Aberdeen Republican pushes back after old social media posts resurface

Toby Doeden latest candidate to announce a bid against U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson in June primary election

An Aberdeen businessman looking to challenge Congressman Dusty Johnson in the upcoming GOP primary election isn’t apologizing for a series of insensitive statements made on social media prior to a weekend campaign announcement.

And he’s blaming his opponent for putting a spotlight on them.

Toby Doeden, a Republican real estate mogul and car salesman from Brown County who Sunday announced a potential run for the U.S. House, is standing by posts — some profanity-laced — made on the website X.com, formerly known as Twitter. In the posts, he called for shooting immigrants in gangs and calls President Joe Biden a “bumbling f*^ktard.”

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The 49-year-old, in a post last spring, also denied the validity of statistics that one in four Jewish Americans had been victims of hate in the year prior, figures widely shared by anti-discrimination organizations at the time.

“THIS IS FAKE. BEAT IT,” reads a now-deleted post on an account registered to Doeden.

Doeden, who in announcing he was exploring a run against South Dakota’s three-term Congressman referred to Johnson and his colleagues on Capitol Hill as “clowns,” told The Dakota Scout he makes “no apologies for my stances.”

“I’m unapologetically pro-Second Amendment, and I think Joe Biden is one of the worst presidents in history. Most South Dakotans would agree,” he said, adding that his tweet about Jewish Americans being subjected to acts of hate was taken out of context. “It’s as simple as that. Obviously any form of anti-Semitism is unacceptable, and as Americans, we have a long history of supporting Israel and standing with the Jewish people.”

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