Who Becomes Governor When Someone Leaves Office Early? (Such as the Governor of South Dakota)

While the election results didn’t trigger the potential gubernatorial succession scenarios that we outlined in Minnesota or North Carolina, the elections still left us with some transitions to ponder and reemphasized the importance of the lieutenant governor in the states. 

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem

President-elect Trump announced his intention to nominate the current Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem (R), as his administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security. Gov. Noem’s current term as governor isn’t scheduled to end until Jan. 2027, so she’ll likely be departing the governor's mansion a year early. Once approved by the U.S. Senate to head Homeland Security, Noem will officially resign as governor, which will trigger a constitutional provision for Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden (R) to become governor and complete the final year of Noem’s term.

In South Dakota, the governor and lieutenant governor run for election on a joint ticket, and Rhoden was reelected along with Gov. Noem in 2022. Notably, Rhoden is no stranger to filling in for vacant statewide offices. In 2020, while still serving as lieutenant governor, Rhoden served as interim Secretary of Agriculture for a few months after the resignation of the current officeholder. And with a year in the governor’s mansion, Rhoden will be the clear frontrunner to be elected to serve a full gubernatorial term in 2026. 

Delaware Governor John Carney

A very different gubernatorial transition will take place next month in Delaware, where term-limited Gov. John Carney (D) successfully ran for mayor of Wilmington, the state’s largest city. While Lieutenant Governor Bethany Hall-Long lost the Democratic primary to replace Gov. Carney, she’ll nonetheless become the state’s 75th governor before the victor of that primary and the general election, Governor-elect Matt Meyer (D), is officially sworn in next month. That’s because Gov. Carney will become Mayor of Wilmington on Jan. 7, which is two weeks before Governor-elect Meyer will be sworn into office as governor. So Gov. Carney will need to resign two weeks early, which under the state constitution will make Lt. Gov. Hall-Long governor for that two-week gap. Then, on Jan. 21, Governor-elect Meyer will finally be sworn into office as the 76th governor of Delaware. 

This is the second time since 1993 that a lieutenant governor had to briefly serve as governor in Delaware because the outgoing governor was forced to resign in order to take up another office. Maybe Delaware should look into swearing in its governors a bit earlier in the year?

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This article appeared in our Morning MultiState newsletter on December 12, 2024. For more timely insights like this, be sure to sign up for our Morning MultiState weekly morning tipsheet. We created Morning MultiState with state government affairs professionals in mind — sign up to receive the latest from our experts in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Click here to sign up.