Democrat Denise Juneau is running against the odds for Montana's at-large congressional seat, but she's making headway. A Daily Kos endorsee, Juneau caught the eye of the DCCC this spring when the organization moved her race from an “Emerging District” to its “Red to Blue” program. Her election would be historic, making her the first female American Indian—Mandan Hidatsa, to be exact—to serve in Congress as well as Montana's first openly gay representative. MTV's Jaime Fuller has a great profile of Juneau, writing that in some ways her bid against Rep. Ryan Zinke maps the dynamics of the presidential race itself.
Montana was always going to give its three Electoral College votes to Donald Trump, which means Juneau never had a chance of climbing Hillary Clinton’s coattails. That doesn’t mean this long-shot race hasn’t earned some out-of-state attention. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is intrigued enough by what’s happening in Montana that it’s added the Juneau-Zinke contest to its list of Red to Blue target races. Both candidates have been fundraising like mad. And the race, despite its local flavor, shares enough notes with the presidential election that the national contest’s brutality has started to rub off on its forgotten younger sibling.
Juneau’s victory, like Clinton’s, would be historic. Not only would she be the first American Indian woman to serve in Congress, she’d be the first openly gay person to serve Montana in Congress and the first woman to win a House seat in the state since 1940. But she’s going to have to beat an incumbent who talks a lot like Trump — and has proved similarly resilient — to get there. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, is one of the few politicians who was willing to be seen speaking onstage at the Republican National Convention, and went so far as to say he’d be willing to be Trump’s vice-president. The GOP seems prepared to defend the seat with some national flair if necessary; Representative Trey Gowdy, the chair of the House Benghazi Committee, already campaigned with Zinke in August.
Zinke was vying to be Trump’s VP—need we say more?
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