A Democratic congressional candidate drops out of the race after allegations of sexual abuse. Rep. Ryan Zinke criticizes President Trump over his fight with the Pope and his meme about Jesus. Zinke also goes after a Republican congressional candidate. And Democratic House candidates share swipes over dark money and data centers.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau.
Sally Mauk Seaborn, the headline of the week is Democrat Jonathan Windy Boy dropping out of the eastern district congressional race after allegations of sexual abuse have surfaced. We've spoken before about claims of sexual harassment against Windy Boy during his service at the Legislature, and now it seems more chickens are coming home to roost.
Seaborn Larson Democratic State Senator Jonathan Windy Boy stunned a lot of people across the state this week when he dropped out of the eastern congressional primary. He made the announcement at a Crow Agency event on Thursday saying it was due to declining health, but that came hours after the Montana Democratic Party announced his withdrawal before Windy Boy, saying it was due to sexual abuse allegations. The party didn't release any additional information on specifically what he's accused of, but its chair, Shannon O'Brien, said Windy Boy is also being asked to resign from his seat at the Legislature.
Sources told us on Thursday the claims here are that Windy Boy was sending sexually explicit messages to a teenager. It's an important time to note that, at least at the time of this recording, we didn't find or hear of any criminal charges or proceedings against Windy Boy related to these allegations. He's also not responded to any of our reporters who are trying to reach him about this. And additional questions I want to note we have here is, when these text messages were sent and when the party learned of them.
Sally Mauk And of course, we don't also know if he's going to resign from the Senate.
Seaborn Larson Right, we're still waiting to hear if the Legislature will kick any of those proceedings into gear to essentially remove him from that office or suspend him if he declines to do so himself.
Sally Mauk Rob, it's unlikely Windy Boy leaving the congressional race will have much, if any, impact on the eventual outcome of that race. It's pretty solidly a Republican seat, but it's still something Democrats would rather not deal with.
Rob Saldin Yeah, as notable as it is, Sally, it doesn't change anything in this race. The Republican incumbent, Troy Downing, was an overwhelming favorite to retain his seat before this news dropped, and he remains an overwhelming favorite moving forward. But you're right, it is a bit of a black eye for the Montana Democratic Party. And much of that is because this latest news, while notable, certainly can't be considered shocking for all the reasons you all just discussed. And yes, it's also true that whatever the case may be with regard to prior accusations and investigations and whatever may have been circulating in the rumor mill, it can be tough for an organization, in this case, the Montana Democratic Party, when you've got someone who denies everything and has the secret power of shamelessness. It's not like Shannon O'Brien can prevent him from running, or that Pat Flowers, the Democratic leader in the Senate, can force him to resign.
Sally Mauk President Trump caught a lot of flak this week from both critics and supporters for criticizing the Pope and posting a meme showing himself as Jesus. Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke was among those chastising Trump in an interview with CNN:
"I'm Catholic, so it hurts, because I can think of a lot of people that might be close to Jesus, and I don't think President Trump is one of them. But I think His Holiness should focus on the Trinity, and the President should focus on national security and issues of policy, but there's a line there. So, I'm hoping it mends, because it's important to mend."
Sally Mauk It's rare, Rob, to hear a current member of Montana's congressional delegation criticizing President Trump.
Rob Saldin It sure is. That Zinke clip sure surprised me. It betrayed a sense of exasperation, even anger. And that's new. Throughout the Trump years, Zinke has definitely been along for the ride – happily and enthusiastically along for the ride. In fact, I can't remember an occasion when he said anything remotely like this publicly. The only one that in my recollection comes close to this, Sally, was actually the day the Access Hollywood story broke right at the end of the 2016 campaign. You were, I believe, the first journalist to interview Zinke about it after, as I recall, just fortuitously bumping into him at the airport. But even on that occasion, I think he expressed a kind of surprise and disapproval, but he also tried to make it out to be not that big of a deal. And so that's very different from what we see here. Of course, one big difference between now and then is that Zinke isn't on the ballot.
Sally Mauk That's a big difference, for sure.
Seaborn, Zinke also had a blistering op-ed this week, harshly criticizing fellow Republican Al Olszewski, who's hoping to win Zinke's seat in Congress. Zinke, of course, is supporting Aaron Flint, but this was just a blistering critique of Dr. Al.
Seaborn Larson Right, and that piece ran in newspapers across the state this week, Sally. It accused Olszewski essentially of stolen valor by exaggerating his military service and claimed Olszewski had asked Zinke to pay off a $300,000 debt in exchange for his endorsement after Dr. Al lost the primary in 2022.
I interviewed Olszewski this week and he denied everything that was in that op-ed. He said he's never held himself out as a combat veteran and that he paid off that $300,000 loan to his campaign himself. He just said Zinke's team was working to cut off his fundraising in this race and that there's still some harsh feelings from that 2022 primary where Olszewski did decline to give Zinke his endorsement for the general election.
There's also this claim that Olszewski sort of rigged his central committee for his own campaign. He told me he recused himself in any endorsement or financial decision because he's the county central committee chair as a nonvoting member and as a candidate who would have a conflict in that situation, he didn't participate in those decisions.
These two Republicans from the Flathead have been at odds for a number of years now. They're from different wings of the party. Olszewski is a bit to the right of Zinke. They've also been on opposite sides of these very big and very local fights on tribal water rights in the area. That's taken some congressional action that Zinke's been a part of. Zinke also spent a lot of space in that piece advocating for Aaron Flint, the Conservative radio host who will face Olszewski in the primary this year. It's a small-town moment. Flint also moved to the Flathead last year and they're both lined up for a debate on Tuesday in Bozeman.
