Republicans gathered Tuesday night at the Armory Hotel in Bozeman celebrated each time they heard an update on the state election results — results that party leaders say show their strength in Montana.

“We now essentially have the entire state,” party chairman “Don K” Kaltschmidt told MTN on Wednesday.

Since 2016, Montana Republicans have had increasing success in statewide elections, and that trend continued Tuesday night. Republican Tim Sheehy won Montana’s second U.S. Senate seat from longtime incumbent Sen. Jon Tester, the only remaining Democratic statewide officeholder. It marks the first time since 1911 — when senators were still elected by state legislatures rather than by popular vote — that both Montana senators will be Republicans.

Additionally, Republicans held both of Montana’s U.S. House seats, capturing the governor’s race and other state executive offices.
Kaltschmidt said the margins in those races were wider than he expected.

“We feel very, very good,” he said. “We believe we have definitively ‘red-printed’ Montana.”

Ten years ago, Democrats held four of the five state offices and both Senate seats. Kaltschmidt said he believed the change was partly due to the fact that the Republican Party was now more aligned with the values ​​of Montana voters and partly due to what he called “political refugees”: newcomers to the state who left the Republican gave the party a boost.

“We let all these people live here who wanted freedom,” he said. “I think Montana is now a free state — and very much a Republican state.”

Eric Austin is head of the political science department at Montana State University. He says research has been done on people moving to Montana. While it hasn’t focused on political affiliation, it has looked at what drew them to Montana.

“I think if you look at that in combination with the characteristics of the state – and certainly the, I think, image of the state from the outside – it’s pretty easy to make some connections between people from California, from Washington, Colorado and other places. who may have seen state politics moving to the left, and feel that voters in that state have kind of been left behind if they are more conservative, and have come to a state that they feel more clearly represents their principles and interests,” Austin said. .

Austin said concerns about inflation and the cost of living appear to be boosting U.S. Republicans in this year’s elections, and that likely contributed to the margins in Montana races.
Kaltschmidt said that with Republicans winning not only in Montana but also at the federal level, the party now has a responsibility to govern.

“We have to come together,” he said. “We must work together with Democrats, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Here in Montana, I think the governor and everyone down there wants to do that. We need to come together as a state here in Montana, and we need to come together as a country.”

Montana Democrats did have one bright spot in Tuesday’s results, as they appear likely to gain two seats in the Senate and several more in the House of Representatives — enough to break Republicans’ two-thirds supermajority. These gains have a lot to do with a newly drafted legislative plan, which Democrats had said would lead to a seat distribution that would better reflect the statewide vote distribution.

Sen. Pat Flowers, the Senate minority leader, told reporters Wednesday that he had “mixed emotions” when comparing the legislative gains to the statewide results.

“I think where we were successful in districts — maybe at the local level or at the legislative level — while we didn’t have that at some levels statewide, I think it was a product of a lot of door knocking, a lot of conversations with voters about what their needs were and assuring them that we had plans in place to meet their needs,” he said.

Sheila Hogan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, released a statement on the results to MTN.

“Running for public office requires an enormous amount of energy, time and resources,” she said. “The Democratic Party of Montana is truly grateful to all of our candidates who have decided to step up and fight for families and working Montanans. Democratic parliamentary candidates have won the most seats over the past thirty years. Property taxes, affordable housing, and protecting public education and access to health care are all on the line this next session and Democrats are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.”