Ex-smokejumper Forstag challenges Flint in Montana toss-up
Voters in western Montana are angry, and an unconventional group of Democratic candidates sees an opening in this year’s midterms to reclaim territory other party members have given up on. From the Great Plains and Upper Midwest to the Deep South, campaigns are drawing on a progressive brand of economic populism that once flourished away from the coasts. Candidates are betting that harnessing anger at corporate power and both parties might succeed when many voters believe the economy and government are not working for working people. If the strategy succeeds, it could forge a new playbook for competing in places Democrats used to win.
In Montana, former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper Sam Forstag is trying to flip a House seat by speaking directly from his own experience about the economic stress facing many voters. Forstag joined an elite team of wildland firefighters in 2022 that parachuted into remote areas. “I was making 19 bucks an hour jumping out of airplanes for the federal government in a community where you’d be lucky to find a home for a half million bucks,” he said. He added, “If a smokejumper is being left behind, a whole lot of other people are being left behind by both political parties.”
When President Trump cut nearly 400 Forest Service jobs in Montana last year, Forstag was his union’s vice president. Forstag said he tried to reach Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke. “Time and time again, I got crickets, so I decided if he’s going to come after my coworkers and our members’ jobs, I’m going to come and take his,” Forstag told a group of smokejumpers and wildland firefighters this month at Great Burn Brewery in Missoula. Zinke ultimately retired, opening a district that runs some 400 miles between Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Trump won the district by double digits in 2024, and NPR now considers the race a toss-up.
A mix of factors is upending the district’s typical political dynamics. An influx of wealthy transplants since the pandemic has made Montana’s housing market among the nation’s most unaffordable. That squeeze has been compounded as the costs of groceries, gas and health insurance have soared. Montana has not usually been considered a swing state in recent years, though not long ago voters regularly elected Republicans and Democrats. As the urge for disruption and populist rhetoric aimed at cultural elites and immigrants helped propel Trump to victory in 2016, Democrats increasingly struggled to hold on.
Voter Sandi Ramos voted for President Obama twice before backing Trump but continued voting for Montana’s Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. During the Biden era, Ramos soured on Democrats more broadly. She said she was pleased with Trump’s performance despite not liking him personally and that it would be difficult to vote for a Democrat, even Forstag. “I don’t think anything could happen that fast to make me vote for him,” Ramos said. “Although I really respect him as a person and I like him.”
Support from split-ticket voters such as Ramos allowed Tester to outperform national Democrats for years, but that record ended in 2024 when he lost his reelection bid. Following the Blackfoot River and crossing the Continental Divide, golden aspen trees give way to fields of wheat and peas where Tester’s family has farmed for more than a century. “Where you’re standing right now in 1960 was pretty damn blue,” Tester said. “These were the children of homesteaders in the Great Depression. They understand the role government played. Before my grandfather died, he said if it wasn’t for FDR, we wouldn’t be on this place.” Tester said the Democratic brand was not good in Montana and believed many national Democrats had written off places between the Appalachians and the Rockies. He said the Iran war and tariffs under Trump were raising fertilizer and fuel prices, potentially making some voters more willing to consider Democrats again.
Forstag spent a sunny Wednesday afternoon talking with farmers and ranchers at Peterson Angus Ranch. Proprietor Sue Peterson also chairs the small Granite County Democratic Party. From a bluff with vistas in all directions, she offered one theory for why Democrats sometimes struggle to connect with ranchers and farmers in places they once won. “If you’re dealing with animals, you’re dealing with life and death all the time and sometimes the decisions are hard and it’s hard to relate to someone in a suit,” Peterson said.
Forstag said it was frustrating to hear many Democrats discuss affordability as a novel messaging strategy or buzzword. “We don’t change this by giving a new term to it,” he said. “We change it by changing who’s in those damn rooms. Because there are politicians who have been sitting in those offices for 10, 20, 30 years and nothing has changed.” Forstag said running as a populist meant recalibrating the relationship between people in power in Washington and the regular people who elect them. “I’m going to answer to the people I’ve worked with for the last eight years,” he said. “I’m going to answer to people like the kid I was growing up, whose belly is full because of food stamps. It does not feel like that’s who Congress is answering to right now.”
