by Ken Toole | Jan 10, 2026 | Democrats, Elections, Republicans
Some political consultant types are working to hand the next election to Steve Daines. We all know that beating Steve Daines in the next election will be tough, but if there was ever an election cycle where Democrats had a chance of beating an incumbent Republican Senator in a red state, it is the 2026 election.
Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior combined with his callous disregard for the welfare of the country may well be wearing thin, even with his normally staunch supporters in the Republican Party. He is mired in a sex scandal, his economic program is driving up prices, he has unleashed masked thugs on the American public, and he has turned to foreign military actions in Venezuela, which angers some in his “America First” base.
Trump’s poll numbers are dropping. Recently Marjorie Taylor Greene abandoned him. Seventeen Republican members of the U.S. House abandoned him to vote to extend the ACA subsidies. Five Republican Senators voted against him in passing the War Powers Act Resolution. But the Montana delegation, and particularly Steve Daines, are “all in” with Trump. . . .and Daines is on the ballot in 2026. Trump could prove to be a political liability.
Enter the consultant class in Montana. Tired of losing elections they have concluded that the problem is the Democratic “brand.” Of course it could be that consultants and pollsters don’t know what they are doing and Democrats are in the mess they are in because they have been listening to consultants for far too long. No doubt they have polling that shows a Democrat just can’t win. Their solution is simple. Dump the Democrats and run for the middle of the road as “independents.” They do all of that while pointing fingers at the “extremists” in the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, they are finding support among frustrated groups and individuals who blame electoral losses on the Democratic Party.
This is not a new idea. The problem is, it doesn’t work. In 2022 the “ideal” independent candidate surfaced in the Eastern District Congressional race for investment advisor, Gary Buchanan of Billings. Buchanan had worked in Republican (Racicot) and Democratic (Schwinden) administrations on economic development. He was a well established presence in the business community and was known for his moderate positions on issues. In the election he was running against a relatively unknown Democrat named Penny Ronning and the controversial Freedom Caucus Republican incumbent, Matt Rosendale.
Rosendale raised a little over $2 million, Buchanan raised about $500,000 and Ronning raised around $175,000. In the final vote count, Rosendale won with 57% of the vote. Buchanan only garnered 22% of the vote, barely beating Democrat Ronning’s total of 20%, despite having more than twice as much money.
Another telling independent campaign failure in Montana occurred during the 2024 election for Public Service Commission District #4 in the northwest corner of the state. In that race Republican incumbent, Jennifer Fielder, faced a challenge from independent candidate, Elena Evans. Evans raised around $50,000. In addition an “independent committee”, the Montana Ratepayers Association, reported spending nearly $500,000 for the race to support Evans and defeat Fielder. Fielder raised around $12,000. Despite the fact that the independent outspent the Republican and an unprecedented amount of money was spent by a dark money group supporting her, Evans received only 47% of the vote.
Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot received about 26% of the vote in Montana in 1992. Ralph Nader received 1.3% of the vote when he ran for president as an independent in 2004 and .75% when he ran again in 2008. For a complete listing of the performance of independents running in legislative races, follow this link (spoiler alert–none have won) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_third-party_and_independent_performances_in_Montana_state_legislative_elections?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Two ballot measures which were predicated on taking advantage of people’s frustration with the two party system and implementing changes to our election process in the 2024 election – CI-126 and CI-127 (inaccurately referred to as the open primary initiatives) – failed by 51.1% and 60.4% respectively. This despite the fact that the campaign supporting them was well organized and well funded and there was no organized opposition.
The consulting group managing the ballot measures was a group called Fireweed. PSC candidate, Elena Evans, paid them at least $21,000 of the total she raised for her campaign. And rumor has it that Fireweed and others are approaching the Democratic Party about rule changes that would facilitate the party election of independent candidates.
Of course most people say they are fed up with the two party system. Polling routinely shows relatively large numbers of people who self identify as independents. But that does not show up clearly in voting trends. If split ticket voting is any indication of party loyalty, or lack of it, it appears that Montana voters are becoming more partisan. A recent analysis of split ticket voting done by the Montana Free Press relied on data from one researcher who said that some split ticket rates dropped from 20% in 2018 to 8% last year. https://montanafreepress.org/2025/12/08/how-has-ticket-splitting-changed-in-montana/
Having an independent candidate, particularly a strong independent candidate as envisioned by the proponents of this idea, is dumping cold water on all down ticket Democrats on the ballot. Traditionally, Democrats in local, legislative and state-wide offices have benefitted from the campaigns at the top of the ticket. . .the so-called “coattail effect.” An independent at the top of the ticket will be punching down every time he is asked, “Why didn’t you run as a Democrat?” One can only hope that the Democrats running for other offices are paying careful attention to this effort.
