GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte announced last week that he would run for governor, and two statewide Republicans quickly announced that they would run to succeed him as Montana’s only U.S. House member. On Saturday, Secretary of State Corey Stapleton said he was dropping out of the governor’s contest and would instead campaign for the House seat. On Monday, state Auditor Matt Rosendale, who lost last year’s Senate race to Democratic incumbent Jon Tester, also confirmed he was running for the House. The radical anti-tax Club for Growth had spent months working to recruit Rosendale, and they quickly endorsed his House bid.
Another familiar Republican is also eyeing this race. Former state Judge Russ Fagg said over the weekend he might run, but that he was also considering waiting until 2022 when Montana might gain a second House seat. Both Rosendale and Fagg competed in the 2018 Senate primary, a contest Rosendale won 34-28.
This won’t be the first time we’ve had a race between Stapleton and Rosendale for this House seat. Back in 2014, when then-Rep. Steve Daines left to successfully run for the Senate, Stapleton and Rosendale both ran here. However, it was Ryan Zinke that ended up winning the GOP nod with 33% of the vote, while Stapleton edged Rosendale 30-29 for second place. Two years later, both defeated House candidates won their current statewide positions.
Both Stapleton and Rosendale were initially mentioned as possible Senate candidates in 2018 against Tester, but only Rosendale ended up running. Democrats made sure to remind voters that Rosendale, who worked as a developer, had only moved to Montana from Maryland in 2002, and that he still sports a Maryland accent. Rosendale also ran into problems when Talking Points Memo reported that the self-described “rancher” didn’t own any cattle or actually ranch his property, a story Democrats didn’t hesitate to exploit.
National Republicans didn’t act particularly impressed with Rosendale, and the major GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund was particularly slow to reserve fall TV time here. However, Donald Trump, who had carried Montana 56-35, made beating Tester a priority, and he repeatedly stumped for Rosendale and fired off nasty tweets at the incumbent. Rosendale, like most Republicans in red state contests, also tried to use the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court fight to bludgeon Tester. Ultimately, Tester beat Rosendale 50-47.
Stapleton had a quieter 2018 than his once and future primary rival, but he still ran into some controversy. Attorney General Tim Fox, who is now running for governor, criticized Stapleton after the secretary of state opted to hire attorney Emily Jones, who is the wife of former state party director and Stapleton friend Jake Eaton, rather than use an attorney provided by Fox's office for a case against the state Green Party. Fox called Stapleton's decision "mystifying," concluding, "Ultimately, he made a political decision to needlessly spend $60,000 on outside counsel and lost the case."
Stapleton has also attracted more scrutiny over his ties to Eaton. Last year, Stapleton's office mailed out voter guides that contained mistakes, and they paid Eaton's company $265,000 to quickly print out corrected guides. Stapleton defended the decision, saying he'd taken bids and Eaton's company just happened to be the best for the job. This year, Stapleton ran afoul of the state ethics commission when he announced his candidacy for governor using his official state email address and resources, a mistake that led to a $4,000 fine.
Democrats also have a primary here between former state Rep. Kathleen Williams, who lost the 2018 contest to Gianforte 51-46, and freshman state Rep. Tom Winter.
P.S. This is the fourth time this decade that we have an open House seat contest in Montana. In 2012, five-term GOP Rep. Denny Rehberg left to unsuccessfully challenge Tester, and he was succeeded by Daines. Daines successfully ran for the Senate two years later, which set off the aforementioned House race that Zinke won. Zinke only served until 2017, when he was appointed Trump’s secretary of the interior (a job Trump forced him out of the very next year), and Gianforte won the special election to succeed him. This may be the last time this version of the district is open, too: As potential House candidate Russ Fagg noted, Montana may well gain a second U.S. House seat in 2022.
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