U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke and Democrat Monica Tranel are running in the 1st Congressional District race in Montana in 2024. (Credit to Ryan Zinke (Gage Skidmore)/Monica Tranel)
Western district Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke and Democratic challenger Monica Tranel faced off in a debate last week that will likely be the first and last of the campaign, explaining their differences on issues like housing, the border and public lands.
The 30-minute debate, hosted by MTN News Senior Political Reporter Jonathon Ambarian, aired Saturday just as absentee ballots were arriving in some Montana voters’ mailboxes. The debate provided Montanans with an updated look at the two candidates who are squaring off again this year in the 1st Congressional District race, which Zinke won by about 3 percentage points two years ago.
In recent weeks, polling has suggested a close race again between the two this year, and the Cook Political Report shifted the race from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican,” showing that organization believes Tranel might have a shot on Nov. 5.
The debate started with a question on why voters in western Montana should make the switch and support Tranel this year over Zinke, who is also a former Interior Secretary under former President Donald Trump but was forced to resign in 2018 amid ethics violations and misconduct allegations.
Affordable housing
Tranel dug into what has been her signature issue this campaign: housing. “Housing and housing and housing,” she said, pointing out that Zinke operates two rental properties in Whitefish, one of which he has declared as his primary residence, and blaming Zinke and other rental operators for a lack of housing supply and ballooning costs in Montana. She said Zinke’s rental properties cost $10,000 and $16,000 a month, respectively.
“This is exploiting an issue that we need to have fixed for personal enrichment,” she said. “And we need a change.”
Zinke responded by saying Tranel had spent the past two election cycles “viciously and falsely” attacking him, his family and businesses. Tranel has now filmed two advertisements at properties owned by Zinke this year, and Zinke said the latest ad, released last week, made his family “no longer feel safe” and claimed Tranel “finds it necessary to violate our property.”
Asked what role Congress could play to keep living expenses down for Montanans, Zinke attacked the Inflation Reduction Act, claiming it is what caused global inflation during the Covid-19 pandemic and spiked the cost of groceries and gas, as well as mortgage interest rates. (The United States’ GDP growth from 2023 to 2024 beat most other areas of the world with similar economies.)
Zinke’s solution is to “bring down government spending,” he said. He pointed to his cosponsoring the HELPER Act, which aims to create a program within the Department of Housing and Urban Development to give mortgage assistance to police and sheriffs, K-12 teachers, firefighters and first responders. It was introduced in May 2023 and has yet to be heard in either chamber.
Zinke also pointed to permitting and infrastructure costs as one of the reasons he believes housing costs have skyrocketed. A Montana Department of Labor and Industry report from last month showed the average home value in Montana in the first half of 2024 was $470,000, a 70% increase during the last five years. The report described housing affordability as the “most acute” concerns among Western U.S. residents.
Tranel, of Missoula, nodded to her housing plan to address the issues, which includes cutting down on private-equity-owned homes in Montana and vacation rentals and plans to utilize housing tax credits for middle-class Montanans. She said Congress can help with some regulations, including separating land value from value of the structure on the land, and accused Zinke of taking credit for federal funding for projects in Montana funded under the Biden administration that he voted against.
Immigration
The next topic was immigration, also a top issue among Montana voters, according to polling in recent months. The candidates were asked about the drop in reported crossings and asylum seekers this year compared to years past.
Zinke chastised Tranel for supporting the bipartisan border security bill scuttled by Trump earlier this year, saying, as have many Congressional Republicans, that the Senate and Biden should have instead accepted the House-passed immigration bill that received little support from senators, even among Republicans.
“We have a border problem. It is absolutely fixable, but it’s not fixable by allowing 1.8 million people to come into this country before you turn the spigot off,” Zinke said.
Tranel accused Zinke of playing politics with the border security bills and failing to vote for the bipartisan bill, which she said would have helped address the amount of fentanyl coming into the U.S. from Mexico and added thousands of border agents.
“We need to stop it. Ryan Zinke is playing games, and we need to do better. We can’t play games with Montana lives,” she said. “We have to vote for legislation that was there, and Zinke could have voted on it and didn’t.”
Zinke responded by saying that traffickers of all types were crossing the southern border and that “the wall needs to be built” and so-called “sanctuary cities” disbanded.
Tax reform
With tax reform on next year’s agenda because of the expiration of Trump-era tax cuts, the candidates were asked about their tax plans and if they wanted to extend the ones from the Trump administration, which include large cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Tranel said she does not want to extend the Trump-era tax cuts, saying they went to the wealthiest people and corporations who were not paying their fair share.
“What we are seeing across this western district of Montana right now is people really feeling squeezed out,” Tranel said. “I champion tax cuts for the middle class, and what that looks like is making sure that we’re able to get into homes that we can afford and pay for … instead of being stuck in constant rent mode.”
Zinke said he believes if the Trump-era tax cuts are not extended, farmers, ranchers and small businesses will suffer. He said if they don’t pass, there “won’t be a farm and ranch left in Montana” and said large corporations provide many jobs in Montana and need a “competitive” tax structure to thrive.
Tranel accused Zinke and fellow Republican members of Congress of not governing at all, much less for the middle class.
“He has been a part of the most dysfunctional, chaotic, unproductive Congress in our nation’s history,” Tranel said. “We need to have somebody who is going to roll up their sleeves.”
Abortion, education and public lands
The candidates were also asked about Constitutional Initiative 128, which aims to enshrine abortion in Montana’s constitution, and if they would support regulations at the federal level that would be more restrictive than the state constitution should the initiative pass.
Zinke said he is a pro-life Catholic who does not agree with a federal ban that would contain no exceptions for instances of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life was in danger. But he said the initiative “has serious problems” and, like many Republicans this cycle, falsely hinted that the broad allowances under the initiative would allow Montana mothers to choose to abort their babies “moments before birth.” He also added that Americans should focus on birth control “to get ahead of the problem.”
Tranel said she supported protections that were in place under Roe vs. Wade, which the U.S Supreme Court overturned in 2022. She blamed Zinke of voting for the “most extreme” abortion restrictions.
Both said they supported Good Neighbor Authority to allow state forest projects on federal lands and foster fuel reduction efforts. Tranel said she wanted the federal government to work with mill companies to be sure they have an ongoing supply of wood to work with so fewer go out of business.
Zinke said lawsuits from environmental groups have destroyed the timber business in Montana and said more infrastructure was needed in communities like Seeley Lake, where Pyramid went out of business this year in part because employees could not find affordable housing nearby.
On the topic of education, both said they believed Montana teachers should be paid better and be able to afford housing. Zinke also quickly turned to another common topic this cycle pushed by Republicans, transgender athletes playing women’s sports. He said supporting transgender athletes is “absolutely nuts.”
This year, in separate instances, Tranel, a former Olympic rower, said she thought transgender children should be able to participate in sports, and later that “you should be competing in sports based on your gender.”
Closing statements
In her closing statements, Tranel focused again on housing, saying she’d put 50,000 miles on her minivan this cycle traveling the western district and talking with voters, who all said they need housing support from the local, state and federal governments.
“We all need to be at the table talking with each other,” she said. “This is my home. I live here. I’m raising my kids here. I am deeply, deeply invested in Montana. I am asking you to vote the way we voted when I was growing up – we voted for the person, not the party.”
In his closing, Zinke said he will focus on bringing housing interest rates down, border security, cost of living, and public lands if re-elected.
“I’m an optimist and I humbly ask for your vote,” Zinke said.
Ballots went out to the roughly 502,000 absentee voters in Montana last Friday. As of Monday morning, just more than 2,200 had been returned. The election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 5.