Democratic candidates for Montana’s Western U.S. House District met in Whitefish and Butte at the start of the week for candidate forums in a congressional race with fresh sizzle following the announced retirement of Republican incumbent Rep. Ryan Zinke.
Monday night’s forum in Whitefish was organized by the Beer, Buds and the Big Sky Podcast, which bills itself as “No Spin, no safe spaces — Just unfiltered opinions, sharp humor, and plenty of beer-fueled honesty.”
The event, featuring Democratic candidates Ryan Busse, Russell Cleveland, Matt Rains and Sam Forstag, drew about 300 people to the Whitefish Performing Arts Center. Questions were asked by former Democratic state legislator Mike Jopek of Whitefish.
Tuesday’s forum at the Mother Lode Theater in Butte, organized by the Mullen Newspaper Company, drew about 160 people. A half-dozen additional Democratic candidate forums are scheduled through early May.
The forums were the candidates’ first joint appearances since Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke announced he won’t seek reelection, heating up the race for a seat long targeted by Democrats as one of Montana’s most potentially competitive. Republican primary candidates for the seat are Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, radio host Aaron Flint, and former legislator Al Olszewski.
The candidate positions highlighted below are drawn from candidate statements in both forums.
RYAN BUSSE
Busse, of Kalispell, emphasized his 31 years living in Flathead Valley with his wife, Sarah, and two boys, Badge and Lander, who were plaintiffs in a landmark climate lawsuit affirming that state government must weigh climate impacts when permitting projects. A former firearms industry executive who ran for governor as a Democrat in 2024, Busse told the audience it has been years since Montana’s federal delegation represented the public.
“The billionaires and the private jet class and the Yellowstone Club folks, they got plenty of representation, but we don’t have any,” Busse said.
On political spending: “If I had it my way, we’d have public financing of all campaigns. We’d get, everybody would get the same amount of money. Clearly there would be no outside spending. I hope we can get to that point. I will fight for that. But the real problem is the outside spending and the corporate PAC money.”
On the Epstein files: “It’s disgusting, and we ought to be disgusted by it. And we ought to have a Congress that stands up and says ‘hell no.’”
On whether Congress should play a role in authorizing military actions: “All you have are the myriad reasons that we have been given for this war in Iran. And it’s lie upon lie upon lie upon lie there. There was no immediate risk from nuclear weapons. There was no immediate risk from Iran attacking the United States. Those are contrived reasons.”
Busse and other candidates characterized the costs of military action in Iran as draining funds that could be spent on health care.
How to make Montana more affordable: “We have made thousands and thousands of choices that have increased the wealth disparity in this state, in this country, and it’s about time we have a representative that starts making decisions to reduce every single one of those. My promise to all of you, to my kids, to your kids, is that I will not vote for, I will not advocate for, I will not speak on behalf of a single bill that increases the wealth disparity, only reduces it, period.” Busse said universal health care needs to be a congressional priority.
On data centers: “The reason data centers are rushing here is because they believe we have cheap power … open land … insufficient regulation to stop them from moving fast. We need to be very careful.”
On regulating artificial intelligence: “A major part of the product of the data centers, AI, is to put human labor out of work. We should be honest about that.”
RUSSELL CLEVELAND
The St. Regis resident emphasized his family of six children, his Stevensville roots and his U.S. Navy service. Cleveland’s 13-year-old daughter, Madison, died from leukemia in 2020. Cleveland said the experience compelled him to focus on health care reform.
“My goal in this is to really fix a broken health care system, to tackle things like affordability and to really, ultimately get the No. 1 poison in the well out, and that is money in politics,” Cleveland said.
On political spending: “I am for individual contributions only, have been from the time I started. And my goal in this is to show that you can run a strong campaign with only individual contributions. We don’t need dark money, we don’t need PAC money, we don’t need influence of any kind outside of the people that are voting for us, and until we can fix that piece, we will not have 100% transparency.”
On the Epstein files: “We have to stop ignoring the problem and start actually convicting, trying and convicting these individuals, and we cannot settle for even an ounce of anything less.” Cleveland said he and his wife were responsible for the prosecution of a child molester in Idaho.
On whether Congress should play a role in authorizing military actions: “No more wars, no more forever wars, no more. It needs to go through Congress, strip the president of this power, allow him to retain oversight over concise military action to make sure that he does have some authority to move quickly, but in my opinion, we set a cap on the amount that he could spend and the amount of troops that he can send inland to actually create this type of conflict.”
How to make Montana more affordable: Cleveland identified four areas where government programs could be expanded to make Montana more affordable: Education reform, including earlier degrees and lower school debt; universal health care; universal child care; and wage increases to make home ownership more attainable.
