Age, Biography, and Wiki
Kristi Noem was born on November 30, 1971, in Watertown, South Dakota. She is known for her political career, which began in the South Dakota House of Representatives and has since included positions in the U.S. House of Representatives and as the Governor of South Dakota.
| Occupation | Autobiographer |
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| Date of Birth | 30 November 1971 |
| Age | 53 Years |
| Birth Place | Watertown, South Dakota, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Sagittarius |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Specific details about Kristi Noem's height and weight are not readily available in the provided sources.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Kristi Noem is married and has three children. However, detailed information about her spouse or current relationship status beyond this is not specified in the available sources.
Noem attended Northern State University from 1990 to 1994, but did not graduate. In March 1994, her father was killed in a grain bin accident and Noem left college early to run the family farm. She added a hunting lodge and restaurant to the family property. Her siblings also moved back to help expand the businesses.
Noem opposes the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and has voted to repeal it. Having unsuccessfully sought to repeal it, she sought to defund it while retaining measures such as the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the provision allowing parents to keep their children on their health insurance plan into their 20s, and the high-risk pools. Noem wanted to add such provisions to federal law as limits on medical malpractice lawsuits and allowing patients to buy health insurance plans from other states. She supported cuts to Medicaid funding proposed by Republican Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan. A study found that this action would reduce benefits for South Dakota Medicaid recipients by 55 percent.
Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, South Dakota became one of the first states to enact trigger laws banning abortions. Noem defended South Dakota's abortion ban, which only allows exceptions in cases in which the mother's life is in danger. When asked about the case of the 10-year-old child abuse victim who traveled from Ohio to Indiana to receive an abortion, Noem said she would not support changing the law to allow exceptions for rape victims, explaining that she did not "believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy".
The tribes took action after demanding that Noem apologize for her comments about them. In January 2024, Noem said that an "invasion is coming over the southern border" of the United States, and the "enemy is the Mexican drug cartels", which are "perpetrating violence in each of our states, even here in South Dakota ... The cartels are using our reservations to facilitate the spread of drugs throughout the Midwest." In March 2024, Noem said there were "some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there", but gave no evidence, and that there were people "who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day and say, 'Please, dear governor, please come help us in Pine Ridge. We are scared.'" She added: "they live with 80% to 90% unemployment. Their kids don't have any hope. They don't have parents who show up and help them."
| Parents | |
| Husband | Bryon Noem (m. 1992) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of recent financial disclosures in August 2024, Kristi Noem's net worth is estimated to be around $1 million. Her assets include a mix of mutual funds, index funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and other retirement accounts valued between $174,000 and $560,000. Additionally, she has significant borrowings, including commercial and business loans.
In response to protests against the Keystone Pipeline, Noem's office collaborated with the energy company TransCanada Corporation to develop anti-protest legislation, which Noem signed into law in 2019. The law created a fund to cover the costs of policing pipeline protests. Another law was passed to raise revenue for the fund by creating civil penalties for advising, directing, or encouraging participation in rioting. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation banned Noem from their grounds as a result. The Indigenous Environmental Network, Sierra Club, and other groups challenged the laws in suits, arguing that they violated First Amendment rights by incentivizing the state to sue protesters. In 2020, after a federal court struck down sections of the legislation as unconstitutional, Noem brought legislation to repeal sections of the previous bill and clarify the definition of "incitement to riot".
In July 2021, Noem placed Secretary of the Department of Corrections Mike Liedholt on administrative leave, and fired South Dakota State Penitentiary Warden Darin Young and Deputy Warden Jennifer Dreiske, after receiving an anonymous note with complaints regarding pay, medical coverage and instances of sexual harassment. Liedholt later announced his retirement. Later that month, after meeting with prison employees, despite lingering COVID-19 cases, Noem ended the prison's mask mandate.
Career, Business, and Investments
Kristi Noem's career has been multifaceted:
- Early Life and Ranching: She grew up on her family's ranch and took over the farm after her father's untimely death in 1994.
- Political Career:
- She served in the South Dakota House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011.
- She represented South Dakota's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019.
- She was elected as the first female governor of South Dakota in 2018, serving until 2025.
- She became the Secretary of Homeland Security in January 2025.
- Investments: Her investments are primarily in mutual funds, index funds, and ETFs, reflecting a practical and steady approach to financial management.