So, now the rumor getting all the buzz in Helena hallways is that there is a group, paid political consultants (ie Fireweed) and others, promoting a run by University of Montana President Seth Bodner as an independent against Daines. Doing so would virtually hand this election to Steve Daines. The best they could achieve is to split the anti-Daines vote between the Democrat and the Independent. In the process they further weaken the Montana Democratic Party. It’s hard to understand how all of these so-called smartest people in the room come up with these harebrained schemes.
by Helena Lovick | Sep 23, 2025 | Democrats, Politics
The Montana Democratic Party hosted their party convention this month in Livingston and it seemed business as usual. Because of the threats of violence that Montana Democrats faced after the Kirk assassination [despite right wing accusations – no one was celebrating his murder], the convention had increased safety measures in place. Luckily, the convention itself went smoothly without any violence or stripping of the voting rights of delegates like we saw at the Montana Republican Party convention held earlier this year.
The convention was held to amend Montana Democratic Party bylaws and also to elect new party leadership. Despite running two separate candidates, the Cascade County Democrats failed to gain a spot on the Executive Board. Instead, the 20-person board is 30% members from Missoula. Huh. I joke that Cascade County is the ugly stepchild of politics as we keep getting overlooked as the state has slid towards red.
New leadership was elected on Sunday, September 14th. Everyone went home…and that’s when the fun started. On Wednesday, September 17th, the newly elected Vice Chair resigned.
What Happened???
The party was all about unity at the convention. Change was inevitable when former Chair Robyn Driscoll stepped down from her role after six years. But then we go and have possibly the shortest term for an elected political party Executive Board Member ever.
Who was the Vice Chair?
The short-term Vice Chair was Max Johansen, a leader in the Park County Democratic party. I didn’t get a chance to meet with Max one-on-one, but he ran unopposed for Vice Chair and was elected by acclamation.
What happened?
After Johansen won his spot, he went out and spoke to reporters. And here’s what he said:
Per the Bozeman Chronicle:
Johansen criticized Tester for failing to adapt to the changing political environment the past several years, calling him part of the “old guard” that “represents a philosophy that no longer serves the interest of the party,” saying he had not adapted over the years to face a candidate as well-sharpened by the GOP as Tim Sheehy was during last year’s campaign.
Per Montana Public Radio:
“We’re tired of hearing from people who feel like they know everything because they’ve been at the top of the heap for so long,” Johansen said. “That is actually how parties get stale and that’s exactly how parties lose ground.”
That was a surprisingly aggressive position to take against a hugely popular figure in the Montana Democratic Party. When you are given such a large platform, there needs to be some delicacy around public comments. Instead, Max came in with a sledgehammer. And the old guard he dissed had some grave concerns about him continuing in the role. On Tuesday, September 16th, Tester spoke about Johansen on his “Grounded” podcast and said Johansen was seeking to tear down the party rather than build it up.
Three. Days. Later.
Johansen resigned “after acknowledging that certain comments he made following the convention were disruptive and inconsistent with the direction of the executive board,” according to the Democratic Party press release.
Wow. I think we saw that coming.
What’s Next?
Now we wait to see who will fill the board vacancy and smooth over this situation. Honestly, we don’t have time to mess around. Thanks to the trump Party and his ilk, fascism is here in America. The Democratic Party has to get its shit together and rise to this moment.
Let’s 👏get 👏our 👏shit 👏together👏
by Helena Lovick | Aug 28, 2025 | Democrats, Politics, Republicans
Let’s talk about “moderate” Republicans. I’ve been hearing about this perspective for years. Some political “experts” think we should support moderate Republicans when they run for districts that are an uphill battle for Democrats. This is different from the calls for voting in a Republican primary to help ensure a more reasonable politician is elected as the blog previously discussed here. Instead, the moderate Republican strategy I’m talking about includes: not investing in Democrats, not supporting Democrats in general elections, not endorsing Democratic candidates, even all the way up to voting for a Republican in a general election.
Rather than recruiting a strong Democrat and trying to put it all on the field, some people believe it is a winning strategy to not even put up a fight, roll over and give the win to a moderate. “At least we can elect someone that is easy to work with!” So….does that strategy payoff? Do these Republicans vote more moderately? Is it preferable to throw support behind a moderate Republican rather than trying to help a Democrat in a lop-sided race?
