Justin McNeal

Justin McNeal is a U.S. Navy veteran and Rapid City entrepreneur mounting a Republican primary challenge to two-term incumbent Mike Rounds for South Dakota's U.S. Senate seat. He announced his campaign in October 2025 at Mount Rushmore.

McNeal was born in Illinois and raised in Texas, but spent summers and holidays in the Black Hills with his grandparents, Charles and Beanie Kulpaca of Rapid City — his grandfather practiced optometry in the city for over 40 years, and his great-grandfather Herman Kulpaca served two terms as mayor of Lead. He now lives in Rapid City, where he founded and runs Dakota BioChar, a company that converts Black Hills forest waste into a soil amendment for agriculture, aiming to reduce wildfire fuel load while improving farm soil health.

He enlisted in the Navy in August 2001 — weeks before 9/11 — and served through 2007, including more than four years aboard the USS Key West, a Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine based at Pearl Harbor, as a nuclear engineer in the Machinery Division. After discharge he earned a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering Technology and an MBA from Hawaii Pacific University and worked in finance in Hawaii before returning to South Dakota.

McNeal's campaign centers on the national debt, which he calls the country's largest threat, and on what he describes as the "unholy trinity" of special interests, lobbying, and career politicians taking campaign contributions from the interests they regulate. He backs federal term limits and is running an explicitly grassroots, small-dollar campaign; through December 31, 2025, his committee had reported roughly $130 raised. He previously attempted a 2024 U.S. House run, first as a Republican and then as an Independent, but fell short of the valid-signature threshold in both filings.

Sensible South Dakota has endorsed Senator Rounds in this race; McNeal is published here so primary voters can evaluate the alternative on the ballot.