Montana

Republican Kurt Alme won the Senate seat, which Republicans already held, with 48.2% of the vote in a state Donald Trump carried by 19.9 points two years earlier. The runner-up was an independent, Seth Bodnar, who finished 10.4 points behind at 37.7% and conceded on election night; the Democrat, Alani Bankhead, ran third.¹ The House delegation went from two Republicans to one Democrat and one Republican. In the western district, Democrat Sam Forstag beat Republican Aaron Flint by 3.9 points where Trump had won by 11.6. Republican Troy Downing held the eastern district by 25.8.^{2, 3} Republicans also won both Public Service Commission seats on the ballot, Annie Bukacek by 5.4 points and Jeff Pattison by 30.7.⁴

Montana had no governor’s race this year, so the comparison with 2024 rests on the U.S. House vote. With both districts added together, Republican candidates won it by 9.6 points, down from 18.9 in 2024 and 10.5 points better for Democrats than that year’s presidential result. Democratic House candidates drew 89 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won here; Republicans drew 72 for every 100 of Trump’s. The Senate race, the most-voted contest, drew 489,119 votes in our count, 105% of the 2022 figure and 81% of the 2024 presidential vote.

The movement was concentrated in two places. The Bozeman area, which casts 11% of the vote, moved 18.5 points, from D+3.2 to D+21.7, and the Missoula area moved 17.1, from D+19.0 to D+36.2. The other cities barely shifted. The Helena area moved 3.0 points, to R+12.3, the Billings area moved 4.4 and the Great Falls area 5.2. The counties outside the five metro areas, which cast 45% of the vote, moved 9.8 points, from R+34.2 to R+24.3.

Big Horn County was the one county of 56 that changed sides. It voted for Trump by 1.8 points and for a Democrat for the U.S. House by 3.9, on 3,473 votes. The bigger movements came in places Democrats already carried. Silver Bow County, around Butte, swung furthest, from D+7.1 to D+27.0. Gallatin County, in the Bozeman area, went from D+3.2 to D+21.7 on 57,787 votes. Yellowstone County, in the Billings area, cast more votes than any other county and stayed Republican by 22.6 points. Another 10 counties moved the other way, toward the Republicans, Rosebud and Teton among them.

Republicans kept full control of state government. The governor’s office was not on the ballot, and the party held both chambers with smaller majorities: 30 of 50 Senate seats, down from 32, and 56 of 100 House seats, down from 58, in the Flathead Beacon’s report of November 8.² The totals are the Beacon’s; our count could not read every legislative district. The Montana Constitution lets the Legislature override a veto when two-thirds of the members present in each house approve the bill, and neither Republican majority reaches two-thirds of its chamber, as neither did before the election.^{2, 5}

The election changed nothing about who draws the maps or runs the elections. The constitution gives congressional and legislative districts to a commission of five citizens, none of whom may be public officials; its final plans are filed with the secretary of state and become law.⁶ State law makes the secretary of state the chief election officer, and Republican Christi Jacobsen won a second term in that office in 2024.^{7, 8}

The change inside the majority came a week later. On November 11 House Republicans chose Rep. Katie Zolnikov of Billings as speaker over the sitting speaker, Brandon Ler, and she said her focus would be on “lowering taxes, limiting government and strengthening Montana families.”⁹ Senate Republicans renominated Matt Regier as Senate president, and Democrats chose Sen. Laura Smith of Helena and Rep. SJ Howell of Missoula as minority leaders.⁹ The full chambers vote when the session opens on January 4.^{9, 10} The governor has emphasized a flat income tax as a priority for 2027, the Beacon reported.²

A ballot issue in Montana passes with a majority of those voting on it, and that holds for a constitutional initiative as well as a statute.^{11, 12} Voters approved all three statewide measures by about two to one.³ CI-132, which adds to the constitution that judicial elections shall remain nonpartisan, drew 68.2% yes in our count.³ CI-133, at 65.4%, adds a right to initiative and referendum to the constitution’s Declaration of Rights. I-194, at 65.6%, is a statute that restricts corporate spending on candidates, parties and ballot issues from January 1, 2027.³

A seat on the Supreme Court went to Flathead County District Judge Amy Eddy, who replaces Justice Beth Baker, on the court since 2011. Her opponent, Dan Wilson, had the endorsement and financial backing of the Montana Republican Party, Montana Free Press reported.¹³

In Yellowstone County, which cast more votes than any other, County Attorney Scott Twito was unopposed for a fifth term when he resigned on October 25 to become interim U.S. attorney for Montana. His name stayed on the ballot, and Yellowstone Public Radio reported before the election that if he won, county commissioners would appoint someone to hold the office until the election of November 2028.¹⁴ No mayor or school board was on the ballot: state law puts municipal elections in odd-numbered years and school elections in May.^{15, 16} In Cascade County, Democrat Steve Keller defeated a first-term Republican representative by 46 votes, one of the Democrats’ four legislative pickups, the Flathead Beacon reported.²

Republicans kept four of the seats they were defending in our count and lost one, the western House district. The narrowest was Annie Bukacek’s seat on the Public Service Commission, at 5.4 points, and the five-member commission, which regulates utilities, stays entirely Republican, as it has been since 2012.⁴ Kurt Alme finished 10.4 points ahead of an independent in a race where the Democrat ran third. In the eastern House district, which Trump carried by 29.8 points, the Republican margin was 25.8. Republican House candidates carried 50 of the state’s 56 counties, and the Billings area, the largest metro area, stayed Republican at R+25.5.

Neither of Montana’s Senate seats will be on the ballot in 2028. The state that voted Republican for president by 19.9 points in 2024 voted Republican for the U.S. House by 9.6 this year, and it will send one member of each party to the House in January. The Montana Constitution keeps off the ballot any candidate for governor who, at the end of the current term, will have served eight or more years in any 16-year period.¹⁷