Midterm elections typically don't attract much attention, but 2026 may be different. With three of Montana's four seats in Congress on the ballot, nearly a dozen challengers have thrown their hat in the ring. Republican incumbents are favored in all three races, with the western district race seen as the most competitive.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Montana Free Press Managing Editor Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin.
Sally Mauk Rob, 2026 is a midterm election year, meaning no presidential election, and midterms are historically low-turnout, low-interest elections. But this midterm, three of Montana's four members of Congress are up for reelection. And will that, plus the daily drama of the Trump administration, make this midterm an exception to the low-interest rule? What do you think?
Rob Saldin Maybe so, Sally. I think big picture, heading into the midterm there are two key things to know. The first is that midterms are almost always good for the party that doesn't control the White House. There's a kind of grass-is-always-greener effect where voters are down on the party in power and take the opportunity of the midterm to register that displeasure. And at this point, this cycle looks pretty well teed-up to fit that pattern, which is obviously good news for Democrats. That said, this dynamic is not as strong as it once was. So much of American politics has been calcified and there just aren't as many competitive seats these days. So the big swings that we associate with Clinton's first midterm back in 1994 or Obama's first midterm in 2006, those kinds of big swings just might not be feasible anymore the way they used to.
The second key dynamic at work is, as you note, Sally, is that midterms, you're right, they have lower turnout, lower voter interest than in presidential cycles. And until very recently, there was this old iron law of American politics that low turnout elections favor Republicans because their voters were more likely to show up. That's not true anymore. Now Democrats are the more reliable voters. So that also is something that bodes well for Democrats headed into this cycle. But of course, Sally, those are the national dynamics, the historic dynamics. And even if Democrats do have the wind at their back this year, it's far from clear that that's going to be enough to make these congressional campaigns competitive here in the state of Montana.
Sally Mauk Speaking of those races, Holly, Eastern District Congressman Troy Downing, Western District Congressman Ryan Zinke, and Senator Steve Daines, all Republicans, are the three incumbents on the ballot, and all so far have several potential challengers. Give us a quick run-through of who has announced so far.
Holly Michels There are a lot of people who've announced. Candidate filing doesn't officially open until next month with the Secretary of State, but that doesn't stop people from announcing their plans. And we've got in that Western District, a field of Democrats in that primary who are seeking to run against Zinke. That includes Ryan Busse. He's a Kalispell former firearms executive who you might remember from his run against Governor Gianforte in the 2024 governor's race. We also have Sam Forstag. He's a smokejumper from Missoula who recently announced he's running in that race. He made news for getting an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialist U.S. Senator from Vermont. And then last year we had two other men announce. That includes Matt Rains, who's a rancher from Sims, which isn't actually in the district, though you don't need to live in it to run in it. And then we also have Russell Cleveland, who lives near St. Regis. Both Rains and Cleveland are also veterans.
Then in the U.S. Senate race, like you said, Sally, Daines is seeking reelection. He does actually have a challenger in the primary. It's perennial candidate Charles Walking Child of Helena, who has run very minimal campaigns in the past. And then on the Democratic side, we have Reilly Neill who's a former state lawmaker and newspaper publisher in Billings. She, you might remember, filed paperwork to run for governor back in 2020, but later left that race. And then she was a write-in candidate for the Eastern House District in 2024. Also declared in the Democratic primary for that Senate race is Alani Bankhead of Helena, who's been a special agent in the Air Force. I think it's fair to say she was pretty unheard of before making that announcement recently. And then there's two other Democrats that have announced; Michael Hummert of Helena and Michael James Black Wolf from Hays who are running very minimal campaigns at this point.
And over in that Eastern House District like you said, incumbent Troy Downing's running. There's two Democrats so far in that primary. We've got Sam Lux of Great Falls and Brian Miller of Helena. And then there's also an independent candidate, Michael Eisenhauer of Great Falls, who will need to gather signatures to get his name on the ballot. So, a lot of names out there that we're going to be tracking this year.
Sally Mauk Rob, with the exception of Ryan Busse and Reilly Neill, I'm guessing that if I approached 50 strangers on the street in Montana and asked them if they had heard of any of these candidates, the answer would be no. And of course, that's problem number one for those candidates.
