Gov. Greg Gianforte and Ryan Busse. (Photos courtesy Governor’s Office, by Nicole Girten, Daily Montanan)
Gov. Greg Gianforte is sitting pretty — pretty enough for a Republican incumbent in a red state.
But Democrat Ryan Busse is aggressive. He’s throwing punches and hitting his multimillionaire businessman-turned-politician opponent where it hurts — people’s pocketbooks.
That Gianforte and Busse both emerged victors in this month’s primary is no surprise, and smart money is on the Republican to take it home in November’s general election.
Gianforte blew all three other gubernatorial candidates in the primary out of the water with the volume of votes he earned.
But the incumbent has weaknesses to exploit too. Compared to his lesser-known, poorly-funded Republican competitor, he also had a relatively lackluster performance.
Busse, the former gun manufacturer executive who earned a national name for himself with his inside look at the firearms industry with the book “Gunfight,” had an even bigger bite taken out of his potential support from a primary opponent who admitted he didn’t campaign or raise one cent.
(From Montana Secretary of State’s Office)
But Busse is the newcomer, and in some ways, he’s also got an easy target.
Gianforte could have pressed to keep residential property tax increases in check with a rate change, but he didn’t; he’s irked members of his own party; and he has a “my way or the highway” attitude, as one political analyst put it.
Nonetheless, the governor’s seat is Gianforte’s to lose, and he doesn’t need to do much to keep it in a Republican stronghold such as Montana. Jessi Bennion, political analyst with Montana State University in Bozeman, said she’s seen a lot of private polls, and Gianforte usually has an edge.
“Gianforte consistently has the highest favorabilities compared to the other statewides and federal (politicians),” Bennion said (she said U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, also has high rankings).
Lee Banville, with the University of Montana in Missoula, said it will be hard for the messages from gubernatorial candidates to break through to voters with the big-money U.S. Senate race underway.
But he said the winner will have more influence on Montanans than even the president.
“This is the race that will have the most direct effects on people’s lives,” Banville said. “ … This person is the person who will shape Montana more than really anybody else.”
***
In 2020, Gianforte won his race for governor — he touted more votes in a governor’s race than any before in the state — and he’s pushed his pro-business, pro-life “Montana Comeback Plan” since.
Gov. Greg Gianforte touts historic tax cuts during the 2023 Montana Legislature. (Keila Szpaller/The Daily Montanan)
He led an increase in the business equipment tax exemption, signed more than a dozen bills to curtail abortion (although ones later blocked in court), put out a budget with plenty of money for public colleges and universities, and oversees a state that’s marked record unemployment.
Banville said Gianforte believes in core religious values and is culturally conservative, and people on both sides of the aisle have found his policies “profoundly upsetting.” Yet he said the governor is also a traditional Republican working on economic development for Montana.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he still resonates with a pretty broad base,” Banville said.
In the primary, Gianforte earned 75% of the Republican vote. That tally is 144,694 votes, a comfortable cushion above Busse’s 70,838 votes.
But Republican Tanner Smith, a state representative from Lakeside who lobs criticisms at Gianforte from the right, still earned 25% without the name recognition and without the war chest.
(Smith believes he should have earned more: “There’s no one that likes Greg in Lake County.”)
(Paul Pope, faculty member at Montana State University-Billings. Provided by MSU-Billings.)
Pope said incumbents have a roughly 95% re-election rate, and one who gets beat either has “an amazing opponent” or “did a really bad job.” And he said Montanans don’t like switching governors unless they’re termed out.
But the primary outcome is telling.
“Even though he still got 75% of the vote in the primary, which is not surprising, it suggests to me that he has some weaknesses,” Pope said.
He and other political experts said the hard charging tone from Busse and running mate Raph Graybill is a good strategy. However, Pope said it’s not up to their campaign alone to try to capitalize on those weaknesses, and help from the Democratic party is anemic.
“Democrats haven’t been showing up and promoting their candidates well in this state,” Pope said. “They have incredibly weak Republican candidates that win easily here in this state because the Democrats don’t put in the effort, at least from the voter’s perspective.”
***
Busse didn’t fare well either in the primary, relatively speaking. Democrat Jim Hunt filed to run out of curiosity, got too busy with his law practice to campaign, decided it was unethical to then ask people for money, and still took 29% of the Democratic vote.
He attributes his success to name recognition from his earlier campaign for Congress, although it was in 2008: “When I look at the counties I was a little higher in, I campaigned in those counties when I was running for Congress.”
Smith sees Gianforte and Busse as two peas in a pod when it comes to the future of Montana and things like Medicaid expansion and a sales tax — “Montana is going to have the same outcome whether it’s a Democrat like Busse or a RINO like Greg.” (RINO is Republican In Name Only. Both candidates have stated their opposition to a sales tax.)
Hunt, though, is asking his supporters to cast their votes in the fall for Busse. He said Republicans have controlled the governor’s office and two-thirds of the Montana Legislature, yet they still fail to take responsibility for the consequences of their property tax increases.
“I think Montanans don’t like that,” Hunt said.
Ryan Busse addresses a crowd at a rally
urging Gov. Greg Gianforte to accept $10 million in PEBT funding his administration has this year chosen to decline on Monday, July 10, 2023. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)
Busse agrees. He and Graybill, a lawyer who has a winning record filing constitutional challenges to bills Gianforte has signed, are hammering the Republican administration on social media and on the trail — and having fun with it.
