South Dakota Democrats Pin November Hopes on Popular Senator Tim Johnson

Sen. Tim Johnson battles for re-election in GOP dominated state.

ByABC News
October 15, 2008, 9:40 AM

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Sen. Tim Johnson has come through emergency brain surgery, a coma and a grueling recovery.

Now, Johnson, a 61-year-old Democrat who battled back from a December 2006 brain hemorrhage, is running for re-election in a GOP-dominated state where President Bush won 60% of the vote in 2000 and 2004.

It may turn out to be the easiest thing he's done in two years.

Johnson, running against Republican state lawmaker Joel Dykstra, was comfortably ahead 60% to 35% in a July Rasmussen Reports poll, the most recent statewide poll on this year's race.