Montana's western district House race draws a presidential visit. The two candidates in that race get feisty in a recent debate. The chair of the state Democratic party shuns her party's candidate in Montana's Senate race in favor of the independent. And the Senate candidates trade punches in the only debate featuring all the candidates.
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, President Trump drew a large crowd in Kalispell this week hoping to boost the fortunes of congressional candidate Aaron Flint who is in a tight race with Democrat Sam Forstag. The crowd was enthusiastic and Flint was beaming.
Seaborn Larson It was a complete spectacle, Sally, and that's what Donald Trump brings to these rallies. His message to these midterm Republican voters is to pretend he's on the ballot, to turn out like this is a presidential year.
Going into this rally, the issues at the center of this election have really been about the cost of living, affordability, the war in Iran. Trump and the GOP are in charge right now and responsible for mitigating these things. On Wednesday, Trump spent very little time on these things and much, much more time on culture politics that gets the base fired up. That's immigration and gender politics. Both got a ton of play in his speech. People I talked to after the rally were also really glad to hear him take a victory lap on tax policies on tips and overtime.
Trump was the star of the night, for sure, but the energy in the arena was electric for Aaron Flint, the Republican candidate campaigning to replace Congressman Ryan Zinke. He's in a really competitive race against Democrat Sam Forstag. Flint is a real natural at whipping up the crowd on notes on patriotism, timber, and mining, and he spoke a lot about the virtues of being from Montana, but he also made an appeal to recent transplants. It's a close race, and he'll need those votes too.
Kurt Alme, of course, the GOP hopeful in the U.S. Senate race, also gave some remarks, pitching himself as a real component of Trump's crackdown against immigration and cartels.
Sally Mauk Rob, Trump continues to paint Democrats as evil people out to destroy the country, and here's what he said about Sam Forstag.
President Donald Trump `He's a radical left maniac and a career lobbyist for the anti-American ACLU. That's the end of him. 'Phony Forstag' is endorsed by communists like Bernie Sanders, AOC and the other Democrats who want to destroy America. They actually, I believe, actually want to destroy America. Why? I don't know.'
Sally Mauk And Rob, this plays well with the base, and that's why Trump was in Kalispell and not in Missoula.
Rob Saldin Sure. Trump and Flint have, I think, been sharing their talking points on Forstag. That's the closing message of the campaign for Flint, and he got the president to sing from the same hymnal. And you're right, Kalispell, I think, does make plenty of sense. The whole game here, Sally, is to forestall a depressed turnout among the Trump base. Trump himself has repeatedly acknowledged that he's concerned about just that. He even made that point right at the beginning of his remarks in Kalispell. So if you want to try to avoid a depressed turnout among the MAGA base, the Flathead Valley is the obvious place to go because that's the most vote-rich area for Republicans in the western district. And certainly, if Flint's going to pull this out in a very tough cycle for the GOP, he's going to need the Flathead to deliver for him. Even with Trump at a low point, a presidential visit is still probably a real plus for Flint in a polarized race, in a polarized era, when you've given up on persuasion and are exclusively focused on turnout.
Sally Mauk Forstag and Flint also had a sometimes-fiery debate on NonStop Local TV recently, Seaborn, and here's one of their exchanges.
Sam Forstag "I don't have a president coming here tomorrow to pull my strings and get me elected to office. I answer to working Montanans, not to party bosses."
Aaron Flint "Where is AOC? Where is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Again, this is why they call him 'phony Forstag', unfortunately. He pretends to be this poor, blue-collar, working-class guy. He was a high-paid LGBTQ lobbyist from Portland who lobbied for all the crazy stuff: men in girls sports, sanctuary cities for illegals, higher property taxes. You had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez here in May. Now you act like you never even met the girl."
Sam Forstag "I ain't pretending a thing. I'll tell you what, right now we're dealing with $3.1 million of divisive hateful advertising flooding into this campaign on behalf of Aaron Flint."
Sally Mauk Flint, Seaborn, was definitely the aggressor in that debate.
Seaborn Larson Yeah, 8 a.m. is pretty much prime time for Aaron Flint, who hosted a conservative morning radio show for years. Flint worked some things that seemed to knock Forstag off balance a couple times. When Forstag hit him with a line about Flint's air-conditioned radio studio Flint slammed Forstag for disrespecting the military, because he did tours in the Middle East. The next thing out of Forstag was a 'thank you' for Flint's service. Part of the attack was honestly just being more direct. Forstag is oftentimes aiming his message more broadly at Washington D.C. and the systems he says are rigged against the working class. Flint in some ways was just more direct, saying Forstag and progressives are going to come chop body parts off children. Forstag got a few shots in, tagging Flint with Trump's scheme to write $5,000 checks to every American if Republicans keep control of Congress after the election. But it was, overall, just a lot more combative than the previous debate. And frankly, that means candidates were not spending a lot of time directly answering questions.
Sally Mauk As you said earlier, Rob, sometimes it seems to me that Flint is doing his best impression of Trump with the name calling and all the culture war tropes, and he clearly believes that's a winning approach.
Rob Saldin Yeah, he sure does, and he has some material to work with on that front. The 'phony Forstag' line seems to be intended to tie a bow on all the various lines of critique, and Flint delivers the message well. He's got a slick and polished delivery, and you'd expect that from someone who, as you note, Seaborn, did three hours of live talk radio every day for years. Now, Flint's attacks are also rather blunt. They're not nuanced and they're extremely repetitive. But that's also an old trick of classic conservative talk radio. You hit the same talking point again and again and again and it does sink in after a while. Flint's a talented communicator, no doubt. But that said, I thought Forstag did just fine in this debate. He's got a very different, far less polished style, but it was substantive, at least by the standards of contemporary debates. And Forstag's style is going to strike plenty of voters as more natural and more authentic.