Born in Watertown, South Dakota, Noem began her political career in the South Dakota House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011. Noem was elected as the first female governor of South Dakota in 2018 with the endorsement of President Donald Trump. She gained national attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for opposing statewide mask mandates and advocating voluntary measures. Noem has conservative positions on most domestic issues, particularly gun rights.
Noem supported the Keystone XL Pipeline and supports offshore oil drilling. She co-sponsored three bills that she argued would reduce American dependence on foreign oil by ending the 2010 United States deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico and reopening sales on oil leases in the Gulf and off the coast of Virginia. In 2011, she sponsored a measure to block Environmental Protection Agency funding for tighter air pollution standards for coarse particulates.
In 2018, Noem was reported to have "pitched the idea to members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus" to attach her online sales tax bill to the government funding package as part of an omnibus. A court case under consideration in the South Dakota Supreme Court involved requiring "certain out-of-state retailers to collect its sales taxes." Noem said that South Dakota businesses (and by extension businesses nationwide) "could be forced to comply with 1,000 different tax structures nationwide without the tools necessary to do so", adding that her legislation "provides a necessary fix."
In 2011, Noem indicated that she would vote to raise the federal debt ceiling, but only if "tied to budget reforms that change the way we spend our dollars and how Washington, D.C., does business. It won’t just be a one-time spending cut." She ultimately voted for S. 365, The Budget Control Act of 2011, which allowed Obama to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts to be decided by a bipartisan committee. She also said she wanted to eliminate the estate tax, lower the corporate tax rate, and simplify the tax code. She said she would not raise taxes to balance the budget.
In 2020, after Noem's 26-year-old daughter, Kassidy Peters, was denied a real estate appraisal license, Noem summoned to her office Sherry Bren, a state employee who had directed South Dakota's Appraiser Certification Program for 30 years. Attendees included Peters, Noem's chief of staff Tony Venhuizen, Department of Labor Attorney Amber Mulder and Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman.
By telephone, the group was joined by the governor's general counsel, Tom Hart, and a lawyer from the state's Department of Labor and Regulation, Graham Oey. A week later, Hultman demanded Bren's resignation. Bren repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, tried to resolve the issues short of resigning, eventually filing an age discrimination complaint. She received a $200,000 settlement as part of a nondisclosure agreement to withdraw her complaint and leave her position. Noem's spokesperson characterized the allegations as an example of how Noem cut through "bureaucratic red tape".
On April 13, 2020, of an outbreak where hundreds of workers had tested positive at a Smithfield pork plant, she told Fox News, "We believe that 99 percent of what's going on today wasn't happening inside the facility". The industry didn't explain the deaths from COVID-19 of USDA food-safety inspectors from three plants. Almost 200 inspectors contracted symptomatic COVID-19.
COVID cases increased drastically in South Dakota after the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, in which Noem participated. COVID-19 patients hospitalized in South Dakota on October 22, 2020, reached a record high of 355, including 75 in Intensive Care Units. South Dakota's two largest hospital systems rescheduled elective procedures to increase available space and personnel to accommodate the surge. In the absence of a statewide mask mandate, hospital systems urged people to wear masks while in the company of those outside their own households. Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken advised his constituents, "Wear a dang mask."
Sixteen weeks after Trump's 2020 executive order that provided enhanced weekly unemployment benefits of $300 as part of the U.S. federal government response to the pandemic, Noem opted out of the program, citing a low state unemployment rate. South Dakota was the only state to refuse the assistance. Its jobless rate in June was 7.2%, up from 3.1% in March, though down from 10.9% in April. Acceptance of the funding required the state to augment the benefit by $100 unless other jobless assistance allowed the match to be waived.
* In September 2020, amid a surge of new cases, Noem announced that she would spend $5 million of relief funding on a state tourism campaign. She used $819,000 of those funds to have the state's Department of Tourism run a 30-second Fox News commercial she had narrated during the 2020 Republican National Convention.
In August 2021, Noem announced that the CGL Group, a California-based company, was hired for $166,410 to comprehensively review the Department of Corrections operations. At the same time, the director of the prison work program was fired, and two other DOC employees relieved of their duties.
