Montana

A new Montana majority defangs the far right – High Country News

Published

10 months ago

May 8, 2025

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.”

Rep. Paul Tuss, D-Havre, watches the State of the State address on Jan. 13 in Montana’s Capitol building. Credit: Thom Bridge, Independent Record

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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Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

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9 hours ago

March 2, 2026

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Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

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Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

Published

22 hours ago

March 1, 2026

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Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.

“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.

It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.

(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”

But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.

“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.

Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.

“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.

The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.

The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.

“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.

While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.

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Montana

Frontier Conference women: MSU-Northern, Montana Western pull upsets to advance to semifinal round

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

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Frontier Conference women: MSU-Northern, Montana Western pull upsets to advance to semifinal round

BUTTE — MSU-Northern and Montana Western pulled a pair of upsets Saturday at the Butte Civic Center to wrap up the quarterfinal round of the Frontier Conference women’s basketball postseason tournament.

The fifth-seeded Skylights started the day with a red-hot shooting performance to down No. 4 Rocky Mountain College 82-74. Western, the sixth seed, used a third-quarter surge to defeat No. 3 Carroll College 65-56.

MSU-Northern (17-11) and Western (14-13) now advance to Sunday’s semifinal round, where the Skylights will play No. 1 seed Dakota State at noon and the Bulldogs will face No. 2 Montana Tech at 2:30 p.m.

MSU-Northern 82, Rocky Mountain College 74

MSU-Northern sizzled in the first quarter, making seven 3-pointers to take a double-digit lead, and put together a crucial third-quarter run to get past Rocky and advance to the semifinal round.

Becky Melcher splashed four 3s in the first 10 minutes, and Taya Trottier, Canzas HisBadHorse and Shania Moananu added one apiece as the Skylights built a 29-13 lead. Melcher scored 14 first-quarter points and finished with a game-high 30 on 10-of-19 shooting (7 of 15 from 3-point range). She added 11 rebounds, a blocked shot and three steals to her stat line.

Rocky battled back to tie the game at 36-36 in the second quarter on a Brenna Linse basket, but MSUN responded with consecutive triples from Trottier and Melcher and took a 44-38 lead into halftime. The Bears eventually stole the lead back in the third quarter following a 9-0 run capped be an Isabelle Heggem bucket.

But the Skylights again answered — this time with a 13-2 run to take a 60-51 lead. MSUN led 66-59 going to the fourth and wouldn’t trail the rest of the way. The Skylights trailed for less than two total minutes of the game.

As a team, MSUN made 14 of 26 3s in the game. Ciera Agasiva was 3 for 3 from behind the arc, and Trottier was 2 for 3. Trottier had 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists, while Agasiva had 13 points.

Paige Wasson led Rocky (20-9) with 29 points but was 0 for 10 on 3-point attempts. Heggem had a double-double of 21 points and 12 rebounds.

Montana Western 65, Carroll 56

After neither team led by more than five points in the first half, Western broke open a 25-25 tie game by outscoring Carroll 20-9 in the third quarter.

Bailee Sayler scored 10 points in the quarter, including making two 3-pointers, to help the Bulldogs take control. They led 45-34 going to the fourth, and Carroll wouldn’t get closer than six points the rest of the way.

The Fighting Saints were just 18-of-65 shooting (27.7%) for the game.

Sayler scored an efficient 22 points on 7-of-8 shooting. She was 2 for 3 from 3-point range and 6 for 7 at the free throw line. The Missoula native also had nine rebounds.

Isabella Lund added 16 points for the Bulldogs, and Keke Davis had 11 points and 11 rebounds.

Carroll (19-10) was led by Kenzie Allen with 12 points. Willa Albrecht and Meagan Karstetter scored 11 points apiece for the Saints.

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