Montana
A new Montana majority defangs the far right – High Country News
Before a single vote was cast on Election Day, Paul Tuss figured he knew how Montana’s statewide races would turn out. Montana’s major elections — like those in many states in this historically partisan era — have become predictable. As expected, President Donald Trump trounced Kamala Harris, Republicans swept all statewide offices by an average 21 points, and 18-year incumbent Sen. Jon Tester lost to Republican Tim Sheehy, a wealthy businessman who was born in Minnesota.
Local results, however, were more surprising. In Havre, a windy railroad town 38 miles from the Canadian border that comprises much of House District 27, voters re-elected Tuss, a Democrat, by 5 points, while going for Trump by 22 points. Tuss’ total exceeded Harris by 14 points, according to Scott McNeil, director of the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. In 5,800 state legislative elections nationwide, only one Democrat outperformed Harris by a larger margin.
“I’m the red-headed stepchild of the caucus,” said Tuss, who runs the Bear Paw Development Corporation, a business-assistance nonprofit serving five counties. “I’m the only Democrat from rural Montana who isn’t Native, and that’s symbolic of some difficulties we’re having within our party.”
Since November, national Democrats have struggled to forge an identity after losing the White House and both houses of Congress. But in Montana, where Democrats have been the minority in the Statehouse since 2011, the party has quietly produced some surprisingly tangible results.
Seven Democrats, including Tuss, outperformed Harris, and the party flipped 12 seats in the state Legislature, its second-largest gain in the country after Wisconsin. Since Montana’s biannual Legislature convened in January, the Democratic minority in both chambers has locked arms with a group of moderate Republicans to isolate the far right and protect the public services that Trump and Elon Musk have placed on the federal chopping block: Medicaid, public schools and a nonpartisan judiciary, among others.
As Trump’s opinion polls continue to sink, this burst of bipartisan cooperation suggests that legislators on both sides of the aisle are stepping into the widening gap between the president and some of his voters — and betting on their constituents to keep them there.
WHEN MONTANANS look back on the 2025 legislative session, which concluded on April 30, the defining number will be nine. That’s the number of Senate Republicans who were effectively sidelined after GOP leaders, who mostly identify with the party’s right wing, set up a novel committee structure to consolidate their control of the session. Instead of accepting bystander status, however, the nine moderates opened a dialogue with their Democratic colleagues.
“It started before the session,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, explained on April 24 in the Senate Gallery of the State Capitol in Helena. “Given our 18 members and their nine, we had, in effect, a working majority. So we decided on Day 1 to change the rules.”
Working quickly, Democrats and these nine Republicans stitched together a new majority, which enabled them to bypass Republican Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, and reassign their members to committees with the most influence over the state budget. The results were immediate.
Several Republican priorities, like a bill requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms, were quickly killed. Meanwhile, moderates waited for the state budget to wend its way out of the House and through Senate committees. Then, they amended the bill on the Senate floor — over and over again — pushing tens of millions of dollars toward various public health programs, such as requiring hospitals to hire full-time nurses, as well as funding a pre-trial diversion program.
A similar pattern played out in the House, where moderate Republicans torpedoed an Arizona-style school voucher program, which has contributed to a $1.4 billion budget shortfall. With Democrats, they also renewed $100 million for an expanded version of Medicaid and allocated another $100 million to boost teacher pay, which ranks 46th in the country.
“I’m not elected by my party. I’m not elected by a single person in charge of something,” said Rep. Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls, who carried the Medicaid renewal bill. “I’m elected by the people of House District 21, and as long as I’m working hard for them and getting things done, they seem to want to send me back.”
“I’m elected by the people of House District 21, and as long as I’m working hard for them and getting things done, they seem to want to send me back.”
In the context of an unusual legislative session, this explanation suggests that new political currents might be circulating in the wake of the red wave that swallowed Montana and most of the country last November. It also underlines the belief that voters want lawmakers to build new programs, not just break old ones. In addition to preserving Medicaid and boosting teacher pay, Montana’s new majority acted on this belief by allocating $75 million to a school maintenance trust fund and and including preschool students with disabilities in the state school funding formula, which will save schools $3.7 million next year.
“I don’t want to call it buyer’s remorse, but I do think there is such a thing as going too far,” Tuss remarked over lunch in a basement conference room of the Capitol. “It’s fine to embrace conservative political conventions, but when [legislators] don’t support public education, don’t support fixing our infrastructure, then people are going to look for an alternative.”
Second-term Gov. Greg Gianforte, a culturally conservative Republican, appears to agree with this analysis. In April 2024, he endorsed 58 candidates in Montana Republican primaries, a list that included a significant number of moderates, while snubbing some high-profile hard-liners. That gamble is now paying off. Some of his political objectives, such as allowing judicial candidates to declare their partisan affiliation, have failed, yet most of his budget wishes became law. These included a major income tax break, an inflationary funding increase for public schools, and Medicaid renewal. He also pushed through several GOP bills curtailing individual rights, such as banning trans athletes from women’s sports.
