Zinke is banking on his energy policies and Trump's endorsement in the western House race

MTPR’s Shaylee Ragar takes us on the campaign trail with the Republican western district U.S. House candidate Ryan Zinke. Zinke's pitch is to champion core conservative issues in Congress.

Betting on his record

[Rally intro] “He’s stepping up to serve once again. You know, you’ve known him, you’ve trusted him – Commander Ryan Zinke.”

Zinke, a retired Navy SEAL from Whitefish and former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, takes the stage at the Gallatin Gateway Community Center outside of Bozeman for a campaign rally in August. The event was part of Zinke’s “Freedom Rally” tour where he was joined by other former Navy SEALs in three cities across the district.

Zinke is making his third bid to represent Montana in the U.S. House. He offers the crowd a caveat to his campaign for public office.

“Number one, I would never consider doing this again. I hate D.C. and I’ll tell you a little secret. They hate me. For a reason,” said Zinke.

Reminiscent of former President Donald Trump’s call to “drain the swamp,” Zinke says the federal government needs fixing and he has the track record to do it.

“There is no other alternative if we want to save the country. We’re all going to have to step up.”

Zinke first entered politics as a state senator in 2009 and later won Montana’s lone U.S. House of Representatives seat in 2014. He was reelected two years later but left the seat early when Trump appointed him Secretary of the Interior.

His decade in government comes with federal investigations into his ethics while in office. Zinke and many of his supporters brush those off as political hit jobs.

Grerald Ryder, a former National Park Service employee and Bozeman-area resident, attended the rally in Gallatin Gateway.

“Ryan Zinke, as far as I’m concerned, he’s a hero for Montana. He served the country, he did it honorably. There are hundreds of people trying to paint him in a different color and I don’t believe that,” said Ryder.

Ryder says he liked what he saw when Zinke was at the Department of the Interior, and that he’s a supporter of Trump.

A Trump Republican

Trump endorsed Zinke early in the Republican primary and Zinke calls Trump a “kingmaker” in elections. Trump’s endorsement is featured prominently on Zinke’s campaign website and in his political ads.

[Campaign Ad] “Zinke helped Trump build the border wall on federal lands despite opposition. He kept fentanyl and meth out of Montana communities”

Zinke left his position in the Trump administration after two years amid 18 ethics investigationsinto his tenure. A Trump-appointed Inspector General within the Interior Department concluded that Zinke used state resources to advance personal interests and later lied about it.

In another report, investigators found Zinke gave misleading statements when interviewed about a proposed casino project.

Zinke has not faced indictment.

In an interview with MTPR, Zinke said the investigations were politically-motivated.

“When you want to get things done in Washington, D.C. and you actually want to push back against the bureaucracy, what we call the swamp, they don’t like it. And that’s exactly what happened,” said Zinke.

Earlier in his career, Zinke was found to have misused government resources for personal travel when he worked for the U.S. Navy.

Shaylee Ragar

Jessi Bennion, a political science professor at Montana State University and adjunct at Carroll College, says these reports are a liability for Zinke’s campaign.

“As far as that translating to what voters really care about right now, I don’t know, that remains to be seen,” said Bennion.

Bennion says voters are most motivated by what the election means for the economy and their family's budget. Many are also loyal to party affiliation. That puts Zinke at an advantage as Montana saw a red wave result from the 2020 election where Republicans won every major race on the ballot. At the same time, polling suggests more Americans disapprove of Democratic President Joe Biden's first two years in office than approve of them. Bennion says national politics are likely to influence who voters support in the midterms.

Montana’s support for GOP candidates and possible national Republican gains during the midterms work in Zinke’s favor, but Bennion says other factors may make him nervous.

He won the Montana Republican primary by a razor thin margin even though he outraised the second place candidate four-to-one.

“The close results of the primary probably made him kick it into higher gear on the campaign trail, definitely needing to show up to more debates, get out more to the community, really put that work in that you need in a campaign,” said Bennion.

Through the summer Zinke has appeared in local parades, at rallies and at several debates. He faced four primary candidates who held a number of forums he did not attend before the primary election. Zinke did not grant MTPR an interview by deadline ahead of the primary, but made time to this summer.

On a tour of NorthWestern Energy’s headquarters in Butte in September, Zinke told the company’s leaders he can cut through bureaucracy to advance conservative priorities.

“In two years, I got tasked with being energy independent, and I said, you know what Mr. President, we could probably be energy dominant.”

Zinke opened up more federal lands for oil, gas, coal and wind production during his time at Interior. On the campaign trail, energy production is Zinke’s answer to many issues. He says relying less on foreign resources promotes national security and protects the environment, as the U.S. has regulations that other countries don’t have. He says ramped up energy production is also the answer to economic uncertainty and inflation, and will tamp down gas prices.

He often points to U.S. oil production increasing more than 60 percent under his leadership. It’s a message Zinke is counting on resonating with natural resource-rich Montana in his bid for Congress.

Visions for the future of energy development show sharp contrast between Zinke and his Democratic opponent, Monica Tranel, a longtime Montana energy and agriculture attorney. Tranel has sued NorthWestern Energy several times on behalf of ratepayers and a climate action group. She often advocates for building up renewable energy production and moving away from fossil fuels in Montana.

Defining Conservation

Zinke wants to make energy production more efficient and to reclaim public lands post-development. He says climate change is not serious enough to pull back on fossil fuel use.

Shaylee Ragar: “As we’ve heard from the UN panel on climate change, from other scientists, the long term costs of climate change are worse than the immediate costs of decline in industry, or …”

[Zinke]: “That’s fear mongering. If you look at what you’re seeing in data, and remember, Department of Interior, we released the climate change study. It was about 1,700 pages. I wish people would have read it.”

The 2018 National Climate Assessmentcompiled by 13 federal agencies, including the Interior Department under Zinke’s leadership, concluded that climate change will adversely impact water availability, food production, income inequality, public health and energy and transportation systems. The report calls for immediate and substantial reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Other research published under Zinke’s leadership found that 24% of all carbon emissions in the U.S. are produced on public lands.

While he opened up more public land across the country to fossil fuel development, parts of Montana saw added protections against that kind of energy production while Zinke was in office. He opposed oil and gas leasing in the Badger-Two Medicine and extended an Obama-era ban on mining north of Yellowstone National Park. He held a press conference at the time to highlight that work.

“It’s special to the community. It’s special to Montana. And it’s special to our nation,” said Zinke.

That falls more in line with the 2009 state Sen. Zinke, who was seen as a more moderate Republican and received an endorsement from Montana Conservation Voters, whose mission is to protect the environment. This election cycle, the organization endorsed Tranel and called Zinke’s record “atrocious.”

Zinke says he’s used to the criticism.

“In some circles, I’m not conservative enough. In some circles, I’m too conservative. For Montana, I think I’m about right.”

Zinke’s time at Interior is proving influential in his future political goals. He says the first bill he’ll propose in Congress if elected is the FEAR Act, or the Federal Employees Accountability and Reduction Act. It’s a 10-point plan to target the “gravy train for reckless, ineffective, and criminal bureaucrats.” It includes capping the number of years someone can be a federal employee, capping their pay and downsizing the federal government through attrition.

Zinke says the plan is not meant as retaliation.

“I don’t want vengeance. What I wanted to do is transparency.”

Zinke says he’s the candidate who can bring institutional trust back to Congress.