30 September 2022 — 0916 mdt

Yes, Ryan Zinke is a de facto dual citizen of Montana
and California: that won’t hurt him with most voters.

By James Conner

 Rewritten and updated,  13 & 17 October 2023. Although approximately half of the people living in Montana were born in another state or country, a loud contingent of the native born believe they possess a political birthright conferred on them by their parents’ decision to bring them into the world under the Big Sky. And so, every two years, when elections are held, they piously proclaim their eternal moral and political superiority, denouncing politicians of the other party who were born elsewhere or who spent too much time elsewhere, perhaps with a very pretty woman.

Some of Montana’s Democrats have, in recent years, taken great exception to Gov. Greg Gianforte’s coming from New Jersey, and Rep. Matt Rosendale’s hailing from Maryland (and compounding that sin by retaining his Marylander accent). These Democrats are reduced to sputtering indignation by that son of Whitefish, former Secretary of the Interior, state legislator, and U.S. Representative, Ryan Zinke, whom they believe spends too much time in Santa Barbara, California, where his wife, Lola, owns a multi-million-dollar estate by the ocean.

And it’s true: Zinke does spend a lot of time in California. For years that has outraged Democrats, who argue he’s not a legitimate Montana resident, his ownership of property in his home town, Whitefish, notwithstanding. Every time Zinke is on the ballot, Democrats try to make his residence an issue — and every time he’s on the ballot, his de facto dual residency does not hurt him with the voters.

This is one of those years. Zinke, elected Montana’s representative in the U.S. House in 2014 and 2016, won, in a rather close election, the Republican nomination for Montana’s new western congressional district (he beat Olszewski by two points in a five-person primary; download county level spreadsheet). Shortly before the primary ballots were mailed, Politico, no doubt acting on opposition research supplied by Democrats and/or Zinke’s Republican primary opponents, reported that Lola, who is not on the ballot, had declared California as her primary residence. Zinke maintains his legal residence in Whitefish. That outrages some, but it does not outrage me.

And it won’t outrage the overwhelming majority of Montanans. They’ve long accepted he’s a de facto resident of both California and Montana. For these voters, Zinke’s being married to a drop dead gorgeous woman who owns a fancy estate on the fabled California coast is something to admire, not loath. What concerns them is not where he hangs his hat but what he does for them as a member of Congress.

They like his biography: a local boy from Whitefish who made good as a college football star, naval officer, Navy SEAL, state legislator, member of Congress, and Secretary of the Interior. They like his easy going manner. They see him as a man of action, a results oriented guy who gets things done, as a likable rogue who’s “one of them.” They gladly would live a similar life. They’re not troubled by his spending time with his pretty wife in another state. Nor are they much put off by his embrace of Donald Trump and Trump’s Great White Hunter senior son, the prairie dog shooter. Yes, Zinke sometimes seems a bit shady, but hey, he gets things done — and getting things done is what counts.

That reality frustrates Montana’s Democratic activists to the point some may need psychotherapy. They’re simply incapable of understanding why so many of the white working class voters who dominate Montana’s electorate see in Zinke virtues that to liberals are self-evident vices. And so they scream, “You’re a no good Californian, Zinke, who’s always being investigated for doing something we think is unsavory.” when they should be shouting “You can’t be Montana’s man because you're kissing up to the worst liar in the history of our Republic.”

Zinke’s Democratic opponent is Monica Tranel, an attorney and expert on energy economics. She has the credentials to mount a strong campaign, and to be an excellent representative, but thus far she has not raised the millions of dollars she needs to deliver heavy fusillades of her message to the voters in the western district. Nor has she raised enough of a ruckus to make the voters think hard about the election and not vote on autopilot.

If Zinke wins the western district election, he’ll be in a position to mount a powerful challenge to Sen. Jon Tester in 2024. That’s what Montana’s Democrats fear, and why they’re still arguing, foolishly and futiley, that his wife’s legal residence means he’s not a true Montana resident.