After repeated requests for comment on the bipartisan coalition that carried several of these policies across the finish line, his press secretary, Kaitlin Price, sent a written response on April 30, the final day of the session. “As the governor has stated repeatedly, this session, and every session prior, he believes every legislator — whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent — was elected by their constituents to advocate for them.”
“I don’t want to call it buyer’s remorse, but I do think there is such a thing as going too far.”
MONTANA IS NOT the only state displaying signs of a Trump backlash. Musk’s millions failed to overturn a liberal Supreme Court majority in Wisconsin. Since November, Democrats have also seen their vote share increase compared to the 2024 Presidential Election by an average of 11.6% in 19 special elections across 10 states, including races in Pennsylvania and Iowa Senate districts that Trump won by 15 and 21 points.
While it’s too early to know whether this trend will continue, it’s undeniable that Trump voters are pulling away from him in some of the states he won just five months ago. It’s also clear that state legislators feel more insulated from national political pressures than their federal colleagues do, especially on issues where Trump has staked a position to the right of broad-based popular opinion.
In Montana, meanwhile, the Republican Party is betting against moderation. Last month, the party’s executive committee censured “the nine” for “disregarding the will of Montana voters,” a salvo that might encourage far-right challengers in primary races next June. House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls, however, doubts that such saber-rattling will slow the moderates’ momentum.
“In the Republican primary electorate, there’s a block of voters that value loyalty, but there’s a larger block who are going to look at their (legislator’s) record and accomplishments,” he said in early May. “The far right represents about 25% of the Republican electorate, so there’s a lot of room in the party for a variety of different voices.”
Montana AFL-CIO Executive Secretary Jason Small, a former two-term Republican senator and member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, agrees. “People are getting tired of hyper-partisanship because it leads to gridlock and does nothing,” he said. “I would guess the backing (the nine) have from their actual constituencies is pretty phenomenal. They’re non-idealogues. If you’re an idealogue, you’re never going to vote for your constituents.”
If this hunch holds true, then Trump voters in Montana will continue to value compromise even as they applaud some of the president’s executive orders. If false, then the next legislative session will prove far less surprising than this one. For his part, Tuss believes it’s a sensible prediction, and he’s counting on his Republican neighbors to send him back to Helena for another term.
“When people are trying balance their household budget, they really do want people who are going to provide solutions,” he said. “I mean, rhetoric is easy, and God knows us politicians are good at rhetoric, including me. But beyond the campaign slogans, beyond what we do through November, people elect politicians to govern.”
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The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 20, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from June 20 drawing
16-20-44-48-50, Powerball: 15, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from June 20 drawing
08-14-31-41-52, Star Ball: 04, ASB: 03
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 20 drawing
09-22-25-26, Bonus: 11
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Montana Cash numbers from June 20 drawing
05-22-28-30-34
Check Montana Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Montana
Planning For Life After Coal Cost a Montana County Commissioner His Seat – Inside Climate News
Robert Pancratz couldn’t believe it.
The Musselshell County commissioner had been defeated in the Republican primary for his seat by a two-to-one margin earlier this month. Mark Olson, who lives in Musselshell and serves as the undersheriff in Golden Valley County, won by 26 percentage points.
“That just blew me away,” Pancratz said. “All of my campaign, I had not a hint that there was that much opposition.”
At stake, from Pancratz’s perspective, is the fiscal future of his community, which includes Roundup, Montana, home to Montana’s only longwall coal mine. The mine, owned and operated by Signal Peak Energy, sits on the eastern side of the continental divide in a staunchly conservative part of the state, where its presence provides jobs and its profits generate taxable revenue for local governments. (The vast majority of its coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, goes to markets in Asia.)
But that revenue could potentially be diminished by tens of millions, according to calculations by Pancratz, if a bill introduced by U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., passes Congress. The Crow Revenue Act would convey federally held coal to Signal Peak through a land transfer to a private intermediary, depriving Musselshell County of its share of the taxes Signal Peak Energy pays to mine coal on federal land.
If the Crow Revenue Act does not pass Congress, Signal Peak says it could be forced to shut down if it loses a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana challenging the “energy emergency” the Trump administration used to grant the mine access to federal coal. That outcome would wipe out all the mine’s tax revenue and hundreds of jobs, the company claims. This month’s election hinged on Pancratz’s position on the bill and, by extension, the mine.
Musselshell County’s three commissioners, Mike Goffena, Mike Turley and Pancratz support keeping the mine open. But they also fear Musselshell County would need to raise taxes and cut services to balance its books if the Crow Revenue Act passes as written. After studying the county’s finances, Pancratz, who works as a risk analyst consultant, concluded that the county could lose as much as $11.6 million if the Crow Revenue Act passes and the price of coal is high. The commissioners have lobbied for changes to the bill that would guarantee the county some revenue from the land transfer.
