State Auditor Barnett will run for S.D. Secretary of State
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HURON — Term-limited state Auditor Steve Barnett knows he will have to work just as hard as he did eight years ago if he’s going to become South Dakota’s next Secretary of State.
The young father faces challenges once again, both on the road as he seeks voter support and at home, where he and his wife, Nicole, are raising four children, the oldest of whom is six.
In 2010 when he decided to run for Auditor, Barnett had to resign his federal job with Sen. John Thune because candidates can’t do both.
“So if that wasn’t motivation to work hard and win a race, I don’t know what was,” he said in an appearance before the Beadle County Republican Women on Monday.
“Because we had a child on the way, we were living off Nicole’s teaching salary, and I did not have an income at the time,” he said.
Current Secretary of State Shantel Krebs is running for the U.S. House seat of Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., a gubernatorial candidate in the 2018 election.
Barnett, a native of Aberdeen, worked on the unsuccessful 2002 Thune race against Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., after graduating from the University of South Dakota with bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He then went to work for Wells Fargo in Sioux Falls, but soon got a call from the Republican Party asking him to join Thune’s 2004 staff in his race against Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
After Thune’s victory, Barnett worked in the senator’s Aberdeen office doing constituent services in 16 counties in northeastern and north central South Dakota.