MISSOULA — It has been more than 30 years since a Democratic candidate has been elected to represent Montana in the U.S. House. With the current national political environment – and with incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke retiring – the party is hopeful this could be their year to break through.
Four men – Ryan Busse, Russ Cleveland, Sam Forstag and Matt Rains – are seeking the Democratic nomination in the 1st Congressional District, which covers much of western Montana, including Kalispell, Missoula, Butte and Bozeman.
The winner of the Democratic primary will move on to the general election. They’ll face the winner of a four-way race for the Republican nomination, along with Libertarian candidate Nick Sheedy, of Columbia Falls. Kimberly Persico, of Hot Springs, is attempting to collect enough signatures to get on the general election ballot as an independent.
See full interviews with all four Democratic candidates for the western district below:
Ryan Busse:
Coming into the campaign, Ryan Busse was likely the most familiar name in the Democratic field for many voters. He announced a run for U.S. House just over a year after his campaign as the Democratic nominee for governor in 2024. He told MTN he believes he can follow the same path as former Gov. Brian Schweitzer – one of his supporters – who lost his first statewide election before a successful campaign four years later.
“It was a tough election two years ago, but I learned lessons,” he said. “We know how to raise money, we know how to fight, we know how to develop a campaign team, we know what to do – we know what we did right, we know what we did wrong.”
(Watch MTN's extended interview with Ryan Busse.)
Busse, of Kalispell, is a former firearms executive who became an author and activist. He says in talking to voters, he’s seen them increasingly focused on and frustrated with economic issues.
“We've had this sort of partisan fever laid over the top of us, where we've been told we have to hate our neighbors or be involved in every manner of culture warring,” he said. “I just don't feel that anymore.”
He says health care has been the clear top issue for those he’s spoken to, and dealing with it is the best way for Congress to improve affordability.
“I think we're 50 years behind the curve,” he said. “This country – we should have universal health care here. We have a system that's focused on health insurance companies that are profiting $71 billion a year, making health care more expensive for the people who work here, live here, make our communities go.”
Busse says the country is in crisis, and that the Democratic nominee needs to be ready and willing to fight.
“People are ready for something better,” he said.
Russ Cleveland:
Russ Cleveland, of St. Regis, has spent longer on the campaign trail than the other Democrats in the western district race, announcing his run last April. He says that’s given him a chance to hear directly from voters what they’re worried about.
“The themes were the same: It's getting too expensive to live in Montana; if you're not independently wealthy, you're getting pushed out,” he said. “Rural Montana is on the collapse. We are losing major industry like we did right here with the closure of a sawmill. It's getting harder to find jobs that can actually pay the bills, people are having to commute longer times just to make ends meet, working two, three, four jobs – and yet we have a government that is spending $2 billion a day in Iran.”
(Watch MTN's extended interview with Russ Cleveland.)
Cleveland grew up in Montana. He returned with his family in 2021, after serving in the Navy, working in finance and running a childcare business that became one of Colorado’s largest.
He’s also put health care at the center of his campaign, saying he was driven to run because of the loss of his daughter to leukemia and the Trump administration’s subsequent cuts to medical research funding.
“We should be focused on things like housing and health care and affordability, child care – so what makes me the best candidate for this is my career covers those items,” he said.
Cleveland says the Democratic Party has lost sight of what working-class Montanans need. He’s made a point of saying he only wants campaign contributions from individuals, and that he hasn’t been accepting money from PACs or publicizing endorsements from other politicians.
“I really believe if we want to restore, authentic representation for Montanans, we have to do it in a way that doesn't rely on huge amounts of money or endorsements to get there,” he said.
Sam Forstag:
Sam Forstag, of Missoula, has made the case that his life experiences give him the best perspective to relate to disaffected voters in the western district.
“I'm the only person in this race who knows what it's been like for the last five or 10 or 15 years to be working two or three jobs at a time and still ending up paying my rent on a credit card,” he told MTN.
(Watch MTN's extended interview with Sam Forstag.)
Forstag spent eight years as a wildland firefighter, including four as a smokejumper, and he’s been vice president of the local National Federation of Federal Employees union. He says fighting back against federal budget cuts that affected agencies like the U.S. Forest Service has been a major priority.
Last year, Forstag spoke at a rally in Missoula hosted by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom have now endorsed his congressional campaign.
Forstag wants to see Congress take a larger role in investing in housing assistance, health care and expanding childcare and early education.
“It's going to cost a lot of money; we've got the money,” he said. “We are spending it on tax cuts for the richest people in this country and for large corporations. That is not where the need is right now – the need is with people who need those resources.”
Forstag says Democrats are losing ground with union voters and others they need to be successful in this state.
“If we want to fix that, if we want to win back working-class people and union members and young folks who stayed home or swung to the right, let's run a working-class person, let’s run a union member – because we don't need to settle for one millionaire or another every time we go to vote for our congressperson,” he said.
Matt Rains:
Matt Rains has argued that Democrats can win the western congressional district, if they put forward a candidate who knows how to relate to voters there regardless of party.
“Right now, Montanans are still hungry for somebody in Congress, Senate, House, that just gives a damn,” he said “It's been inspiring to be out there. People want to be heard, they want to have their issues listened to, they want to know that somebody is there taking note of them.”
(Watch MTN's extended interview with Matt Rains.)
Rains says his background makes him the right candidate for that job. A native of Simms, he grew up in a ranching family. He served in the Army, worked as a photojournalist and an engineer, then returned to the ranch with his wife.
The former chief of staff for the Montana Farmers Union, Rains says people in the state have already been burdened by inflation, and policies like President Donald Trump’s tariffs have only made the situation worse.
“Montana is an export state, and we lost trade partners across the world: Asia, India used to buy a lot of chickpeas from Montana, and now they're going to Brazil and Australia,” he said. “Some of the biggest markets in the world, biggest population centers have turned their back on us. That is decimating Montana.”
Rains is the only Democratic candidate who has run for Congress before. He spent several months campaigning for U.S. House in 2019, when Montana still had only one statewide House seat. While he lives outside the western district, candidates are only required to live in the state they’re running in – and he says Simms is centrally located enough to serve voters there.
Rains says the Trump administration has been “playing games” with programs important to Montanans, and he wants a chance to push back.
“We have to reverse a lot of those things that were direct attacks on Montanans,” he said.
Editor’s Note: Over the next two weeks, MTN will bring you full coverage on the candidates in each of Montana’s contested congressional primaries. You can find our coverage of the Republican candidates in the 1st Congressional District on this website.
