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December 18, 2025
The team at Montana Free Press and Capitolized is taking a bit of a holiday break, which means we won’t send a newsletter again until Jan. 8. We hope you enjoy some downtime too and we’ll see you again in the new year!
If there’s a competitive federal race on the 2026 ballot in Montana, Democrats think it’s the state’s western U.S. House district.
A poll circulating among partisans suggests the candidate with the best shot of unseating Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke is Ryan Busse, the 2024 Democratic candidate for governor.
Tulchin Research, a San Francisco-area pollster with a left-leaning client base, released a poll on Dec. 8 that has Busse leading Zinke 47% to 43% among voters asked which candidate they’d support if the election took place today and the choices were Ryan (Zinke) and Ryan (Busse).
“Zinke is already a deeply polarizing figure. His image is underwater (43% favorable to 50% unfavorable, -7 net favorable),” according to Tulchin’s poll summary. The four-time elected representative has strong name identification, 93%, suggesting that expanding his support base could be difficult, Tulchin reported. There’s no mention of Busse’s name ID.
Busse told Capitolized this week that he was made aware of the poll, which he said he didn’t commission. He is currently not a candidate for any seat in 2026. Democrats Russell Cleveland and Matt Rains are currently campaigning.
Campaign finance records show that it’s been a decade since Tulchin worked for a Montana campaign. In 2016, Democrats Monica Lindeen and Jesse Laslovich used Tulchin in their unsuccessful campaigns for secretary of state and auditor, respectively. That was the last time Montanans elected a Democrat to one of the five statewidee offices (Steve Bullock, then an incumbent governor).
Zinke won the western Montana U.S. House district comfortably in 2022 and 2024, defeating Democrat Monica Tranel in both races. Busse won 42.6% of the district vote in his unsuccessful bid to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in 2024.
A separate survey conducted online is asking voters to consider various head-to-head general election matchups for U.S. Senate. Respondents are asked to consider matchups between former Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, who lost his reelection bid last year, and incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines. The poll then runs through hypothetical Senate matchups between Tester and GOP Attorney General Austin Knudsen, then talk radio host Aaron Flint. The questions repeat with Tranel as the Democrat running.
There’s no mention of who is doing that polling, but respondents are asked whether they would support a sales tax. The lack of nuance in the sales tax question, like whether a sales tax should replace property taxes, suggests to insiders who spoke with Capitolized that the polling is being done for Democrats.
— Tom Lutey
A new state representative for Bozeman
Gallatin County Commissioners earlier this week appointed Katie Fire Thunder, a 25-year-old Democrat, to fill a vacant House seat in the Montana Legislature.
Ed Stafman, who previously represented House District 59 in the Bozeman area, resigned in November. He told Capitolized at the time he wanted to spend more time with his family.
Fire Thunder spoke of her family in her appeal to commissioners. She said she grew up in a low-income household with a single mother, who worked to eventually earn a master’s degree, start a private practice and buy a home.
“The reality is, we still live paycheck to paycheck, and I constantly question if I’m going to be able to afford to live in this community long-term and continue to live in this state,” she told commissioners during their Dec. 16 meeting. “As an Indigenous woman, a part of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe, my people have been forgotten from this land that we once stewarded and called home.”
Fire Thunder graduated from Montana State University in 2024 with a degree in political science. She co-founded Bozeman Tenants United, a city-wide tenant union, and works as a legal assistant in the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office. During the last legislative session, Fire Thunder tracked and reported on the state’s public safety budget for Montana Budget and Policy Center.
In her address to commissioners, Fire Thunder cited improving affordability and strengthening housing security among her priorities. She said she wants to work across the aisle to build relationships and plans to run a competitive campaign to keep the seat for the 2027 legislative session.
“Montana is my home,” she told commissioners. “I want to protect it for future generations and to honor my ancestors.”
Members of Montana’s American Indian Caucus, a group of Native lawmakers who work together to advance legislation they say is good for Indian Country, celebrated Fire Thunder’s appointment. Native Americans comprise about 6.7% of Montana’s population, and it’s long been a goal of the caucus to achieve and maintain parity in the Legislature, meaning Native Americans would account for at least 10 of the state’s 150 lawmakers.
At an event in Missoula last week honoring Carol Juneau, former state lawmaker and Indigenous rights advocate, Pat Sweeney, a well-known grassroots organizer, said in the late 1990s that Carol was one of four Native state lawmakers.
“Now, 12 strong,” he said to the crowd, which erupted in applause. As of Dec. 19, that number rose to 13.
— Nora Mabie
Ellsworth charges
Former Montana state Sen. Jason Ellsworth, who was banned from the Senate floor for life earlier this year as part of a censure stemming from an ethics investigation into a government contract awarded to a friend, was charged criminally by the state Department of Justice on Thursday. READ MORE HERE.