Editors note: The following is voter information on a public candidate based solely on public records on a regulated industry and candidate. Protective order proceedings are separate and this publication is not intended to influence any court matter.
South Dakota House District 6 voters have four and a half short weeks until the June 2 Republican primary — with early voting ending May 18. They are being asked to nominate Ned Horsted — a self-described “small business owner and political reformer” campaigning on “family values.” The public record reveals a different reality: a former Democrat whose cannabis company and family farm serve as vehicles for progressive infiltration of the South Dakota GOP.¹
Horsted is CEO of 605 Cannabis LLC. His company, co-founded with Melissa Mentele (a longtime New Approach South Dakota operative), has adopted a textbook RINO playbook: former Democrats rebrand as Republicans to seize party infrastructure, neutralize conservative resistance, and advance left-wing social and cultural agendas under the guise of “business-friendly” reform. This is not organic small-business conservatism. It is infiltration.¹
Start with the family farm. Nom Nom Gardens — owned and operated by Horsted’s wife, Bobbi Jo Horsted — has hosted major LGBTQ+ events including Pride Youth Prom and Equality South Dakota Family Day. These are not casual community gatherings. They are deliberate alignments with progressive social engineering in a district and state that elected Kristi Noem and rejected radical cultural shifts at the ballot box. Bobbi Jo Horsted has publicly engaged with Sioux Falls Pride and Equality SD initiatives, using the family acreage as a venue to normalize and celebrate the very agendas the South Dakota Republican base has consistently opposed.²
Bobbi Jo’s political footprint runs deeper and is explicitly Democratic. In 2023 she was selected for the Rural POWER leadership program sponsored by the Billie Sutton Leadership Institute — the flagship training ground of the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor against Kristi Noem. This was not passive attendance. It was a selective, year-long commitment under the banner of the man who ran against Republican dominance in Pierre.³
Her on-the-record opposition to Governor Noem is equally damning. In April 2019 public comments submitted to the Game, Fish & Parks Commission (bobbijo.horsted@gmail.com), Bobbi Jo Horsted formally opposed Noem’s Nest Predator Bounty Program — a signature Second Century Initiative aimed at protecting pheasant habitat and supporting South Dakota’s hunting economy. She joined the chorus framing the program as cruel, unscientific, and poorly conceived, directly attacking a core Republican governor’s wildlife and rural-economy priority. The comments are preserved in the official GFP record for any District 6 voter to read.⁴
This is the household Ned Horsted brings to the Republican primary. While he campaigns on “family values and providing a good upbringing for our kids,” his wife’s documented actions and affiliations tell a different story — one of progressive rural activism and open hostility to Noem-era Republican priorities.⁵
The pattern extends to the cannabis operation itself. Melissa Mentele, 605 Cannabis co-founder and COO, previously led New Approach South Dakota’s push for a “death with dignity” (assisted suicide) ballot measure in 2016–2018. The South Dakota legislature responded with explicit condemnations and countermeasures, rejecting the radical end-of-life agenda that Mentele and her allies tried to force onto voters. Now that same network sits inside a cannabis company whose CEO is running as a Republican. The strategy is transparent: rebrand, embed, and advance the progressive causes they could not pass through Democratic channels.⁶
Ned Horsted’s own Democratic roots make the infiltration unmistakable. He met his disgraced former business partner, Minnesota DFL operative Will Hailer, through Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party politics in Minnesota around 2010. Hailer — later business partner to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband Tim Mynett in ventures tied to the Somalian congresswoman’s orbit and a separate California winery fraud scandal — convinced Horsted and other South Dakota cannabis investors to hand over $3.54 million on promises of massive additional funding that never materialized. Horsted sued and recovered a settlement, but the original political connection remains: Horsted entered the cannabis space through Democratic networks that trace directly to Ilhan Omar’s circle.¹
District 6 voters must ask the obvious question: Why is a candidate with this history — a former Democratic operative whose wife hosts Pride events, trains under Democratic leadership, publicly opposed a Republican governor’s signature program, and whose company is run by assisted-suicide advocates — suddenly cloaking himself in GOP “family values”?
