Rapid City-Spearfish, SD · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2026R+38.9
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+32.4
Registration leans Republican; the presidential vote runs 6.5 points more Democratic than the rolls.
Domestic migration in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
+507
2012
+1,006
2013
+1,928
2014
+675
2015
−202
2016
+1,176
2017
+1,499
2018
+1,259
2019
+1,633
2021
+3,270
2022
+3,724
2023
+2,318
2024
+655
2025
+790
Rapid City-Spearfish, SD sits in the Northern Plains. In 2024 it voted Republican.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 49.6 points in 1912 and a Republican high of 46.2 points in 1924. Between 2020 and 2024 the region moved 1.9 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 32.4 points.
A population of 180,183, a 81% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $74,866 describe the region. The region's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Harrisonburg-Staunton-Stuarts Draft, VA and Altoona-Huntingdon, PA.
Akashic
Political twins — combined metros
The combined metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
Cite this page
All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota. Akashic. https://akashic.app/csa/452/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
How did Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota vote in 2024?
In 2024, Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota voted Republican by 32.4 points (R+32.4), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 92,662 votes cast, 30,113 went Democratic and 60,113 went Republican.
When did Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota voted Democratic was 1964.
How many people live in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota?
Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota has a population of 180,183 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota?
Median household income in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota is $74,866 — below the national median of $80,734. The South Dakota state median is $75,081.
What is the political history of Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Rapid City-Spearfish, SD, South Dakota from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 5 went Democratic and 28 went Republican.
