Republicans sweep to victory in Montana's top races. Montana's newly elected Senator promises to bring people together. Voters say ‘yes’ to protecting the right to an abortion. Democrats celebrate a few legislative victories, but have a serious reckoning ahead.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Lee Newspapers State Bureau Chief Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin. Tune in on-air Saturdays at 9:45 a.m. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sally Mauk: Holly, Montana Republicans are rejoicing over their clean sweep of all the top races, including Donald Trump carrying Montana by 20 points over Kamala Harris, a margin larger than he won the state by in 2016 or in 2020. And despite the January 6th insurrection, a felony conviction and numerous profane stories and remarks, the majority of Montanans said, 'He's our guy'.
Holly Michels Yeah, Sally, this was a very dominant performance from Trump here in Montana. I think he was obviously expected to do well here, but he even outperformed what polls like that AARP poll we had in the fall showed. That had him taking about 56% of the vote, but he ended up with 58% in this election to Harris' 38%. Like you said, that eclipses the 55% he got in 2016 and the 56% he got four years ago. We’d be really curious to see what any exit polling done in Montana might say about Trump supporters.
I think it's probably worth noting how high things like the southern border and the economy ranked in terms of voter concerns here in Montana, and that people thought Trump was the best candidate to address those. But I think this just shows — you know, for some Democrats I talked to after 2020, they were saying this might be a fluke, or it's probably tied to COVID. I think this is an election that shows pretty well that Montana is a solidly red state right now.
Sally Mauk: Rob, no one's really surprised by the Republican sweep of the top races in Montana. But the margins of their wins, I think, were surprising. The closest any Democrat came was 7 points — and most of the margins were much larger than that.
Rob Saldin Yeah exactly, Sally. You can't really say that any of these outcomes are a surprise. The results are entirely consistent with the broader trends that we've seen develop in this state over many, many years now. But as you suggest, the one thing that's a bit of a surprise, anyhow, is how decisive some of the wins were. Sheehy by 8, Zinke by 7. Okay. But how about Gianforte by 21? All the other statewides by 20 or more with the exception of Superintendent [of Public Instruction] at 18. In other words, absolute wipeouts. Tester obviously way overperformed relative to the presidential race. He got 42,000 more votes than Kamala Harris. But a 20-point margin at the top of the ticket is just too much to overcome, even for Tester.
Sally Mauk: Well, Holly, the loss Democrats are most lamenting is Jon Tester losing his Senate seat to political newcomer Tim Sheehy. And here's what Sheehy said after he won:
Tim Sheehy "If you didn't vote for me, I will work to earn your support in future elections because we have to save this country And to save it, we've got to come together and figure out how to heal this country. We have to disagree better, and we got to actually move forward and stop arguing about everything. We've got to make some progress."
Sally Mauk: And that's a welcome message, Holly, for people concerned about the future.
Holly Michels Yeah, I think that's something that probably a lot of people like to hear on election night and might be something that's nice to hear after the pretty nasty contest that we had between Sheehy and Tester. Through the race, Sheehy did not hold back on his criticism of Tester. There were really sharp divisions between the two candidates, and we definitely didn't hear Republicans be shy at all about their critiques of Democrats and Democratic policies through this campaign. But like we heard on election night, Sheehy's trying to reach out to those who didn't support him with that message, making an attempt at unity.
Through the campaign, Democrats were also pretty sharp on Sheehy. They hit him hard and repeatedly for scandals that he was involved in, like the origins of the gunshot wound in his arm or the health of his business. And then Republicans made it really personal about Tester from the start, including a focus on mocking his weight throughout the campaign.
I think Montana voters are divided for sure. I went back last night and looked at some polling on issues that most concern people that they talked about through the election. And there are these really massive divides between how important Republicans and Democrats rank things like the southern border and the economy compared to health care and threats to democracy. So I think there's a lot of division, and she's obviously trying to address that in his election night remarks.
Sally Mauk: Rob, Sheehy’s message about people coming together to solve problems is easier said than done, of course. Especially when the divisions are not just about policy differences like Holly just outlined. But also, worldviews; how the different constituencies see the world right now.
Rob Saldin Absolutely, Sally. These are enormous gulfs. It also occurs to me that Republicans are now in such a dominant position in Montana that it's not actually clear that they really need to work with Democrats. And to me, the fine example of this is the Sheehy campaign. You know, Sally, politics can, of course, be a pretty cynical business. But but even so, the Sheehy campaign was quite cynical. He made very little effort to reach out beyond his own base of supporters. He basically refused to speak to the press. He never really addressed the legitimate questions that were raised about his background. But the reality is, is that he also didn't have to do those things because the 'R' next to his name was more than enough for Montana voters.
Now, Montanans who didn't vote for him, I think, really should give him a chance. We've only got four of these people representing us back in Washington. But Sheehy, for his part, needs to recognize that being an effective senator is about more than just casting votes. He needs to develop some areas of policy expertise, build some relationships at home and in Washington, meet the needs of his constituents. Sheehy deserves a chance to develop those skills, even if his campaign didn't offer much reason to hope that he wants to do those things. But as you note, Holly, his statements after the election, that's at least a nice first step.
Sally Mauk: Holly, CI-128 the initiative to give a constitutional protection to abortion passed easily, meaning support crossed party lines.
