State Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy’s abrupt departure from the race for Montana’s Eastern Congressional District leaves two remaining candidates in the June 2 Democratic primary: Brian Miller and Sam Lux. The winner will join Libertarian Patrick McCracken and possibly independent Mike Eisenhauer in challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Troy Downing in the Nov. 3 general election. Downing was first elected to the seat by a 32-point margin in 2024.
But no matter who emerges from the primary with the Democratic nomination, political prognosticators agree, they’ll have neither history, money, or momentum on their side in attempting to unseat Downing.
“I don’t really see a way that a Democrat would win that seat,” said Jessi Bennion, a political scientist who teaches at Montana State University and Carroll College. Based on previous election outcomes and demographics, Bennion said, the district looks “absolutely solidly Republican.”
Bennion is quick to acknowledge that any bid for public office, no matter how quixotic, is “a wonderful, civic-minded thing,” but she also expressed genuine curiosity about why a Democrat might choose to compete in eastern Montana at all.
“What is it that makes someone who doesn’t really have a chance of winning put themselves out there to run for a seat?” Bennion said. “Sometimes you think, are they trying to build their presence within the party? Are they trying to get their name out there to build their name ID?”
Both Lux and Miller shrugged off any suggestion they might have a motive other than winning. Both express confidence that President Donald Trump’s low approval rating, in combination with a historical voter preference for minority-party candidates in midterm elections, will translate to a swell of Democratic votes in November.
“The political scientists that I’ve heard in Montana,” Miller said, “have no idea what they’re talking about right now.”
Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local/Report for America
WHY IS THE EASTERN DISTRICT SO HARD FOR DEMOCRATS?
Jeremy Johnson, a political scientist at Carroll College, said the Eastern District — which became a distinct congressional seat in its current form in the 2022 elections — was never built to elect a Democrat.
“It was just generally understood by all the people who participated in the process that this district was not drawn to be competitive. It was essentially drawn as a safe Republican district,” Johnson told Montana Free Press.
In its brief new life, the district has been dominated by Republicans — as was the single at-large congressional district that preceded it going back to 1996. In the 2026 edition of “Big Sky Politics,” elections historian Jon Bennion (Jessi Bennion’s husband) wrote, “the Eastern Congressional District never really seemed to strike Democrats as a viable goal.”
“Incumbent at-large Congressman Matt Rosendale opted to run in the east because of his Glendive and Great Falls connections, and there was little political energy aligned against his reelection,” Bennion wrote of the eastern district’s first election in 2022, when Democratic candidate Penny Ronning lost every county in the district.
There just don’t seem to be many Democratic voters in the district.
Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local/Report for America
While the state’s Western Congressional District contains urban pockets of reliable Democratic support, the eastern district’s largest cities — Billings and Great Falls — don’t offer Democrats much purchase.
In Billings, Montana’s largest city by population, 11 of 14 local members of the Montana House of Representatives and six of the city’s seven senators are Republicans. The numbers — at least recently — are even starker in Great Falls, where four of five representatives and all three state senators are Republicans.
Helena, which in 2025 sent only one Republican among its nine lawmakers to the Montana Legislature, is the district’s most Democrat-friendly city.
The district also includes five of the seven Native American reservations in Montana, which typically lean toward Democratic candidates.
Johnson, the political science professor, said a Democrat would have to win “remarkable margins in the cities” and avoid losing by “overwhelming majorities” everywhere else to turn the tables.
COULD 2026 BE DIFFERENT FOR DEMOCRATS?
Not likely. While Johnson acknowledged that voter disapproval of the war in Iran, high gas prices and Trump’s low approval rating could give Democrats an edge in some races around the country in 2026, those factors aren’t likely to make a dent in the Eastern District.
“Even with these favorable conditions, it would be an upset for a Democrat to win this district — a significant upset,” Johnson said.
And more potentially competitive races in other areas of the country make donor investments in long-shot campaigns less appealing, undermining Eastern District campaigns even further by starving them of funding, according to Johnson.
“There’s a lot of other districts across the country, including the [Montana] Western District, that would have more favorable demographics for Democratic candidates,” Johnson said.
That fact shows up on the financial reports for both Democratic candidates in MT-02. As of March 31, Miller had raised about $15,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings. By the same date, Lux had reported roughly $8,000. Each of the four Democratic candidates in the Western District has raised at least ten times more than either Democrat in the east.
