Libertarian Mark Wicks stumps in the Flathead

In the less than three months since the race began to fill the vacancy in Montana’s at-large U.S. House seat, political groups have spent millions of dollars in television ads portraying the Republican and Democratic hopefuls as beholden to out-of-state interests or out of touch with “Montana values.” Against that largely negative backdrop, Libertarian candidate Mark Wicks is presenting himself as an outlet to what he sees as growing disillusionment with the two dominant parties in American politics.

“Most people just want to be left alone, to live their life, and that’s the Libertarian principle. If you’re not hurting me, you’re not hurting anybody else, go ahead and do it and that’s fine,” Wicks said Saturday. “People should be happy to do whatever they want, so long as they’re not hurting anybody else.”

The 47-year-old rancher and Army veteran from Inverness was speaking during an interview at his “Ugly Truck Contest” campaign stop in Whitefish, an event built around his closing statement during the special election’s only debate last month. He compared Republican candidate and Bozeman businessman Greg Gianforte to a “luxury car” that is “only comfortable when he’s parked at the country club with other luxury cars,” and Democratic candidate Rob Quist to a “little, half-ton pickup” that breaks down easily despite having a “great sound system.”

Wicks sees himself as a “work truck” candidate, running reliably on small-government ideals and equipped with the tools needed to “get the job done” in Congress.

“When I really started thinking about doing it was right after Trump’s election, and we were seeing rioting in the streets. The country started looking like it was tearing itself apart,” he said. “It was getting very obvious that we need some change in Washington.”

Hailing from a remote, rural community on the Hi-Line, Wicks said that his political philosophy entered his life from an early age. Following a violent Memorial Day storm that knocked out power to most of his agricultural community on the outskirts of Havre, he said the farmers banded together to prop up telephone poles and reconnect electrical wiring, so that the electric company had only to flip the breakers to restore power to a town that had been without electricity for five days.

“They were just amazed that we went out and did that,” Wicks recalled. “But that’s how people work together out there. They didn’t need people from the outside.”

Wicks describes himself as a “Constitutional Libertarian,” meaning his fiscal conservatism and liberal stances on social issues (pro-choice and favoring marijuana legalization) are focused through a constitutional lens that questions the federal government’s right to regulate.

Notably, he feels that health care falls outside the purview of federal jurisdiction. But he also acknowledged that it’s “a complicated issue.”

“We’re gonna have to keep some Medicaid. We’re going to have to work on that make sure it’s viable and protect these people,” he said. “... One way or another, we’re gonna pay for this, whether they’re walking in and getting in the door and not paying their bill in the hope we’re gonna pick it up on part of our bill, or we’re gonna pay an insurance program to help them.

Wicks faces a steep uphill climb against the other two candidates on the ballot ­— a Republican who narrowly lost a hard-fought campaign for governor last year and a Democrat who has campaigned aggressively across the Treasure State since his March nomination.

While Montana voters are historically more receptive to Libertarian candidates for federal office than the national average, U.S. House and presidential candidates still only attract 3 to 5 percent of the state’s vote. Last November, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson received 5.7 percent of the vote in Montana, improving over the 2.9 percent he captured in 2012. And longtime Libertarian Mike Fellows averaged around 4 percent in his recent bids for Montana’s U.S. House seat, peaking at 5.7 percent in 2010.

But Flathead County’s chapter of the Libertarian Party believes the state’s electorate feels increasingly under-represented by the two major parties, and that the appetite to take politics in a new direction is growing, despite the arguments that third-parties act as “spoilers” by siphoning votes away from voters’ second-choice candidates.

“You kind of gotta bite the bullet and realize that your vote isn’t for the opposition. If you vote Libertarian, you’re voting for a Libertarian future,” Flathead Libertarian Party Vice-Chairman Sid Daoud said Friday during the group’s “Liberty Think Bash” event.

Both he and Wicks saw the outsider candidate’s inclusion in the April 29 televised debate, hosted by KTVH in Great Falls, as a victory in itself.

“If there’s two podiums there, you get one guy standing up and saying ‘I’m not him, so you should vote for me,’” Daoud said. “If you get a third podium up there, then you have to actually stand for something.”

While only about a dozen supporters milled around the Firebrand Hotel’s parking lot for Wicks’ “Ugly Truck” campaign rally, Larry Seydell represented the type of disillusioned voter with whom Wicks is hoping to connect.

“I’m just tired of it. The millions of dollars they spend on bullsh--, they could have done a lot of good stuff with it,” the Columbia Falls carpenter said of the largely negative campaign advertisements he’s seen so far in the race.

Seydell happened to hear Wicks during a talk-radio interview on Friday, and said he was struck by the message “the third guy” presented and decided to drop in on Saturday’s event to meet him in person.

“I was impressed. I think I’m going to vote after all,” Seydell said. “... Here we have a real guy with a real job and real problems like we all have.”

Although early forecasts gave Gianforte a substantial lead over Quist, recent polls indicate the race is narrowing to single digits.

Some Flathead Libertarians at Friday’s and Saturday’s events worried that support for Wicks could erode as Election Day nears, with voters increasingly worried that a third-party vote will throw the election to what they see as the worse of two evils.

Longtime Libertarian and Bigfork resident Angie Killian said during Saturday’s rally that her friends ­­— both Republican and Democrat — have pleaded with her to not “throw her vote away” on a third-party candidate.

“I would rather see the Quist people vote for Wicks, and then maybe he could have a chance against Gianforte,” Killian said.

Since casting her ballot for President Ronald Reagan in 1984, she was mostly a Republican voter until supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson’s bid for the nation’s top office in 2012. For Killian, Republican stances on gay marriage, medical marijuana and abortion rights ultimately moved her to support the third party.

“I’d love to see a Libertarian in Congress. I think we need to start making breakthroughs to get away from the two-party system,” she said. “If we all voted for who we believe in, we might have a chance here.”

Montana’s special election for its statewide U.S. House district takes place May 25.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.