Sally Mauk Of course it's a low bar when we talk about the tenor of debates these days. Montana's Senate race drama continued this week, Seaborn, when the chair of the state Democratic party, Shannon O'Brien, resigned and endorsed independent Seth Bodnar.
Seaborn Larson Right. O'Brien made that announcement in an op-ed in a national publication, saying Bankhead doesn't have what it takes to win this race and questioning her commitment to Democratic policies. This was big news in Montana's U.S. Senate race because it finally broke something inside the Democratic Party. There's been a lot of friction over this Senate race and how the party's managing these two camps. One side wants to support Bodnar, the independent, who is a better challenge to Republican Kurt Alme. The other side wants to get behind the party's own nominee, who actually went through a Democratic primary, but is seen as sort of compromised because she's so unknown. A couple months ago, when Bankhead refused to drop out before the final deadline, it appeared that the faction supporting her had essentially won out in that dispute inside the party. That's to say, few people were surprised that O'Brien's resignation happened, but it was a jolt to see this fracture three weeks before the election.
Sally Mauk Does the average voter care about what O'Brien did, Rob? Or is this just sort of insider politics?
Rob Saldin The average voter does not care, Sally. Very few Montanans were waiting on pins and needles to find out what Shannon O'Brien was going to do. But I tell you, the one way in which it could at least have some effect at the margin is in terms of just building this sense of momentum. And there definitely is some of that at this point. Bodnar has come awfully close to locking up nearly the entire Democratic establishment. And that does send a signal to voters who are on the fence between Bodnar and Bankhead.
Sally Mauk The Senate candidates also debated recently, and this was the only debate that included Republican Kurt Alme. And both Seth Bodnar and Alani Bankhead went after him. Here's one of their exchanges:
Seth Bodnar 'My Republican opponent has said his job is to support the president. No, the senator's job is to support the Constitution and to answer to the voters of this state. The last thing that we need in Washington, D.C. right now is yet another yes man who will follow orders from their party bosses. We need somebody who's gonna stand up for the voters in this state and carry out their constitutional obligations.'
Kurt Alme 'Each branch needs to exercise its powers, and right now we need to have Congress do a better job. As senator, I'll bring a bill that says if Congress can't balance the budget, Congress doesn't get paid. We'll be sure that we pass term limits. We'll also ban individual congressmen from trading in stocks, and we'll ban individual congressmen from becoming lobbyists. I'll bring a lifetime of Montana common sense to Washington to fix it.'
Alani Bankhead 'So, what the people want is to have trust in government again. And in this race, we have two candidates that are elected, and two candidates that have been selected by the D.C. elites. Alme has gone on the record to say that he actually will support the war in Iran, because he supported the president's decision to go in there. So we know he's not gonna hold anybody accountable. And we have the independent here who's backed by the D.C. establishment as well. And millions of dollars of dark money are flooding this campaign to support both of them. I'm unbought, unbossed and unafraid. And I'm the only candidate in this race who's already held government accountable. And I look forward to doing it again.'
Sally Mauk 'Unbought and unafraid' is a catchy phrase, Seaborn.
Seaborn Larson Yeah, all these lines are pretty straightforward from what these candidates have been saying all year. Bodnar claims to be a candidate without a party, he's only here for the voters, while still going after the president and the party in power. Alme doesn't hit back; he has these lines to fall back on for holding Congress accountable with things like a balanced budget amendment and banning members of Congress from trading stocks. Bankhead is very much on the outside of the larger political apparatus. She doesn't have any real institutional support, and she can point to both Alme and Bodnar, and claim that outsider status. Let's not forget about Kyle Austin, the Republican who's running as a Libertarian this year. He swung several times kind of haphazardly at Bodnar who didn't really respond to Austin at all.
Sally Mauk President Trump failed to mention Seth Bodnar at all at the rally. He did mention Alani Bankhead several times, but why do you think he omitted any mention of Bodnar?
Rob Saldin Well, Sally, it's always possible that he didn't do his homework and just assumed that the Democratic candidate was Alme's main opponent. But if we want to assume that it was an intentional choice, it does perhaps serve to boost Bankhead with Democratic voters, which thereby undermines Bodnar's efforts to consolidate the Democratic vote.
Sally Mauk So a little bit of chess going on.
Rob Saldin Absolutely.
Sally Mauk Each of the candidates got their licks in, Rob, but I'm not sure that debate moved the needle one way or the other. What do you think?
Rob Saldin I agree, Sally, I don't think it moved the needle at all. And that, of course, is the same thing as a big win for Alme. He continues to seemingly coast to the finish line.
Sally Mauk There was supposed to be another Senate debate in the coming week and Alme and Bankhead both pulled out of that debate. One wonders why they would not take advantage of an opportunity to reach the voters. Rob, what do you think about why they may have decided not to do that debate in Missoula? Bodnar had agreed to do it.
Rob Saldin Bankhead, I'm not sure. That does surprise me a bit. On Alme, it's not surprising at all. Alme can only have something bad happen to him at this point. He's done the first debate, which negates any allegation that he refuses to debate or is scared to debate or something along these lines. But going in front of an audience again, getting up on stage with his opponents again, the only thing that can happen for him is something bad. There's no reason for him to do it.
Sally Mauk It was a busy week on the campaign trail. We'll try to keep up again next week. Rob and Seaborn, thank you.
Campaign Beat is Montana Public Radio'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.
