The Muckraker in the Mirror: How Beaudion's Exit Landed on Our Doorstep

Accountability journalism has a rule that separates it from the grift it hunts. When the story touches your own house, you disclose it, then you tell it straight. So here it is.

On August 4, Julian Beaudion, a former state trooper and Sioux Falls small-business owner, ended his U.S. Senate campaign against Republican Mike Rounds. He did it at the last legal minute. (cite index="7">South Dakota law lets nominees withdraw no later than the first Tuesday of August, and Beaudion announced his withdrawal that day. His reasons were not subtle. (cite index="1">He cited a devastating house fire, significant personal financial hardship, and what he called intimidating threats to drop out of the race.

Now the part we do not get to skip. (cite index="4">The effort to push Beaudion out included American Muckrakers, a website operated by a North Carolina man, which published articles praising independent Brian Bengs and sent an email to South Dakota media outlets in June containing allegations about Beaudion. That is the same American Muckrakers whose president, David B. Wheeler, co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast. (cite index="6">American Muckrakers itself declared Beaudion out days later, noting it had publicly called on him to withdraw months earlier and that its founder built his reputation helping end Madison Cawthorn's career in 2022. Read that twice. The outfit tied to this masthead is a named actor in the story. We are not going to pretend otherwise.

What did Beaudion actually allege? (cite index="5">In his account he named two groups, one he called 'East River White Men' and American Muckrakers, as organizations that worked to remove him from the ballot, and wrote that American Muckrakers had contacted the South Dakota Democratic Party regarding his financial information. Beaudion, who is Black, (cite index="5">said he was told explicitly that his race was central to the effort to get him off the ballot. Those are allegations. They are his. We report them as his.

The accused answer back, and they get to. (cite index="3">Bengs said he had never spoken ill of Beaudion, called him a patriot, rejected the notion of any behind-the-scenes conspiracy, and stated flatly that nobody had been attacked or threatened. (cite index="3">His campaign told South Dakota Searchlight it has no formal relationship with American Muckrakers or its author. The house fire is not settled either. (cite index="2">Its cause remains under investigation, and Beaudion, a former Highway Patrol trooper, said he is putting his faith in that investigation. No arrest. No charge. No conclusion. We leave it there.

Here is the cold arithmetic that made Beaudion a target in the first place. (cite index="8">As of the day he quit, Beaudion reported $3,078.11 cash on hand; Bengs had $51,405.51; Rounds sat on $2,736,663.91. The consultant class smelled a loser. (cite index="4">Veteran Democratic operatives Steve Jarding and Steve Hildebrand had been calling for Beaudion to leave, with Jarding declaring the Democratic brand in South Dakota 'dead.' And Rounds turned the whole feud into a fundraising engine, (cite index="9">emailing donors that 'the Democrats are running a fake independent to flip my seat.'

So the seat is now a two-man fight in a state that gutted the Democratic bench years ago. (cite index="4">Republicans outnumber Democrats in South Dakota roughly 2.5 to 1, and the party has not held statewide office since January 2015. (cite index="9">Trump carried the state by just under 30 points in 2024, and the Cook Political Report rates the Rounds seat solid Republican.

The first Black South Dakotan to win a major-party Senate nomination walked away citing fire, money and fear, and pointed a finger at people who share our name. We do not get to launder that. We disclose it, we source it, and we let you weigh it. That is the whole job. MUCK YOU means muck everybody, and yes, that includes the mirror.