FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Republican candidate running for South Dakota’s only House of Representatives seat laid out his Capitol Hill priorities in an interview with the Daily Signal Tuesday.
Marty Jackley served as South Dakota’s attorney general from 2009 to 2019 and assumed office again in 2023. Jackley told the Daily Signal he plans to bring his legal expertise to D.C. to prioritize fighting fraud, crime, and abortion advocacy on Capitol Hill.
Here are five things to know about Marty Jackley’s record and his priorities in Congress if elected in the November general election.
1. The Very Likely Winner
While Jackley faces a Democrat opponent, Nicole Gronli, analysts expect he will defeat her. The Cook Political Report rates the seat as “Safe Republican” and Jackley has raised more than six times as much money as Gronli, a former rural development state director at the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Joe Biden.
“The campaign is going exceptionally well,” Jackley told the Daily Signal. “We had a strong primary. We won that 80-20, but we’re getting to work.”
“I just love the campaign,” Jackley added. “I get to talk to South Dakotans about what they want to see in public safety and AG’s position, as well as what they want to see in a voice for Congress.”
2. Fighting Fraud
Jackley told the Daily Signal that he combatted fraud in the Mount Rushmore State and aims to keep doing so in Congress. In fact, his history of fighting fraud in South Dakota landed him a seat at Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud roundtable earlier this year.
“Government accountability has been a key component of what I’ve done as attorney general and the platform that I’m running on for Congress,” he said.
“I brought about a dozen or so criminal cases—indictments—on public corruption, personally tried the Department of Social Services’ $1.8 million fraud and got a conviction on that by a jury, and then I put in place a statutory framework.”
The statutory framework Jackley established as AG addressed government accountability in South Dakota by “strengthening the auditing process, whistleblower protections, and [adding] stronger penalties” for fraudsters.
“I believe in limited government and protecting the taxpayers, and the best way to protect the taxpayers is government accountability,” he said.
3. Setting His Sights on Judiciary
Jackley intends to bring his legal expertise to continue to fight crime and support law enforcement in D.C.
“I’ve asked leadership to serve on judiciary,” the candidate told the Daily Signal. “I think I can be a strong voice for public safety sitting on the Judiciary Committee.”
He also expressed interest in serving on the Agriculture Committee to reform farm policy and in utilizing his background as an electrical engineer to serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
4. Jackley’s Record on Abortion
The attorney general didn’t just fight crime regarding fraud, however.
In December 2025, he wrote a cease-and-desist letter to abortion advocacy group Mayday Health after they posted abortion pill ads at South Dakota gas stations, advertising the drug mifepristone to induce abortion.
Mayday responded with a lawsuit, specifically naming Jackley and Larry Rhoden, the governor of South Dakota.
“Our position is that they are directly putting young women in contact with the pill sales, and then that they’re delivering the mifepristone and other pills that are illegal in South Dakota,” Jackley told the Daily Signal.
In March, the parties reached a settlement.
“It was a good settlement for South Dakota to keep the pills and the advertisements out of our state,” Jackley said.
The South Dakota Legislature banned the abortion pill in January, and Jackley intends to do the same in Congress.
“I have the same philosophy that the Legislature had, and I would carry that on to Congress,” he told the Daily Signal.
5. Supporting the SAVE America Act
The attorney general pledged to vote for the SAVE America Act, an election integrity measure, if elected to the House.
“Absolutely we’ll support the SAVE Act,” Jackley said. “We already do that in South Dakota.”
The SAVE Act, HR 22, would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to vote. While it passed the House of Representatives, it stalled in the Senate. HR 7296, the SAVE America Act, includes the SAVE Act provisions but also includes other election integrity measures, such as requiring states to use federal databases to verify voter rolls.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has called on Congress to honor Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who died Saturday night, by passing the SAVE America Act.