U.S. Rep Ryan Zinke raises his fist in celebration during his election night party in Whitefish. (Photo by Micah Drew, Daily Montanan)
In lockstep with a majority of the nation, Montana voters moved the Treasure State another step to the right of the political spectrum, with Republican candidates sweeping races up and down the ballot. GOP candidates won every federal and statewide race, as well as all three seats on the Public Service Commission.
“The people of Montana have spoken loud and clear — the Treasure State is now bright red! In a stunning show of support, the GOP emerged victorious in all major races,” said Montana Republican Party Chairman Don “K” Kaltschmidt in a statement. “We couldn’t be prouder of our dedicated Republican candidates who worked tirelessly during this election cycle. At every level—local, state, and federal—our Republican elected officials will continue to fight for Montanans and defend our way of life. Together, we will make America great again!”
County-level analysis of voter trends showed that most of the nation’s counties shifted to the right compared to 2020. In Montana, all but seven of the state’s counties followed that trend — and the seven counties that inched to the left still voted for President-elect Donald Trump by more than 50 points.
For Republicans, the biggest win of the night was Tim Sheehy’s victory over Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. The addition of Sheehy to the state’s congressional delegation marks the first time in more than a century that Montana will not send a Democrat to Washington D.C. Montana last had two Republican senators serving at the same time in 1911.
“Obviously Montana has been trending red for a long time,” said University of Montana political science professor Rob Saldin. “We could see that starting in the legislature a long time ago, and that’s sort of the the tip of the spear, the leading indicator. It’s people like Tester, who have been around for a long time and have their own brand district from the party, that can buck the trend, but eventually it just gets to be too much.”
Saldin noted that Tester significantly outperformed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who earned less than 40% of the vote, but “when you’re starting from a 20-point deficit, that’s just too big of a hill.”
“That’s just too big of a margin to think you can have down-ballot Democrats hang on,” he added. “For a long time you could squint and think that Montana is a purple state, but a lot of the underlying dynamics were always pushing in this direction. It’s just finally materialized here.”
Montana voters set other records on Tuesday night. Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, who handily won her re-election bid with 62% of the vote, said at her election night party that the state had set a record for voter registration. Data on the Secretary of State’s website on Wednesday showed 802,174 registered voters as of Wednesday morning.
In the last general election four years ago, Montana set a record with 696,262 registered voters.
While election officials continue to tally votes in Montana’s largest counties, voter turnout hovers around 70%, with around 560,000 votes counted so far. That’s the second highest number of ballots cast in a Montana election, second only to 2020, when 98% of Montanans voted by mail and turnout exceeded 81%.