dog,” a national Republican strategist told me. The senator’s allies pushed back against that characterization. Rounds, 71, has successfully run statewide as a Republican four times since 2014, serving two terms as governor before being elected twice to the Senate.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told me in a text message that it would not be appropriate for a government spokesperson to comment on a story about Noem’s political future. Another adviser to Noem told me that her team had not polled the race.

Rounds’s Senate office did not respond to a request for comment. The White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told me in a statement, “President Trump has assembled the most talented and America First cabinet and staff in history,” before listing off some of the administration’s accomplishments.

Rounds and Noem, both former governors of South Dakota, have never been particularly close and have occasionally clashed in public. After Noem published a book that describes her decision to kill her family dog after she determined that it was dangerous and untrainable, Rounds was notably outspoken in his criticism. “I don’t see how it helps,” he said of her description of the incident. “These dogs become a member of a family, you know. People identify with that.”

[Read: Kristi Noem’s audience of one]

Trump and Rounds have also clashed, particularly over Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, which Rounds described as “fair”; Trump incorrectly maintains that he won the election. But Trump endorsed Rounds over the summer—“HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” the president posted on social media. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the senior senator from South Dakota, is a close ally of Rounds and would likely back him over Noem.

Another possible route for Noem is to run again for the U.S. House seat that she held from 2011 to 2019. That seat will be vacated next year by Representative Dusty Johnson, who has announced that he is running for governor. Noem has also expressed interest in the past about being selected as a running mate on a Republican ticket or mounting her own presidential campaign.