Montana Democrats face an underfunded future

At $273 million and counting, Montana’s just-ended 2024 U.S. Senate race is the state’s most expensive political race ever, and likely its last big-dollar federal election for the foreseeable future.

Federal election data shows that when once competitive “purple states” swing definitively to one political party, election investment by national party committees and political action committees flatlines. Montana has not elected a Democrat to statewide or federal office since Tester was elected to his third term in 2018. 

The U.S. Senate race between Republican Tim Sheehy, who Montanans elected Nov. 5, and three-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester cost at least $273.3 million in spending by the candidates and independent PAC expenditures on the race. 

Tester’s spending by late October totaled $81.8 million, by far the most ever by a federal candidate committee in Montana. Sheehy’s spending amounted to $22.2 million. Millions of dollars in candidate spending won’t be added to the ledger until early next year. 

“The parties direct donors to the competitive races, and outside groups target the seats/states that are the most competitive on paper, generally,” explained Kyle Kondik, of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The center publishes Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a free weekly newsletter analyzing American politics. “Montana’s Senate seats no longer qualify — they are both held by Republicans and Montana has become a reliably Republican state at both the federal and statewide levels.”

Kondik said there may be times in the future when the state’s western U.S. House district could be competitive in a good year for Democrats. But the big-money Senate races are likely over for some time.

Federal election data shows how quickly outside congressional race money dries up for parties out of power. This year’s U.S. Senate race in North Dakota between Republican U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer and Democrat Katrina Christiansen drew no serious PAC support for Christiansen after PACs and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent $10 million on Democrat Heidi Heitkamp’s unsuccessful reelection bid in 2018. 

Cramer flipped the seat in 2018 by defeating Heitkamp. Thirty-three political committees spent money in the race.

This time out, the DSCC spent nothing on Christiansen. One PAC, Givegreen United Action, spent $6.66.

PAC funding ran to $126 million in Missouri in 2018. Claire McCaskill, part of the freshman class including Tester that flipped the Senate blue in 2006, was defending a Senate seat against Republican challenger Josh Hawley. Hawley defeated McCaskill in 2018, and easily won reelection last week as Democratic PACs and the party’s senatorial committee mostly stayed away. One PAC spent $379,165 opposing Hawley. No committee spent money supporting Democrat Lucas Kunce, who received 41.8% of the vote.

Republican Party committees and PACs also don’t stick around for races considered noncompetitive. In Rhode Island and Virginia, where Democrats flipped Senate seats in 2006 and continue to hold both, outside spending for Republicans has dried up. 

In Montana, “I think the western congressional district, the 1st congressional district, has the best chance going forward … where there might be outside money,” said Jeremy Johnson, head of the political science department at Carroll College in Helena. “But in the statewide races, Montana is not going to get that outside money unless the national Democratic Party sees proof that the Democratic candidate can compete.

“I think it’s going to have to be very grassroots-oriented, going back to the old ways of campaigning and to try to convince voters, that is literally meeting voters, community-based, and having to work on the street, because you’re not going to get the big money any more.”

The lack of funding for federal campaigns is something Montana Democrats have already dealt with, said Robyn Driscoll, who chairs the Montana Democratic Party. In 2022, without a Senate race on the ballot, there weren’t resources to get out the vote like there were this year, when registering new voters and door-to-door canvassing amounted to a multimillion-dollar effort, as revealed in federal campaign finance reports for Tester and supporting PACs.

As previously reported by Montana Free Press, Native American turnout in Montana in 2022 slumped to a 20-year low without Democrats driving turnout for a statewide candidate. Glacier County, where the Blackfeet Reservation is located, turned out just 26% of its vote in the 2022 general election. This year, with more than $1 million spent turning out the Indigenous vote statewide, Glacier County’s turnout was 61.3%, state data shows. 

Democrats are focusing more on local candidates, Driscoll said. The party has a “blue bench” coordinator to work with local government candidates. Local races have received more attention for about the past six years. The party’s executive director, Sheila Hogan, has been traveling to rural towns. It isn’t clear what’s been gained, but that’s the hard work, Driscoll said. 

“I haven’t really looked at the pickups, but it’s still laying the groundwork,” Driscoll said. “And, if the party in the future keeps it up, and keeps visiting these areas, that lays the groundwork. You’ve got to go where it’s hard. You don’t get to just sit in your bubble where you know you will have support in these safe areas.” 

U.S. Senate races have defined the political power struggle in Montana for the last 24 years, starting with the 2000 race between then U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns and Democrat Brian Schweitzer. Burns won, but Schweitzer, a newcomer, picked up 47.2% of the vote, suggesting that maybe Burns, despite having six years earlier become Montana’s first Republican to win a second Senate term, was vulnerable. 

Schweitzer snapped Republicans’ 16-year hold on the governor’s office in 2004, while Burns lost to Tester in a nail-biter, 48% to 49%, with Libertarian Stan Jones making up the difference. Thirty-nine political action committees spent money in that Senate race, more than Montana had previously experienced. The PACs favored Tester. The $19 million spent on the election was a Montana record. 

Democrats were surging, in part because they were appealing to voters in rural areas, where even their losses weren’t blowouts, as they are now. Schweitzer won 49 of Montana’s 56 counties and was reelected in 2008, Barack Obama campaigned in Montana, winning 47.3% of the vote, the largest share for a Democratic presidential candidate since Michael Dukakis in 1988. Republicans failed to produce viable candidates for U.S. Senate and governor.

Up for reelection in 2012, Tester drew a challenge from Denny Rehberg, who had a decade of comfortable wins behind him as Montana’s at-large U.S. representative. Tester won 49% of the vote to Rehberg’s 45%. Spending on that race ratcheted up to $48 million. The Supreme Court had ruled two years earlier in Citizens United that campaign spending constitutes free speech and can’t be legally limited. Super PACs funded by corporate donors spent  millions. The next time out, in 2018, expenditures hit $69.3 million. Tester won 50.3% of the vote, the high-water vote share among his Senate elections and the last time Democrats won a statewide election in Montana. 

Tom Lutey is a reporter for the Montana Free Press, a Helena-based nonprofit newsroom, and can be reached at tlutey@montanafreepress.org.