In 2021, Noem sued U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, seeking to have fireworks at Mount Rushmore for Independence Day. Fireworks displays had been halted at the site in 2009 by the National Park Service due to fire risks and other reasons. Noem hired the private Washington D.C. law firm Consovoy McCarthy to bring the case, with South Dakota state taxpayer money paying for the suit. The U.S. District Court dismissed the suit, with Judge Roberto Lange finding that four of the five reasons given by the NPS and Secretary Haaland were valid. On July 13, Noem filed an appeal with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2021, Noem signed a religious refusal bill into law. The legislation amended the state RFRA to allow business owners to cite religious beliefs as a basis to deny products or services to people based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The legislation, S.B. 124, was criticized by civil rights groups who said it would enable discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, women, and members of minority faiths. This bill was the first major state RFRA law signed into law in six years, and resembles the 2015 bill signed into law by Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
In 2022, Noem sought to locate a government-paid RV park in Custer State Park. The proposal was met with significant opposition to include government competing with private business and disturbing the pristine nature of the park. The House Agricultural and Natural Resources deferred the bill to the 41st day, effectively killing it, by a vote of 9–3.
In February 2019, she said that the Trump administration's trade wars with China and the European Union had devastated South Dakota's economy, particularly the agricultural sector, "by far" the state's largest industry.
In March 2024, Noem shared a video in which she identified herself as the South Dakota governor and promoted a cosmetic dentist business that she said helped her after she lost her front teeth in a biking accident years before: "I love my new family at Smile Texas!" Noem has since become one of the most prominent examples of so-called "Mar-a-Lago face", a cosmetic surgery trend among conservative women.
Social Network
Details about Kristi Noem's social media presence or engagement are not specified in the available sources.
Noem subsequently took classes at the Watertown campus of Mount Marty College and at South Dakota State University, and online classes from the University of South Dakota. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in political science from South Dakota State University in 2012 while serving as a U.S. representative. The Washington Post dubbed her Capitol Hill's "most powerful intern" for receiving college intern credits from her position as a member of Congress.
Noem has said that the U.S. needs an "all-of-the-above energy approach" that includes renewables like wind and ethanol while still realizing the need for a "balanced energy mix" that ends American dependence on foreign oil.
Noem has called the budget deficit one of the most important issues facing Congress. She cosponsored H. J. Res. 2, which would require that total spending for any fiscal year not exceed total receipts. She cited the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicaid, high-speed rail projects, cap-and-trade technical assistance, and subsidies for the Washington Metro rapid transit system as examples of federal programs where she would like to see cuts.
Noem has called China "an enemy" of the U.S. In 2022, she issued an order banning TikTok from state-owned devices, saying the "Chinese Communist Party uses information it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people". In 2023, she signed an order prohibiting the downloading or use of any application or visiting of any site owned by the Chinese company Tencent, including WeChat, on state-owned devices. In 2024, she signed a bill prohibiting the governments of six countries—China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela—and entities from those countries from buying agricultural land in South Dakota.
After the Associated Press published a story about the incident, the State Senate's Government Operations and Audit Committee was delegated to investigate. In October 2021, the Committee invited Hultman and Bren to come before it to discuss the appraisal program in light of the controversy. On December 14, 2021, Bren testified before the Government Operations and Audit Committee. She said that Peters received an Agreed Disposition around March/April 2020. Around July 20, 2020, Peters received a letter and/or Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law when she failed to meet the requirements of the Agreed Disposition. Bren said that on July 26, Department of Labor attorney Amber Mulder told her to be prepared to discuss "what is the definition of a serious deficiency; what criteria do you use for denials; how many are denied each year; how many are approved; are we saying that Kassidy can take certain classes and resubmit".
Around January 2025, Noem apologized to the tribes for the misunderstanding between them, and the Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe dissolved its order banning Noem from its land. The tribe said, "the Governor has shown us that she is committed to protecting the people of South Dakota including the citizens of the nine Tribal Nations, who share mutual borders with the state", and expressed its support for her nomination as the Secretary of Homeland Security.
As of December 2020, Noem was one of few governors who had not maintained statewide stay-at-home orders or face-mask mandates. Her response mirrored Trump's rhetoric and handling of COVID-19. She was rewarded for her COVID-19 response with a speech at the August 2020 Republican National Convention, which elevated her national profile. The Argus Leader called the RNC speech a "defining moment in her political career".