On data centers: “The No. 1 issue that we’re facing is that we have a moratorium because of this big, disastrous bill on states’ rights to actually regulate this at the state level. That would be the first thing that I would repeal. We need to have the ability in the state of Montana to determine what’s best for us, based off of our state Constitution.”
On regulating artificial intelligence: “I think the thing that most concerns me is invasion of privacy. We need to repeal or revise the Patriot Act and put provisions in place so that companies like Palantir can no longer harvest our data and invade the privacy of Americans.”
MATT RAINS
The Simms rancher and former photojournalist touted his Montana roots dating back to the 1860s, his West Point education and Army service flying Blackhawk helicopters. Rains said he is particularly proud of his role in establishing a meat processing plant in Havre.
“We set up the first of its kind in the nation USDA meat processing facility in Havre, Montana, Premium Processing Co-Op. I was project lead on that, and that has allowed our local producers to retail their own livestock, which keeps them not only viable, but generational. It brings a whole new revenue stream in,” Rains said.
On political spending: “I’m going to do whatever it takes for all of Montana to make sure we win this goddamn race, period. So with that, if that answers you guys, first of all, PACs are not bad. Unions have PACs. There’s some great organizations that have PACs. We cannot turn it toxic, because it is what is going to get us across the finish line.”
On the Epstein files: “I think we need to throw in there the murdered and missing Indigenous women as part, whether that’s tied to the Epstein files or just all those women that have gone missing that we haven’t found,” Rains said.
On whether Congress should play a role in authorizing military actions: “Congress is the only authority to approve war. There’s a reason. Congress is a representation of the people. The people have their sons and daughters involved over there, putting their life on the line. That is why Congress approves it.”
How to make Montana more affordable: “There are solutions where you would involve the population coming together, but it’s taxes. Trump has done everything in his power to give tax breaks to the billionaires, multimillionaires out there, and we need to reverse those. I mean, shit, it used to be like the billionaires were taxed 60, 70, 80% and the middle class was huge. I see no problem with that.”
On data centers: “We need to get more [experience with the technology] before I would support them coming into Montana … I want to see the R&D done. I want to see these companies invest into making sure that they benefit Montana and are not a drain on us in the long run.”
On regulating artificial intelligence: “First of all, with AI, the United States needs to be the leading edge of that technology to stay number one in the world. So I support the development of AI with guardrails and [to] make sure that our privacy is protected. And so in Congress, we need to be proactive, not reactionary, with the development of AI in this nation.”
SAM FORSTAG
Forstag, of Missoula, is a seasonal smokejumper and former union representative. He was the only candidate on stage in work boots. Forstag said he was motivated to run by Trump administration cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and other government agencies.
“We lost about a quarter of the Forest Service, and the vast majority of those people were making less than 20 bucks an hour here in Montana. No different than the Park Service or the BLM,” Forstag said. “And it’s the same story that it is right now, when we’re looking at a war with Iran that we do not need. When the mill closes up in Seeley, or when the wood products plant closes in Missoula, it’s poor and working people getting screwed, while somebody is getting incredibly rich off of all of these broken systems.”
On political spending: “So I’m not taking a dime of corporate PAC money, dime of a PAC, money, dime of dark money. Those are lines in the sand that I think most of us have here. It is at the core of the fact that our Congress and our Senate is not responsive to the people, and that we have issues that 80% of us agree on that we have not had action on in decades.”
On the Epstein files: “We got here because we have incredible amounts of concentrated wealth and power protecting men like Jeffrey Epstein and incredibly powerful people who are in his circle, and we’re well aware, whether they were in government or finance, of exactly what was done. And we should all be so angry.”
On whether Congress should play a role in authorizing military actions: “You know what happens when you go to war in a place like this, while working people pay the price, and our congressional representatives are sitting pretty. Somebody is getting incredibly rich off of all of this, and we should be so mad that we are spending $1 billion to $3 billion a day in a war with Iran that none of us want and that our congresspeople don’t have the courage to take a vote on, while we can’t even solve a housing crisis or a health care crisis.”
How to make Montana more affordable: “We should have a minimum effective income tax rate for every dollar earned over a million dollars to say that if you are making over a million a year, well, you’re not paying any less than 30% no matter how good your accountant is. That’s how we pay for it.” By “it,” Forstag referred to universal health care, child care and a federal investment in affordable housing.
On data centers: “This is an issue that needs to be addressed on the federal level, and we have none of that … they actually cut taxes for data centers, and meanwhile most of the people in this state are stuck at higher rates…”
On regulating artificial intelligence: “Artificial Intelligence companies that are running roughshod right now with zero regulation and with, in fact, reverse regulation from the federal level, are perhaps the scariest single existential threat to our country and the future of our economy.”
This story was updated March 11, 2026, to include highlights from the March 10 candidate forum in Butte.
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