Home state voters overwhelmingly approve of Noem firing: 'She couldn't hang on'

Any hope that fired DHS Secretary Kristi Noem may have about returning to her home state of South Dakota to pick up the pieces and run for office again one day likely expired on Tuesday.

According to South Dakota News Watch reporting on polling conducted by the Chiesman Center for Democracy, roughly 3 in 4 South Dakotans approve of President Donald Trump's decision to fire Noem from her role as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The polling firm surveyed 500 registered voters across party affiliation between April 7-9 and found that 76 percent of respondents agreed with Trump's move, while 59 percent of South Dakotans disapproved of her performance as head of the DHS.

Noem was already politically vulnerable before the firing. The former governor and former U.S. House representative was on shaky ground when she accepted Trump's DHS nomination — but her reputation was already severely damaged by an admission in her book, "No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward," that she killed an unruly puppy by placing it in a gravel pit and shooting it.

Brad Coker, founder of Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, explained how the collapse occurred: "I think she was already starting to slip. Trump gave her a lifeline, and she wasn't able to hold on to the lifeline."

The puppy admission poisoned her standing with voters across the political spectrum. "Republicans have dogs too. It wasn't something that just offended the left," Coker noted, explaining that the brutal disclosure damaged her support even among her own party base.