Sally Mauk Rob, the Zinke feud with Olszewski is also indicative of the simmering resentment over Zinke's last minute withdrawal from the race.
Rob Saldin Well, yes, Sally. These tensions have been simmering in the GOP for a long time, and not just between these two guys. One of the things that's remarkable to me is that the GOP, both in Montana and nationally, is a much more homogenous party than the Democratic Party. That makes it easier to hold a party together, or at least it should. And yet here in Montana, it's the Republicans that have far more internal tensions. And those tensions aren't even all of one type. Some of it is personality-driven, some of it is ideological, some of is elite party insider versus populist outsider. But we see it everywhere: in the western congressional primary, in the Senate race, in the legislative primaries, in the Legislature itself. And these tensions sure don't seem to be easing.
Sally Mauk Speaking of intraparty strife, Seaborn, and the Democratic primary for that western District House seat, both Ryan Busse and Russell Cleveland have been critical of Sam Forstag in recent debates. Here's Busse:
"Sam, you talked about keeping dark money out of this primary election. You can't say you don't like dark money. You can't say you're for the Montana Plan and then put a literal instruction booklet on your website about how to pour dark money into this race."
Sally Mauk And Seaborn, Forstag's union support is also being scrutinized because of union leadership support of data centers.
Seaborn Larson Right, this Democratic primary really grew pretty hostile this week after a couple of months of what we've described on this show is a pretty cordial outing among these four candidates. I got a chance to talk to all three of the candidates involved in these allegations flying around this week. And here's how they elaborated on those jabs.
Busse said his argument is that as a primary field, the candidates have mostly denounced dark money. I say 'mostly' because Matt Rains has pretty openly said he would accept any dark money that came his way. But Busse points to Forstag's website here, which offers some video and images that outside groups can produce campaign materials on Forstag's behalf. Busse's campaign website had the same stuff in his 2024 campaign for governor.
Cleveland, meanwhile, drew a line from the big union PAC support to this data center discussion where Democrats have been vocally against data centers being developed in Montana for environmental reasons, but unions have urged them to slow that rhetoric down because of the potential economic impacts, construction jobs that come with them, that sort of thing.
Forstag, to all of this, said he was completely caught off guard and surprised at the aggression on Sunday. A month ago, these guys were taking selfies together on a debate stage. He said he's proud of his union support and said he is not going to start attacking the other candidates, but I have heard from at least one union leader this week that they felt really burned by those comments from Cleveland and Busse.
As for data centers, Forstag has declined to call for a moratorium on the development of these facilities like other candidates have, but he did say they need to produce their own power, use efficient cooling systems, and this is the critical part – use union labor to put these buildings up before he can support those projects.
Sally Mauk Well, Forstag has hit back a little bit at Busse and Cleveland, painting them as wealthy and out of touch:
"We got folks on this stage, someone who is worth $25 million, coming after the only working-class candidate in this race for support from labor unions. We should be outraged."
Sally Mauk Rob, it's true that Russell Cleveland, for one, is considerably more wealthy than Forstag.
Rob Saldin Apparently so. Look, Sally, the general election, you know, may still be nearly seven months away. But for these guys, the time is now. This is the home stretch. Voting in the primary starts in just a little over two weeks, and it's all over in something like six. So it's now or never. And when we get to this stage of the campaign, this is kind of stuff we tend to see.
Cleveland, for his part, wants to be the alternative to Busse, and he probably and quite reasonably sees Forstag as a spoiler who could split the non-Busse vote, but that's probably not going to be enough. You know, we talked about that poll last week that shows Busse pretty far ahead. These other candidates are probably going to have to try to do something here to upset that dynamic in these final weeks.
Sally Mauk Lastly, Seaborn, the Democratic candidates in the congressional races are having many more debates and forums than the Republican candidates, and I'm not sure why that is. Every race has a contested primary in both parties. What's going on there?
Seaborn Larson Yeah, it's been very different between the two parties. And by the time this airs, Democrats will have gone through eight or nine forums. Some of them hosted by Democratic organizations, but some others have been hosted by some form of media. Jesse Mullen's newspaper company had one in Butte. Podcast, did a live recording with those candidates in Whitefish.
As for the Republicans, I've really been looking forward to next week's debate. It's the first one that is essentially public. I understand the only times these candidates have been together is at these Lincoln-Reagan-Trump dinners, which are really more like fundraising events and not debates, but offer some time for each candidate to speak for a while. It's definitely worth noting Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen's absence here. She's not committed to that debate in Bozeman next week. People have told me she's also missed a lot of these events where Flint and Olszewski have been.
Sally Mauk Well, do these debates and forums make a difference, do you think, Rob?
Rob Saldin Well, this is something that political scientists have debated for many decades. There is actually quite a bit of evidence to suggest that campaigns matter less than we sometimes think – that a lot of it is just baked into the cake, especially now perhaps, in an era of deep polarization. That said, Sally, not all campaigns are the same. And they matter a lot more in primaries when everyone has the same party label. And that's not heuristic that allows people to just go off ticking the D box or the R box, right? That's not an issue in primaries. They also matter a lot more when the candidates aren't super well known. And that, of course, is a situation we have here. Busse, as we've noted, has a lot more name recognition in the Democratic primary than his opponents, but it's at a far lower level than some of the big names of Montana politics like Daines, Gianforte, Tester, Bullock, Baucus, and so on. There's nobody with that kind of name ID in these races.
Sally Mauk It's been another dramatic week in Montana politics. We'll see what the next week brings. Rob and Seaborn, thank you.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau. 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.
