Low voter turnout among South Dakota Democrats and independents left Initiated Measure 27 mostly in the hands of Republicans on Election Day.

And in the end, that resulted in the state’s latest marijuana-legalization effort coming up thousands of votes short of its high-water mark in the 2020 election, when a similar ballot question earned passage.

But although tens of thousands of Republicans voted to keep marijuana possession a crime in the Mount Rushmore State, the state GOP’s top party official likely wasn’t one of them.

NEWS: Madison Sen. Casey Crabtree elected to lead Senate Republicans