BTW, the real reason that Montana has a strong history of Democrats getting elected is that the economic history of the state is as much, or more, about mining and its concomitant unionization, as it is about ranching. It isn't a Dakota, though it has been trending in that direction rather than to the left over the last few decades. But a lot of people think MT is just Yellowstone Park and Bozeman, when for much of its history Butte was the power center of the state, and was, and still is in fact, the most reliably Democrat voting locale.
There are a lot of questions about where MT politics go, but they center more around who is moving here (just because they come from a blue state they are not necessarily blue voters,) whether they will stay, and very importantly what will happen to the traditional Democrat voters here who have not shifted red as quickly as their rust belt cousins, in large measure because while they are culturally same, the economic prospects for ex mine workers is different from factory workers.
It won't be because Democrats never knew MT existed, or because there has never been a Democrat elected official, or whatever hair brained fantasies the Ravallian Conspiracy Committee might conjure up.
There are a lot of questions about where MT politics go, but they center more around who is moving here (just because they come from a blue state they are not necessarily blue voters,) whether they will stay, and very importantly what will happen to the traditional Democrat voters here who have not shifted red as quickly as their rust belt cousins, in large measure because while they are culturally same, the economic prospects for ex mine workers is different from factory workers.
It won't be because Democrats never knew MT existed, or because there has never been a Democrat elected official, or whatever hair brained fantasies the Ravallian Conspiracy Committee might conjure up.