The answer is strategy, not sincerity. Former Democrats like Horsted and Mentele are not converting; they are colonizing. They exploit the Republican primary’s openness, the cannabis industry’s regulatory capture potential, and the cover of “small business” rhetoric to inject progressive social policies — LGBTQ normalization, assisted suicide, and the broader left-wing rural agenda — into a party that has rejected them at the ballot box for decades.⁷
Ned Horsted is not a conservative reformer. He is a RINO Democrat in Republican clothing, using 605 Cannabis as the vehicle and Nom Nom Gardens as the cultural beachhead. District 6 cannot afford this infiltration three weeks before the primary.
Early voting ends May 18. The full public record is now on the table. South Dakota Republicans have a duty to reject Trojan-horse candidacies that masquerade as one thing while advancing the exact agendas they were elected to stop.
On-the-record response from Ned Horsted or 605 Cannabis LLC is invited and will be published in full.
Footnotes
¹ S.D. Searchlight, Former Democratic Operative Settles $1.2 Million Debt with South Dakota Cannabis Growers (Aug. 2, 2024), https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2024/08/02/former-democratic-operative-settles-1-2-million-debt-with-south-dakota-cannabis-growers/ (detailing Horsted’s connection to Will Hailer through Minnesota DFL politics circa 2010 and the subsequent $3.54 million investment loss leading to litigation and $1.2 million settlement).
² Public records and event announcements for Nom Nom Gardens Pride Youth Prom and Equality South Dakota Family Day (Sioux Falls Pride and Equality SD archives and Facebook event pages).
³ Billie Sutton Leadership Institute, 2023 Rural POWER Class Roster (listing Bobbi Jo Horsted of Sioux Falls as a participant in the program sponsored by the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Billie Sutton).
⁴ Public Comments, S.D. Game, Fish & Parks Comm’n Minutes (Apr. 4, 2019) (bobbijo.horsted@gmail.com formally opposing Gov. Kristi Noem’s Nest Predator Bounty Program as part of the Second Century Initiative).
⁵ Ned Horsted Campaign Website, About Page (nedhorsted.com/about) (campaign emphasis on “family values” contrasted with wife’s documented activities).
⁶ Angie Albonico & Melissa Mentele, Death with Dignity Initiative, New Approach South Dakota (circulated 2016–2018); see S.D. legislative records and responses condemning assisted-suicide measures during the 2017–2018 sessions.
⁷ Minn. Reformer, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Husband Accused of Swindling Investor in California Winery (June 5, 2024) (contextualizing Hailer-Mynett partnership and broader political ties in the Minnesota DFL orbit).
Voters decide. The record does not lie.
Update: email sent to state GOP, and Lincoln County GOP is below. We had the same issue with a lady in Iowa once and handled it the same way when we found a Democrat infiltrating the Iowa GOP. This thing is known to happen, and reporting evidence of it happening yet again is SOP at WeedPress: document first, then report to appropriate authorities or executives.
To: sdlcrepublicans@yahoo.com, info@sdgop.com
Subject: Public Records Article on District 6 Candidate Ned Horsted – For Party Review
Dear Lincoln County Republican Central Committee and Chair Amy Harms,
As a South Dakota conservative and publisher of WeedPress, I wanted to bring to your attention a new article detailing the public record on House District 6 candidate Ned Horsted.
The piece is based entirely on public records, campaign materials, official comments, and legislative history. It raises legitimate questions about party infiltration and alignment with Republican principles ahead of the June 2 primary.
I am happy to provide any additional documentation or answer questions from the party. Voter and activist transparency on candidates is important to maintaining a strong Republican Party in South Dakota.
Best regards,
Jason Karimi
WeedPress
WeedPress: The Paper Trail 
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