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It’s springtime during an even-numbered year, so you’re going to see something new populating MTFP’s website and newsletters from now through fall. It’s the 2026 iteration of our seasonally recurring Election Guide, which you’ve told us through the years is a much-appreciated resource for making sense of a perpetually confusing political landscape. I’d like to give you a brief how-to-use-it tour.
Start basic: Type your address into the search bar on the home page and learn your state House and Senate districts, which U.S. House district you can vote in, and whether any of the Public Service Commission seats up for election this cycle represent you.
From there, you can focus with a click on the candidates in those races: who they are, who they’re running against, what they have to say about the issues, what MTFP has written about them and, in the case of federal candidates, what their campaign finance stats show about their earning and spending habits.
Once you’ve got yourself up to speed on the candidates, click over to the “Voting Info” tab for an FAQ explaining all the nuts and bolts — including several that are new — you’ll need to know to cast your ballot and make sure it counts.
Montana’s primary election is Tuesday, June 2. Primary ballots will be mailed to registered voters starting May 8.
We designed and scheduled the 2026 Election Guide to make sure that accurate and actionable voter information is at your fingertips when you need it. Don’t hesitate to let us know how it’s working for you. We hope it helps make your exercise of civic responsibility virtually seamless.
— Brad Tyer, Projects Editor
Hot Potato 🥔
Tenants at two mobile home parks in Bozeman are set to begin a rent strike Friday after their outgoing landlord notified residents of $97 monthly rent hikes in late March.
Occupants of over 60% of the units at King Arthur and Mountain Meadows Parks voted unanimously earlier this week to withhold their rent payments for the month of May. This move amounts to nearly $53,000, according to Bozeman Tenants United, the group organizing the effort.
A rent strike is a collective action in which tenants withhold rent payments to pressure landlords into negotiating terms. The King Arthur and Mountain Meadows chapters of Bozeman Tenants United gave the landowner, Oakland Companies, until Thursday evening to respond. Oakland spokesperson Landy Leep told Montana Free Press that the company does not plan to meet with tenants or negotiate, and that tenants will receive a non-payment notice.
If they don’t pay, Leep said, the owners will start eviction proceedings.
“[We’ve] always had an open door with individual tenants,” Leep said in a Friday phone call. “We don’t have a lease agreement with the union.”
Leep declined to comment on questions about why the landlord is raising rents, particularly as it is set to officially sell the land May 11.
These most recent rent increases — which average 11% across both parks — are the latest in a string of increases over the last couple of years.
“We’re at a point here where if we do nothing, nothing changes,” King Arthur resident Debi Rooks said in a press release. “Even though it is terrifying to do this strike, my fear of not fighting back trumps my fear of actually doing it. We’ve got no other choice.”
Bozeman Tenants United said in a press release that this is the first rent strike in Montana in nearly 50 years. The previous strike was also waged by trailer park residents.
Tenants are set to hold a rally Friday evening at King Arthur Park to kickstart the protest.
— Victoria Eavis
Crystal Ball 🔮
Grasshoppers and drought go together like salt on chips. With more than 57% of the state showing moderate drought at the end of April, the risk of hopper hordes was sure to be high. The official forecast for grasshoppers this summer, published by the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, suggests that Montana will have the worst grasshopper infestation of any state, with Miles City and central Montana expected to have more than 15 grasshoppers per square yard, which is the highest measurable category.
“I had hopper reports in March,” Mike Schuldt, extension agent in Custer County, told Montana Free Press in a recent phone interview. Warm weather has accelerated spring by about three weeks, Schuldt said. A three-inch blanket of snow that hit the area chilled the early hatch, but the insects are still coming.
Grasshopper eggs winter best in dry, warm soil, according to the Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory in Sidney. In a bad infestation, grasshoppers can reduce rangeland plant life by 200 to 500 pounds per acre, according to Montana State University. The worst of this year’s hatch is expected to stretch from Miles City to Billings and from Glendive to Malta.
— Tom Lutey
By the Numbers 🔢
$90,000
Amount the city of Whitefish agreed to pay to settle a lawsuit brought by a 33-year-old Venezuelan man.
In April 2025, Beker Rengifo Del Castillo was pulled over by Whitefish police, allegedly for a faulty taillight. Local police called U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who detained him at an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington. He was released from custody almost a week later and, in August 2025, Castillo’s lawyers sued Whitefish and its police department, arguing the grounds for his arrest were false. Castillo was in the country legally, and his attorneys maintained that police called federal agents because he spoke Spanish during the traffic stop.