I’m going to have to say HELL NO. There’s a reason why Wayne Gretzky said, “you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” If you want to make in-roads in a district, you actually have to work on building relationships with the voters in that district.
But another aspect of “at least we elected a moderate” is that THEY AREN’T MODERATE. Over and over again we have seen that the people who are willing to run for office as a Republican in these times are extremists. Sure, they might throw you a bone and help Medicaid expansion get across the finish line (as they did in 2025), but they throw working people and marginalized groups under the bus every day. We’ve written about GOP bigotry of the moderates and MAGA in 2023, but here we are again!
I mean just take a look at how our Great Falls area Republicans voted during the 2025 Legislative Session.
Great Falls Area Republican Legislators
First, here is your list of Great Falls area Republican Legislators with their moderate or MAGA label. The Moderate descriptor is based on participation in the Solutions Caucus, support by the Conservatives4MT PAC, and/or community perspective.
How did they vote? (Shocker – Against us and our future)
In the following table, some key votes of moderate Great Falls area Republicans are listed. Bill descriptions are listed on the left. State Senators Trebas and Emrich are consistently MAGA bigots, and they voted the wrong way on every one of the following bills. Their votes are not shown in the table. Votes are coded with a green color when they are bipartisan and pro-working people.
As you can see in the table, in the vast majority of cases, so-called moderate Republicans vote with the Republican caucus and against the people. If you’re looking for more data on how these clowns voted, you can check out the deeper dive by the Daily Montanan here.
Any Good News? What about the Democrats?
It’s worth noting that our lone Democratic legislator in the Great Falls area, Jane Weber, voted the kind, forward-thinking way on all of these bills. I also give some credit to Republican Senator Wendy McKamey for voting against her caucus significantly more frequently than any other Great Falls area Republican.
It was good to see that Medicaid Expansion in Montana lived another day with the 2025 legislature. But the Big Ugly Bill passed by our federal government (also run by Republicans) just made giant cuts to Medicaid. So what is the benefit to electing moderates when we expect nearly 40,000 Montanans to lose insurance? Sure doesn’t seem like the payoff for ditching Democrats to support Republican Lite is worth it.
What should I do to help turn things around?
Inform yourself when politicians ask for your vote. Is the way they vote kind to you or your neighbors? Is it kind to attack our environment and attack our freedoms to be who we are and to have bodily autonomy? Is that the future you want? I sure don’t.
It is a lot easier to sleep at night when you know that your elected representatives have your back. (Rather than have a knife in your back.) Let’s put up a left leaning candidate in every district and try to build some real momentum away from the rightward slide of Montana and our country. And whoever gets elected, let’s continue to pressure them to do the right thing.
by Helena Lovick | Jul 8, 2025 | Democrats, Indigenous People, Little Shell Tribe, Working Montanans
A couple weeks ago, we put up an article recognizing that State Representative Jane Weber (D-Great Falls) was the 2025 recipient of the Paris Gibson Award. Then I wrote a letter to the editor about Rep. Jane Weber, and I thought to post it on the blog. Maybe it’s a bit of overkill to post yet another article about Jane so close together. And you know what, screw that. We are so lucky to have Jane Weber serving Montanans in the state legislature. Let’s be loud about Democrats actually helping us instead of putting us all through hell like the current Republican “leadership.”.
Here’s my LTE about Jane Weber.
One of the first times I met State Representative Jane Weber (D-Great Falls), she was running for the Cascade County Commission. It was at a candidate forum, and Jane’s opponent didn’t bother to show up. But that’s not Rep. Weber’s style. Jane shows up.
While Republican lawmakers spent the 2025 legislative session trying to consolidate their power while chipping away at our most basic freedoms, Rep. Jane Weber was hard at work delivering for the people of Great Falls.
Democrats like Rep. Weber focused on what matters: funding public schools, lowering housing costs, and expanding access to healthcare. They provided real solutions for working Montanans.
Rep. Weber also brought forward HB 448, designating the Jim Loud Thunder Gopher Memorial Highway. It’s more than a sign on the road. It’s recognition of the deep history and contributions of the Little Shell Tribe. In a time when so many are overlooked, Rep. Weber ensured a long-overdue moment of respect and acknowledgment for Indigenous people who have contributed so much to our state.
At a time when political games dominate the headlines, it’s easy to lose sight of what public service is supposed to be about. Rep. Weber reminds us that leadership means listening, remembering where we come from, and fighting for a better future for every Montanan, not just the wealthy and well-connected.
Thank you, Rep. Weber, for standing up for us!