Rob Saldin Yeah, Sally, Busse, I would say, would be the one exception there. Reilly, I don't really think so, but you're right, all the others, for sure, zeroes. Without a doubt, that's a huge problem, but that's also what happens when a party has been on a downward spiral for nearly a decade. They have no bench. It's true, Busse definitely has some name recognition from that run for governor two years ago – although, in a way that's as much of an illustration of the problem as a bright spot, in so far as your most well-known candidate just got beat by 20 points two years ago. Not even close. And all of these other candidates are, as we've said, totally unknown. For most voters, the only thing they're going to recognize with these candidates is the 'D' next to their name and that's a related problem because the Democratic brand is toxic at this point in much of Montana. Those figures from the past, folks like Baucus and Tester and Bullock, they were able to avoid being dragged down by their party because they managed to carve out their own personal brands that to some extent neutralized the party label. But this batch of Democratic candidates, they don't have that. So they've got a lot of work to do.
Sally Mauk Holly, the Western District congressional race between Ryan Zinke and whoever ends up being his Democratic opponent is seen as the most competitive, and that's for good reason. It has the most blue pockets.
Holly Michels It does, Sally. Building on what Rob just talked about, political rankers like the Cook Political Report, even with those blue pockets, they're not overly optimistic about Democrats' chances in Montana at the federal level this year, including in that race. But it is a place where Democrats feel like if they're going to have a shot, that's as good as it's going to get. It's got the blue bubbles of Missoula, Butte, and Bozeman, and then two reservation communities. But it also does have really big red pockets like the Flathead and the Bitterroot. You had Monica Tranel, a Democrat, she came within four points of Zinke in 2022, which was the first year that we had the race for that newly drawn Western District that we got through the redistricting process after the 2020 census. But Zinke did widen that margin to nearly eight points when Tranel and Zinke had a rematch in 2024.
Something Democratic campaigns do is break down how past Democrats like Tester have done in that Western District compared to how they do statewide, to show that Democrats do perform better in that portion of the state compared to Montana as a whole, but those numbers still show that they trail Republicans there, it's just not by as much as statewide. I think the party is hopeful that, like Rob was talking about at the start of the show, there's a midterm boost somewhere for them. Be able to tie Zinke to Trump actions like tariffs or broader concerns about affordability. But we also know Trump has long been popular in Montana, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Sally Mauk Including how that plays out, Rob, the Western District race is also likely to attract at least some national attention and money.
Rob Saldin I think that's an open question, Sally. We've seen a lot of that in some recent cycles, including two years ago – just absolutely swamped with outside attention, outside money in that big Tester/Sheehy Senate campaign. I'm not sure if we're going to see that again this time.
Holly, as you were saying, that first district, if there's one that's going to be competitive, it really should be that one. Democrats got their wish in that last redistricting process to have Missoula and Bozeman in the same district. That was supposed to be kind of the recipe for success for them. So that's about as good of a district as you could hope for, but even so, Holly, you mentioned Zinke won the last one by eight. So, I think that the national attention and the money is something to keep a little bit of an eye on in the sense that it'll give us a clue as to whether the national party and the forces on the left see this as someplace where they're going to be placing scarce resources. I don't think it's a given that it will materialize and it certainly won't be anything like we saw a couple years ago in Tester/Sheehy.
Sally Mauk Lastly, Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen recently sent out a postcard saying she's partnering with the Trump administration to, "ensure only citizens vote in U.S. Elections." I'm not aware – are you Holly? – that Montana has a problem with non-citizens voting.
Holly Michels Sally, the one instance I can think of back in 2021 in a municipal election, there were two people that a press release from Jacobsen at the time called "non-citizens" in Phillips County who voted in that election. But that was something that through the system was caught. Those people went through the legal system, and the votes were straightened out. That's the only time that I can think of since I've been in this job for about decade where we've seen something like that and it was captured that they were found to not be eligible to vote in that election.
Sally Mauk So Rob, is this a solution seeking a problem or what?
Rob Saldin Well, probably so. Although it's also not exactly how meaningful of a change this is going to be. This might be, I suspect, a bit more about publicity than anything else. And on that front, this probably works well for Jacobsen. Progressives sometimes fail to appreciate that regardless of whether voter fraud is or is not a problem, most voters think election security measures are just common sense. It does poll well. Jacobson is probably getting what she wants out of this.
Sally Mauk Well, it won't be long before the campaign ads hit the airwaves, and Holly and Rob, it's good to be back with you following all the fun. Thanks, and I'll talk to you next week.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Montana Free Press Managing Editor Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin. Tune in on-air Fridays at 5:45 p.m. during All Things Considered, or Saturdays at 9:45 a.m., before Weekend Edition. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