Pancratz says he was just doing his job.
“As a risk manager, I have to develop a contingency plan for the possibility that the long-term stream of coal revenue could be disrupted or ended,” he said. “We needed to have a plan to effectively transition to other revenue sources. When I used the word transition, they took that as I was an environmentalist that was against coal.”
“Why anybody would have a problem with that is baffling to me. But that’s what happened.”
According to Pancratz, Signal Peak Energy branded the men as environmentalists who want to see the company shut down forever and this willful mischaracterization played a large role in his defeat.
“The picture they painted of me was totally false,” he said.
In a recording of a commissioner meeting posted to a local Facebook group by a Signal Peak Energy employee less than a month before the election, Pancratz, Goffena and Turley can be heard strategizing how to express their concerns about the Crow Revenue Act to Daines, whom they describe as unresponsive to their concerns.
Pancratz suggests asking for a $100 million endowment to transition from coal to “scare” Daines and Signal Peak Energy. Turley states that with funding at that level, they wouldn’t care if the mine was open or not.
“Exactly,” Pancratz responded.
Comments on the video show viewers expressing outrage that the commissioners would “play chicken” with the future of the mine, which provides hundreds of jobs in the surrounding area.
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Pancratz said the conversation was recorded without the commissioners’ knowledge. Montana is a two-party consent state, meaning all parties must be aware of and consent to a recording, but he allowed that it was possible one of the commissioners forgot to close a virtual public meeting after it concluded.
Pancratz said the conversation occurred when the commissioners found out there would be no money in the Crow Revenue Act for the county. The bill’s supporters, including Signal Peak Energy, had told them that the county would not lose any revenue under the bill, he said.
“We were upset because we felt we’d been lied to,” Pancratz said.
Signal Peak Energy did not respond to a written message and phone call seeking comment. For a time after Signal Peak took over the mine in the late 2000s, it was plagued by malfeasance, including embezzlement, a faked kidnapping and safety and environmental violations, according to reporting by The New York Times.
Olson said he entered the race due to a “lack of transparency” from the commissioners over how the county was spending its money.
But the mine played a role in his decision to run, too. As he was weighing his options, Olson said his cousin, Alan Olson, a former state legislator and former executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, visited him and urged him to run to support the mine. After that conversation, he was convinced the mine’s survival depended on the Crow Revenue Act passing, and that trying to amend it would jeopardize the legislation.
“The more money we can get for the county, the better, but I don’t think it’s worth risking the mine closing,” Olson said. Losing federal revenue was better than losing all the jobs and the tax base if the mine closes, he concluded.
Olson added that Parker Phipps, Signal Peak Energy’s CEO, has briefed him on the mine’s fiscal relationship with Musselshell County.
Olson’s background in law enforcement could add a new perspective to the county commissioner meetings, given Goffena and Turley’s background in ranching, he said, but the minutiae of the county’s budget will be new to him.
“I am by no means an expert in any of this stuff,” he said.
Some worry that, with the mine facing a lawsuit, an unpredictable global coal market and the uncertain future of the Crow Revenue Act, the commissioners cannot afford to lose momentum in their efforts to attract new industries to the area.
Olson’s win in the primary will “set [economic diversification planning] back long term,” Nicole Borner, a former Musselshell County commissioner, who thinks Olson was hand-picked by the Signal Peak Energy to run and is not informed about what the job entails.
“We will always just have a few crumbs to duct tape a few issues,” she said. “We’ll never be able to fix the prior forty years of being in a coal bust and our infrastructure just literally falling apart.”
Olson will likely run unopposed in the general election.
In his remaining time in office, Pancratz said he will continue to push for economic diversification in Musselshell County. He holds no animosity towards Olson, who calls Pancratz “a wonderful guy.” Instead, he laments not addressing concerns over his position on the mine sooner in the campaign. But he believes Signal Peak Energy’s political and social influence—the company operates a charity in the region—is what swayed the election.
“You can’t say anything that even remotely implies that you’re trying to prepare the county for the possibility that coal revenue may not be steady or high … There’s this attitude that the county is in debt to that coal mine. And the message I tried to get out is, it’s more the reverse,” Pancratz said.
“I personally don’t believe the mine really cares about the county.”
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Jake Bolster reports on Wyoming and the West for Inside Climate News. Previously, he worked as a freelancer, covering climate change, energy, and the environment across the United States. He holds a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University.
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 19, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from June 19 drawing
13-16-21-26-50, Mega Ball: 12
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 19 drawing
05-12-14-30, Bonus: 03
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from June 19 drawing
02-20-28-51-54, Bonus: 02
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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