Forstag’s focus on economic pain has attracted endorsements from the Democratic Party’s left flank, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and from more moderate members of the House Blue Dog Caucus. Georgetown University professor Michael Kazin, who studies the history of American populism, said the language can hold together groups that may favor Democrats but have concerns about the beliefs or priorities of one constituency. “Populist language is a way to unify disparate groups who might lean towards or be willing to vote for Democrats, but might have problems with the beliefs or the priorities of one or another constituency within the Democratic Party,” Kazin said.
In Iowa, Arkansas and Wisconsin, candidates this year are embracing the more specific identity of prairie populists. The label refers to a late-19th-century political movement with Great Plains roots that united small farmers and workers against corporate monopolies. Kazin said the movement was also a reaction to states in the heartland feeling neglected in favor of more populous, urban states on the coasts. He said candidates could use the identity to tap anger fueling anti-establishment campaigns across the country without alienating voters in more conservative-leaning states who might be put off by the party’s toxic brand or divisive social issues.
In Iowa, Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek calls himself a “common sense prairie populist” and says his north star is “to go up there and fight for the people that can’t afford to make a political donation or afford a lobbyist.” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand is campaigning on issues including large agricultural corporations stymying politicians from addressing polluted water supplies.
In Kansas, Democrats nominated the Rev. Adam Hamilton for Senate. Hamilton does not use the anti-establishment rhetoric employed by other Democratic candidates showing traction in red states, but he often ends stump speeches by citing the Wizard of Oz, which some historians see as an allegory for the 19th-century populist movement. “Do you remember what the scarecrow needed? A brain. And then what did the Tin Man need? The heart. And what did the Cowardly Lion need? Courage,” Hamilton tells crowds. “This is what’s missing in the United States Senate right now.” For some Democrats, embracing this ethos is less about taking a position on the ideological spectrum and more about speaking to voters frustrated with the status quo. After stumping for progressive Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a local Democratic club in Michigan this summer, Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin told NPR, “The most common thing I’ve heard, whether I’m in Kansas or Wisconsin or Michigan, is we want a new generation of leaders and we want big and bold ideas. People are absolutely done with what they’ve known in the past.”
In Nebraska, Democrats are backing a mechanic running as an independent and a populist for Senate. State party chair Jane Kleeb, also a Democratic National Committee vice chair, said it was perplexing when Democrats complained that the only way to win Senate power was to reform its structure. She said the answer was to compete earnestly in more states. “So trying to focus on eight battlegrounds never made mathematical sense,” Kleeb said.
Republicans are under the same economic pressure. Forstag’s Republican opponent, veteran Aaron Flint, is a conservative radio host who has an intimate relationship with many Montana voters and hears about the challenges they face. campaigning across the district in an RV, Flint is promising to “make the Montana dream affordable again.” He is also trying to pierce Forstag’s working-class biography and appeal to the middle by noting that Forstag has campaigned with Ocasio-Cortez and lobbied during off-seasons for the ACLU. Flint says Democrats would raise taxes and make Montana’s problems worse if they gained power. “I’m not just running because of deep frustration with the damage that was done to this party by the Democrat party,” Flint said after a stop in the old mining town of Butte. “I’m also running because there’s some Republicans back in Washington that aren’t doing enough to fix everything either.”
Voter Nicholas Babcock, a mail carrier in nearby Anaconda, remains skeptical. An old smelter for the once-behemoth Anaconda Copper Company rises 585 feet above the town. Babcock voted for Trump three times and said the first term was more good than bad. “The second term is the exact opposite,” he said. “We have seen a complete betrayal of almost every campaign promise that was made. It just feels almost like a slap in the face that we were sold one thing and none of it was delivered.” Babcock attended a Forstag town hall anyway. He said his hero was Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was assassinated last year. “He would listen to absolutely anybody, discuss anything with anybody,” Babcock said. “I’m absolutely willing to change my mind.” Babcock said Forstag knows what it is like to punch a clock, thinks he might actually buck the establishment and hopes the candidate follows through.
NPR cautioned that if Democrats gain ground in Republican-leaning places, it might not be clear how much of the result reflects the candidates and their messages rather than a deteriorating national environment for Republicans. Barbara Sprunt contributed reporting from Nebraska, Stephen Fowler from Kansas and Danielle Kurtzleben from Iowa.