Ideal, SD Political Map | Democrat & Republican Areas in Ideal

By the BestNeighborhood data science team. Last updated May 2026.

Ideal is a Republican stronghold. About 15% of voters here vote Democratic and 85% Republican.

 

About 50% of adults in Ideal typically vote, below the U.S. average of about 62%. Among adults in Ideal, ~7% vote Democratic, ~43% Republican, and ~50% don't vote. The map below shows estimated turnout by block group.

How Ideal compares

Among cities within 25 miles, Ideal leans more Republican than 8 of 11 neighbors.

Ideal runs about 40 points more Republican than South Dakota as a whole.

Why Ideal leans the way it does

This analysis examined 14,881 data points per city to find what predicts political lean and turnout. The items below are a few correlations that stood out for Ideal, not a ranked or complete list of what matters most.

Rural areas vote Republican. About 2% of residents in Ideal live in densely developed areas, about 7 points below the South Dakota average of 9%.

Paved land cover and Republican lean

Places with little paved surface tend to lean Republican; Ideal, SD sits in the bottom tenth nationally on this measure. Paved ground does not change how people vote; it mostly reflects how urban and built-up a place is.

Why turnout in Ideal looks the way it does

High-crime urban areas turn out at lower rates, mostly because the housing stress common in those areas makes voting harder. Ideal sits in the top 15% nationally on a violent-crime measure. See CrimeGrade for more details. Renters vote less often than owners, and about 29% of households in Ideal rent, above 82% of cities. Learn more about the findings and methodology on the political spectrum map.

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Sources and methodology

Precinct-level voting records used to fit the model come from South Dakota Secretary of State, Elections, distributed by the Voting and Election Science Team. Demographic inputs come from the U.S. Census Bureau (ACS 5-year estimates and the 2020 Decennial Census). Health and environmental inputs come from the CDC (PLACES and the Environmental Justice Index). Land cover comes from the USGS and EPA. Election-day and lead-up weather come from PRISM 4km daily grids and the NOAA Global Historical Climatology Network. Mail-voting and election-administration patterns come from the MIT Election Lab's Survey of the Performance of American Elections. Block-group crime detail comes from CrimeGrade. Internet data and modeling support provided by ISPreports.org.

Modeling and analysis by the BestNeighborhood data science team. Full methodology and findings: political spectrum map.

Methodology reviewed by the BestNeighborhood data team. Last updated May 2026.