When Downing won the eastern district in 2024, he spent the lion’s share of his $3 million war chest.
Adding to the unlikelihood of closing the money gap is the fact that political donors invested in unseating Downing will likely have an option other than the Democratic primary winner. Independent candidate Mike Eisenhauer, a Great Falls cardiologist, estimates his campaign has gathered the 7,274 signatures necessary to qualify for the November ballot — though he won’t be submitting his final signature haul for confirmation by the secretary of state until May 26. Eisenhauer has already far outpaced the race’s Democratic candidates by raising $208,000, including a $200,000 personal loan from the candidate to his campaign. And the last time an independent ran in the district, it was Billings financial adviser Gary Buchanan who drew the high-profile endorsements, outraised the Democrat — and still came in a distant second to at-large incumbent Republican Matt Rosendale in the then-new district’s inaugural election.
But regardless of the potential influence of Einsenhauer’s bid, or Libertarian candidate Patrick McCracken’s, political statisticians see no path to a surprise result in November. Election predictor 270toWin highlights five election forecasts. All anticipate Montana’s Eastern District will remain safely Republican.
SO HOW DO THESE CANDIDATES HOPE TO BEAT THE ODDS?
Miller, a Helena attorney, and Lux, a Great Falls farrier, promote similar platforms, but come from very different backgrounds. Both say their campaign strategies combine social media with lots of driving. Limited funds and a sparsely dispersed Democratic population in the district have left both candidates struggling to find face time with voters.
During an hour-long April 12 candidate forum in Helena sponsored by the state Democratic Party, the two agreed more than they disagreed, concurring across five separate questions. Both men strongly oppose President Donald Trump and said that, if elected, they would vote to impeach him, work to undo his major policies of the last two years, and try to repeal his tariffs.
To boost eastern Montanans’ quality of life, Miller and Lux said, they would focus on affordability, health care and policies to support regional agriculture, though their specific policies vary. Miller, for instance, said he wants to increase housing supply through “smart use of government power,” promote a “paradigm shift” in the health care industry away from profit incentives, and increase revenue for Montana farmers and ranchers by investing in regional food-processing hubs. Lux said he wants to incentivize selling homes to Montana residents rather than to out-of-staters, build satellite health care clinics in small towns, and pass policies including country of origin beef and pork labeling and right to repair, which would allow farmers to repair their own equipment without going through a licensed dealer.
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Four brands of Democrat make their case in Montana’s western congressional primary
Ask any Democratic candidate for Montana’s Western Congressional District about the upcoming primary and you’ll hear a similar refrain: The primary is just prologue; the real race is in November. Implicit in that obvious reminder is each candidate’s promise: I’m the one who can win in November. I’m the party’s best bet, after years of defeat, to seize a congressional seat that could, this year more than most, be within the right candidate’s reach. The particular circumstances of the seat, and of the 2026 election cycle, are critical to that proposition.
On the campaign trail, both first-time candidates have had a hard time organizing large-scale events. Instead, they rely on modest town hall gatherings, coffee shop meet-and-greets and social media.
Lux said he tries to connect with as many people as possible during his frequent travels as a farrier.
“I normally head into a little coffee shop or something while I’m there, hang out for my lunch hour,” Lux said. “And I’ll put it out on like my social media stories and say, ‘hey, for anybody who’s in this area that would like to ask your candidate a couple of questions, feel free to stop on by.’”
Miller said he attends as many events as he can, but hasn’t been able to travel as much as he’d like.
Regardless of their ideological similarities and parallel campaigns, the two are otherwise vastly different characters.
Miller, a self-described “nerd,” recommended a 400-page nonfiction book about reducing the national debt during a recent candidate forum.
“We need evidence-based, rational approaches to our problems. That’s something I just like. I like solving difficult problems,” Miller said.
Lux, in turn, held up a red scarf onstage to illustrate a story about his union ancestors.
“My great-grandfather died on Blair Mountain fighting for union rights back in the day, working as one of the rednecks,” Lux said, referencing the largest labor uprising in American history, which took place in West Virginia in 1921.
Miller and Lux see each other frequently at campaign events. Neither has slung mud at the other. Miller said it’s been that way since they first met early in their path-crossing campaigns.
“We were both kind of like, ‘uh, oh wow, you’re crazy enough to do this type of thing?’”
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