On March 8, 2021, Noem announced on Twitter that she would sign into law H.B. 1217, the Women's Fairness in Sports Bill, which bans transgender athletes from playing on or against women's school and college sports teams. Some critics of the bill said they were worried it might turn away business and cost the state money. On March 19, Noem issued a style and form veto to H.B. 1217 that substantially altered the bill, not just correcting grammar and spelling mistakes. She defended her position on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Noem has opposed the cultivation of industrial hemp, vetoing a bill that passed the South Dakota House and Senate in 2019 to legalize hemp cultivation. She said, "There is no question in my mind that normalizing hemp, like legalizing medical marijuana, is part of a larger strategy to undermine enforcement of the drug laws and make legalized marijuana inevitable."
In April 2025, The Washington Post reported that Noem and acting Social Security Administration commissioner Leland Dudek had instructed the Social Security Administration to falsely list over 6,000 living immigrants in its database of dead people.
On the evening of April 20, 2025, Noem's purse was stolen from a D.C. burger restaurant. The purse contained important items, like her government access badge, apartment keys, $2,000-3,000 in cash, her passport, and blank checks. The incident raised various concerns, including about her Secret Service detail presence.
In September 2021, conservative media outlet American Greatness reported that Noem was having an extramarital affair with political operative Corey Lewandowski. Noem called the report a "disgusting lie", saying, "these old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can't achieve anything without a man's help." In September 2023, the New York Post and the Daily Mail published similar reports about Noem and Lewandowski, which Noem's spokesman denied.
Noem initially responded that "tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm", and subsequently said the incident occurred 20 years ago, and that "the fake news ... put the worst spin" on the story, as Cricket was a "working dog" that "came to us from a family who had found her way too aggressive ... a responsible owner does what they need to do". The story led to bipartisan criticism of Noem and doubt about the likelihood of her selection as Trump's vice presidential running mate intensified. A fundraising dinner for Noem in Colorado scheduled for May 4 was canceled after the group and the hotel hosting the event received death threats.
Noem also wrote that she met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Her spokesperson said the claim was an error and would be expunged from the book's future editions. Separately, Noem claimed in the book that she was once "slated to meet with French president Emmanuel Macron", but called off the meeting because he made a "very pro-Hamas and anti-Israel comment to the press"; the French government responded that it had neither invited Noem nor had any record of a scheduled meeting with her.
The Washington Post 's literary critic Ron Charles wrote that the "description of Cricket's Last Stand is the one time in this howlingly dull book that Noem demonstrates any sense of setting, character, plot and emotional honesty. Otherwise, it's mostly a hodgepodge of worn chestnuts and conservative maxims".
Education
Kristi Noem attended Northern State University but did not complete her degree due to family commitments and responsibilities following her father's death. She has been recognized for her leadership and hard work throughout her career.
The 2011 House Republican 87-member freshman class elected Noem as liaison to the House Republican leadership, making her the second woman member of the House GOP leadership. According to The Hill, her role was to push the leadership to make significant cuts to federal government spending and to help Speaker John Boehner manage the expectations of the freshman class. In March 2011, Republican Representative Pete Sessions of Texas named Noem one of the 12 regional directors for the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 2012 election campaign.
Early in the pandemic, Noem requested that the legislature pass a bill giving the state health secretary and county officials the power to close businesses and other entities. The House rejected the bill. On March 13, 2020, Noem ordered K-12 schools to close, and on April 6, she extended that order for the remainder of the school year. Also on April 6, Noem ordered businesses and local governments to practice social distancing and other CDC guidelines.
* In October 2020, as South Dakota reported the country's second-highest number of new COVID-19 cases per capita and hospitals began to prioritize treatment of severe COVID-19 cases over lesser ones, Noem said the higher case numbers were because of more testing, despite the positive test rate and hospitalization rate also increasing.
In 2022, Noem sought to have prayer put back in school after mentioning it in a speech in Iowa. On January 21, 2022, the "prayer bill", HB 1015, was defeated in the House Education Committee by a vote of 9–6. An aide to Noem admitted to the committee that no schools were consulted about the proposal.
On May 22, 2025, Noem attempted to revoke the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification for Harvard University (see Education policy of the second Donald Trump administration).