Holly Michels This was an interesting one to watch, Sally. Supporters of this measure said all along polling showed it would clear by a healthy margin, and they were right. When I was watching this on election night, it was interesting to see — when we had our very first early results roll in, CI-128 jumped ahead and that's when that was only rural. So really, more Republican counties in the state were reporting any results. Sally, I think CI-128 actually won in about 12 or 13 counties where Sheehy also won. And then in some other counties where Sheehy had like 20-point margins, CI-128 still came within about 50% and captured about half the voters in those counties. So again, I'd really love to see exit polling, but I've seen a lot of people talk about, you know, even though Montana's elections have been really nationalized, we still do care about our individual freedoms. Or maybe it's this libertarian streak we talk about of just wanting to be left alone that made CI-128 so popular with voters here.
We also have seen this trend nationwide. Missouri, also on election night voted and its abortion ban. So, I think this wasn't unexpected for a lot of people who are watching closely. And also, we should talk about how there are millions of dollars spent by supporters here to get the message out about 128. Montana's Securing Reproductive Rights, the group behind the measure, ran a really aggressive campaign. And I think this is one thing Democrats are seeing as a bright spot in this election.
Sally Mauk: Rob, what are we to make of the fact that Montanans voted to protect abortion and then also voted to elect leaders who don't want to protect abortion?
Rob Saldin Right, Sally. In a way, of course, it seems totally inconsistent. But this isn't the first time we've seen this in Montana. Two years ago, with the Born Alive Initiative, before that, marijuana. Two, perhaps, complementary factors at work here. One, you know, some voters may want to preserve access to abortion but don't necessarily feel so strongly about it that they're going to let that single policy issue determine who they vote for. And then, two, the presence of that ballot initiative allowed voters to effectively take that issue off the table. And their thinking might have been, well, if you can remove abortion from the realm of normal politics, well, at that point, it doesn't have to be factored in to who you want to be governor or who you want to control the Legislature.
Sally Mauk: Holly, Democrats did gain a few seats in the Legislature, but Republicans remain in control.
Holly Michels This was expected as both Democrats and Republicans predicted the minority party would pick up between 8 and 10 seats thanks to the redistricting process. So it looks like now in the state House, Republicans will have 60 seats. That's compared to the 68 they held last session. In the Senate, they'll have 32. That's down 2 seats from two years ago. The Democrats are celebrating these wins, saying it's about that they ran quality candidates. Of course, the new map helped. And Republicans are attributing this outcome entirely to new maps that they say were unfairly drawn.
I think that smaller GOP margins will come into play this session, especially if we see a lot of division within the Republican Party like we have in past cycles where more moderate Republicans end up finding partners with Democrats. That's how we initially passed Medicaid expansion in Montana. And of course, that's up for reauthorization this session. I think a fair amount of Republicans have acknowledged that program's necessary in some form. But it's definitely not all of them. So, or Democrats just help increase that program continuing.
I think also we should talk about that this means Republicans don't have a supermajority like they did last session. There's a lot of talk, Democrats raised the boogeyman of Republicans with that supermajority could pass measures to put constitutional changes before voters. That never really came to fruition two years ago. But that dynamic's off the table this time. So I think it'll be interesting to see how things play out in the state House in 2025.
Sally Mauk: Well, lastly, Rob and Holly, where does the Montana Democratic Party go from here after this shellacking? Holly?
Holly Michels Sally, I'm really curious to see — how I think the session, the legislative balance, is one of the few bright spots for them. That's where I'm heading into next as a reporter. But we're watching right now for shakeups in party leadership. I think that they [Democrats] got destroyed. We talked about this in 2020. We saw some changes. I'm curious to see what they're going to do to try to come back and make another attempt at it in the midterms.
Sally Mauk: And Rob?
Rob Saldin I think the fundamental problem facing the Democratic Party is that they're too associated with the sensibilities of well-to-do, college educated white elites in a state where such sensibilities are unpopular. And this has been coming for many years now. For a long time, a lot of people could kind of squint and earnestly say that Montana was a purple state. Well, we can't do that any longer. It seems like Montana may have taken a bit longer, but ultimately it got to the same place as Idaho and South Dakota and North Dakota.
And the trouble for Democrats is that it probably is only going to get harder from here. They've got no bench. They've got no obvious leader. They may have reached a kind of tipping point where the disease is now so far advanced that it's impossible to bounce back. It's one thing if Democrats are perhaps a clear minority, but still at least have a pulse. It's quite another if everyone you know is a Republican and something like that is close to reality in a lot of Montana communities. If the Democrats have any hope of turning things around in Montana, they're going to need to have a real reckoning.
Sally Mauk: And this is true nationally as well. Montana is hardly the exception.
Rob Saldin Yeah, absolutely. The national problems that were exposed on Tuesday for Democrats, though, are just multiplied in Montana.
Sally Mauk: Well, this election season has been a wild ride. Holly and Rob, there are no other people I'd rather have taken that ride with than you two. And this is our last show of the campaign season. I want to thank you both so much for all your hard work.
Holly Michels You too, Sally. Thanks.
Rob Saldin Thanks, Sally.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Lee Newspapers State Bureau Chief Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin. Tune in on-air Saturdays at 9:45 a.m. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
