9 August 2022 — 1435 mdt

The predicament of Montana’s Democrats

The Thin Blue Decline in the Last Best Place

Introduction, By James Conner. Fourteen years ago, Democrats held seven of Montana’s eight statewide partisan policy making offices. The exception: Montana’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, held by Billings Republican Denny Rehberg. Today, after winning all statewide races on the 2020 ballot, Republicans hold all those offices except for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Big Sandy farmer Jon Tester.

What happened? Bill Lombardi, former communications director for Sen. Max Baucus, former aide to Jon Tester, gave the question hard thought, arriving at answers many Democrats won’t like but should ponder. Here, in the longest and most important essay ever published by Flathead Memo, is his analysis.