New Montanans more red than blue

As Montana’s population more than doubled over the last 40 years, the number of registered voters increased 175% according to state election voter data.

Those new voters are more often Republican than Democratic, according to the data service L2, which sells information about constituents, voters, and consumers.

From October 2008 through May 2024, for every two Democrats moving to Montana, slightly more than three Republicans did the same. That’s the ratio supported by L2 data indicating that during that period 13,527 voters identifiable as Republicans relocated from other states to Big Sky County, while identifiable Democratic newcomers numbered 8,548. Another 12,953 newcomers were identifiable as nonpartisan.

The key word in the findings is “identifiable.” There are seven other states that, like Montana, collect no party information on voters, including neighboring North Dakota. Washington state records voter participation in partisan presidential primaries but retains the information for only a couple of months, and only at the county level, before purging the data, according to L2.

Washington consistently shows up in migration data as a former home state of new Montanans. There are 10 states with party information practices like Washington’s.

In 2022, the estimated 5,225 new Montanans who previously lived in Washington accounted for the largest bloc of newcomers from any state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The next three states left behind by Montana newcomers in 2022 were California (4,660), Oregon (3,691), and Colorado (3,440). All three states register voters by party and report the information. The total number of newcomers to Montana that year numbered 48,165.Thirty-one states collect and report party information on voters, L2 reported. 

Paul Westcott of L2 explained that to identify movers, analysts look at a mover’s current voter file and compare it to national change-of-address data from the U.S. Postal Service. When a voter moves within a state, L2 records the relocation. When a voter moves out of state, analysts wait until that voter appears in the voter file of the new state before noting the change, at which point the voter’s information from the previous state also makes the trip in L2’s records.

Campaign operatives have attempted to determine the political leanings of voters new to Montana for several years. One Republican campaign veteran told Capitolized that interest in the voting habits of newcomers peaked after Montana’s 2020 U.S. Senate election. Polls in that cycle consistently indicated that incumbent Republican Sen. Steve Daines held a slight advantage over challenger Steve Bullock, then Montana’s second-term Democratic governor. A narrow win was expected, but Daines then won the race by 10 percentage points.

Similarly, public polls on Montana’s U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy show the number of voters identifying as independent as greater than, or on par with, the number of voters identifying as Democrats. 

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