KALISPELL, Mont. - The larch trees have turned gold in western Montana, and politically, the state is looking a little more purple.
The United States saw a significant blue wave politically last night, and Montana felt the ripples.
Two years after republicans took every statewide seat and ousted an 18-year incumbent Democrat, Montana is sending a democrat to the House for the first time since the 1990s.
Nonstop Local’s John Riley breaks down the purple turn.
Montana political reporter Mike Dennison believes the state still leans conservative, but it is not so red that Democrats can’t be competitive, especially in the west.
“Oh, absolutely. I mean, you look at the results from the 2024 election between Tim Sheehy and Jon Tester, while she was beating Tester statewide in that district,” he noted. “You know, John Tester beat Tim Sheehy by a couple thousand votes. So we have now Sam Forstag doing the same year in Flint.”
Forstag saw the most success in the larger urban counties, which pushed him to victory in the late hours of election night.
The Western House District saw significant interest from both inside and outside the state. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson came to the district to campaign for Republicans. But even with that support, MT-01 is one of the over two dozen U.S. House seats that flipped this year.
Democrats also saw decisive victories across the nation on the state level, with eight states – including Arizona, Texas and Michigan — seeing chambers in their legislatures flip to Democratic majorities.
Montana Democrats saw some success, but overall, legislative Republicans outperformed their counterparts in many other states and will maintain control of both chambers in Big Sky Country.
“Republicans still have pretty good margins. But we have a lot of moderate Republicans still in both houses of the legislature. And I think that come 2027, those Democrats now are going to be easily be able to pair up with enough moderate Republicans to drive certain issues, maybe even choosing who the leaders are,” noted Dennison.
State Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, who chairs the state’s Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, believes the 2023 redistricting map ultimately helped Republicans this election.
“Montana Republicans outperformed their counterparts in many other states, retaining control of both legislative chambers despite a national Democratic wave. Ironically, the Democratic-backed 2023 legislative redistricting map helped preserve Republican majorities. By creating relatively few competitive districts, the map insulated Republicans from significant losses even in a strong Democratic election year. The results demonstrate the unintended consequences of partisan redistricting,” said Hertz.
As for who will lead the next Montana Legislative session, we won’t know until Wednesday, when caucusing kicks off, and then it’s on to the legislative session in January.
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