In a recent post, Busse lambasts Gianforte for leaving Montana for Italy when flooding was expected and a historic Yellowstone River deluge ended up taking out homes. Busse called it a “Montana horror story,” and a recent New York Times story noted the aggressive nature of his campaign, too.
In a phone interview, Busse said he won’t pull punches when it comes to things like “wildlife being commercialized” and threatened rivers. He said Gianforte “wants to be in the doctor’s office with women,” and the ways Gianforte is changing the state are “wrong and dangerous.”
“I am not going to be a person who pretends those are small things,” Busse said.
Fox News also highlighted the Democrat and once-firearms executive for winning the primary in Montana.
***
(Faculty member Jessi Bennion, Montana State University-Bozeman. Provided by MSU.)
Political experts argue Busse’s frontal assault on Gianforte is a sound tactic, and Bennion, with MSU-Bozeman, said the attack on property tax increases is a good play. At the same time, she said she isn’t sure if voters will agree on who is to blame.
“We’ve all felt that in our pocketbooks, and I think it’s a smart campaign decision,” Bennion said. “I don’t know if people are putting that on the governor.”
But Banville, with UM, said people are feeling pinched at the grocery store and with their property tax bills. If they hear it’s the governor’s fault — even if it’s complicated to place the blame on him — that could be “a potent message.”
“They’re certainly mad at (President) Joe Biden about it, and they could be mad at Greg Gianforte about it, too,” Banville said. “That could spell trouble for the governor.”
Gianforte’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, but the governor has been pushing his attention to the economy in his own campaign. Just before the primary, he had spent $750,000 on TV, cable and digital advertising to run through the November election.
In a recent social media post, Gianforte blames “Biden’s inflationary agenda” and touts property tax rebates and income tax relief he delivered. He also started a property tax task force with heavy-hitters from across Montana to come up with some fixes.
Families remain pressured, though. Pope said even though the economy is booming, price gouging is taking place, the increases hurt incumbents, and the property tax issue can make a dent in Gianforte’s support.
“That’s really hurting people. The financial stress is real,” Pope said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
***
Financial concerns aren’t Gianforte’s only vulnerability, though.
Gianforte knows a thing or two about being in charge, having started a tech business in Bozeman that later sold for roughly $1.8 billion. But the ease with which he exerts power in public office has turned off even some Republicans.
“That’s his biggest problem,” said Beaverhead County Commissioner Mike McGinley, also a Republican.
McGinley led the charge in the fight with the administration over property tax increases this past year, and he said other Republicans were trying to send Gianforte a message with their votes for Smith. But he said it’s tough to beat an incumbent, “and a rich one.”
Republicans care about property taxes, public lands, even Medicaid expansion (“it’s just too big of an economic driver in a rural state,” he said, although his sentiment is hardly universal with the GOP), but McGinley said Gianforte’s “take your way and go” attitude is difficult to stomach.
“It’s a good talking point, that a businessman can run government, but you’ve got to have the right mentality and take consideration of other people. You can’t get your way all the time,” McGinley said.
Hunt, the Democrat who didn’t campaign against Busse, pointed to the governor’s bypassing $10 million in federal money for school children’s meals as one example of him going his own way and being out of touch with Montanans.
Pope puts it this way: “Even though we know it’s a conservative state, it’s a conservative libertarian state, it’s not a conservative authoritarian state.”
But Gianforte is more on the authoritarian side of conservative, he said.
“They’re not necessarily about listening to voters,” Pope said, although he noted all governments are authoritarian to some degree. “It’s their-way-or-the-highway kind of attitude. They use government to enforce a lot of control on people.”
***
(Lee Banville, faculty member at the University of Montana. Provided by UM.)
Outside forces will influence this campaign, and Banville pointed to three factors. First, he said, is the presidential race, and clearly Montanans will favor Trump.
However, he said, the degree to which voters are motivated and enthusiastic about Trump will make a difference: “That could matter in terms of turnout.”
The other is the U.S. Senate race and, Banville said, “the metric ton of cash that is going to be dropped.” Political control of the Senate hangs in the balance, and the fight between incumbent Democrat Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy will draw tens of millions of dollars and may dominate both airwaves and attention spans.
“They could drown everything out, and they could have a destabilizing effect,” he said.
The third is abortion. Abortion is legal in Montana through privacy protection in the state constitution, but signature collection is underway to enshrine abortion itself in the constitution. If it’s on the ballot, it could motivate voters, Banville said.
Generally, he said, Busse needs every last factor to line up for him to win, and Gianforte won’t lose unless every last thing falls apart for him.
***
Busse is pushing a populist message that the “bajillionaire” incumbent is out of touch with Montana values. And he said it’s resonating.
Every day, he gains more name recognition, more Republicans tell him he has their vote, and he regularly hears from people who will be voting for him and Trump: “It’s a cool thing to see people’s national politics kind of float away.”
In the primary, more people chose the Republican ballot than the Democratic ballot, and Pope said that should worry Democrats for the general election. But if people see Gianforte start doing more campaigning, he said, it’s probably an indication he received polling that suggests he’s in trouble.
A loss isn’t likely, though.
“He can do almost nothing and probably still win at this point,” Pope said.
“But if Democrats really come in loaded for bear, as they say, and go after Gianforte on those sensitive points, I think Busse has a real chance. But the campaign has to get broader.”
The post Montana governor’s race pits known Republican against aggressive Democrat appeared first on Daily Montanan.