It looks like Senator Mike Rounds got six people to come sit and have coffee with him on Monday at his “coffee event” in Murdo:
Six people out of maybe 500 in Murdo—that 1.2% turnout actually beats John Thune’s turnout in Aberdeen Monday by a factor of three—about a hundred people out of about 28,000 here is just 0.36%. But if six people is all the South Dakotans our junior Senator entertains during his long Easter recess, that’s a pretty low interaction quotient.
My party notes that the other party’s Senator could work a little harder to visit with more South Dakotans:
A sitting Republican U.S. Senator drawing such a low number in John Thune’s hometown does not reflect very well on Sen. Rounds. Reflecting even worse on Sen. Rounds, though, is that by holding an event at a time when most working people and students could not attend, and giving hardly any notice of the event, he almost seemed to be discouraging turnout. Sen. Rounds might be hoping for low turnout at his public events so he is not held accountable for his support of the extreme and out-of-touch agenda of Washington Republicans. However, Sen. Rounds has a responsibility to the voters of South Dakota to meet with them and answer their questions – at times and places that encourage turnout, not discourage it [South Dakota Democratic Party, press release, 2017.04.11].
I’d be happy to report that the Dems are wrong, that Rounds has scheduled a whole string of public appearances and here they are… but I can’t find hide nor hair of a Rounds schedule online. The above Monday Tweet is the most recent post on Rounds’s account. Ditto Rounds’s Facebook: three business days in state, and the Murdo six-chat is all Team Rounds finds social media-worthy. His official Senate page offers no events schedule.
So it looks like input from six South Dakotans during a two-week break is all Senator Rounds can handle.