Andres Haladay, an attorney at Upper Seven Law, the Montana law firm representing Castillo, said in a press release this week that the settlement “should send a clear message to law enforcement agencies across Montana that untrained local police officers should not play border cop.”
“When police conduct immigration investigations based on the color of someone’s skin or the language they speak, it violates the Constitution, breaches community trust, and wastes taxpayer dollars,” his statement read.
— Nora Mabie
Say What 🤔
A nonprofit is hoping to build a gondola to carry visitors from Butte to Our Lady of the Rockies, a 90-foot stone statue of the Virgin Mary that towers over the southwestern Montana town from atop the Continental Divide.
Financially, it’ll be a steep climb to get there. Ron Gallardo, president of the nonprofit also called Our Lady of the Rockies, which maintains and develops the area around the statue, estimates the gondola will cost between $40 million and $50 million. Gallardo said that Funis, an Austria-based construction company specializing in cable cars, has pledged to cover a little less than half of that cost.
Gallardo hopes the nonprofit will make up the rest through donations and investments. That includes a goal of $5 million through individual donations. Considering that the nonprofit has already invested roughly $3 million in improvements, outside investors will have to make up the remaining $12 to $17 million, Gallardo said.
Gallardo’s goal is to have an operational cable car by 2030. Despite the obstacles, he’s determined. His passion for the monument dates back about 40 years when he admired it from his elementary school playground in Butte.
“Our Lady of the Rockies, she’s been a great blessing to the community of Butte,” Gallardo told Montana Free Press. “And a gondola is just an additional blessing that we could get from this great monument.”
Donations can be made online. Be sure to type in “gondola” under donation type.
— Zeke Lloyd
Snapshot 📸
On the left is an empty booth at the Home Cafe, and on the right is an empty field in Conrad just after sunrise. Both images were made within the same hour, one while I was being battered by the wind, or as a resident called it, “just a breeze,” and the other in a safe sanctuary, sipping a hot cup of coffee.
— Lauren Miller, Report for America/Catchlight Local Photojournalist
Highlights ☀️
In other news this week —
- Freelance writer and Montana Free Press alum Arren Kimbel-Sannit provided our readers with a what-you-need-to-know preview of Montana’s Western Democratic congressional primary.
- After the Montana Supreme Court noted his “fundamental misunderstanding of governing law,” District Court Judge Jeffrey Dahood this week reversed course, siding with media outlets and unsealing most of the charging documents in the homicide case against Michael Paul Brown. Brown is accused of fatally shooting four people in Anaconda last summer.
- The elimination of the master’s program in literature at the University of Montana, as Katie Fairbanks reported, has faculty members worried about the school’s liberal arts identity.
On Our Radar
Nick — While May Day has become synonymous with protesting the plight of workers, I have fond memories as a kid of gathering flowers from the neighborhood each May 1 to surprise my mom. I’m sure it was mostly dandelions, but she always put them in a vase with water. Such a sweet woman. My wife will get flowers today (shh, it’s a secret) to mark the changing seasons, and, as a hopeless romantic, I must say, it’s still a pro move.
JoVonne — National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day is May 5, and ICT News has compiled a thorough list of events across the country, including several planned in Montana, that aim to raise awareness of the crisis. If you’re interested in learning more about MMIP, the CDC has information surrounding violence against Native peoples.
Zeke — I have tried to avoid recommending pop albums this year, but we’re almost halfway through 2026, and this one is really good. Kacey Musgraves’ new release, “Middle of Nowhere,” uses imagery of a rural lifestyle to celebrate independence and bemoan loneliness.
Mara — What does “No Mow May” actually accomplish? My interest is easily piqued by any clever alliteration, but this year has me wondering if “Avoid Trimming April” is more apt, given the current state of dandelions in my lawn. Advanced gardeners and lawn care fanatics: please advise.
Nora — I’ve been watching — and loving — Company Retreat, a new show on Amazon Prime. The premise is comedic gold: The majority of the cast are actors playing co-workers at a family-owned hot sauce company called Rockin’ Grandmas. One regular person who is not an actor is not in on the joke. In this case, our normie Anthony thinks he was hired as a temp at Rockin’ Grandmas and believes the company is being followed by a documentary film crew. The result is hilarious. It’s a lighthearted, fun watch.
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Lowdown is edited by Nick Ehli, with additional copy editing by Mara Silvers.