Ryan Zinke

The midterm elections have largely become a referendum on President Donald Trump’s policies and whether Democrats can convince voters to put them in charge. But in Montana’s fight for the 1st Congressional District, the candidates want to make the election all about them.

The race for Montana’s 1st District began in earnest this spring when Rep. Ryan Zinke announced he would not seek another term, opening a seat in a competitive district that has mostly escaped national attention — until now. The race is considered a toss-up in a midterm battleground where Democrats only need to net four seats to win the House majority.

The race has caught the attention of Trump, who held a rally for Republican candidates in the district on Wednesday, as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who will travel to the district next week.

“It shows just how concerned they are about losing the seat and how real this race is,” a Democratic strategist close to the race but granted anonymity to discuss campaign strategy told the Deseret News. “You don’t send the president to a district like that unless you need to.”

But at a time where political tensions are running high and nearly dependent on what is going on at the national level, the two candidates in Montana’s 1st District are taking a different route: selling themselves personally to voters.

Democratic candidate Sam Forstag, a former smokejumper and political outsider, wants to appeal to the working class. Republican candidate Aaron Flint, a longtime radio host who was handpicked by Zinke to be his successor, is leaning on his military background.

The two consider themselves to be the embodiment of what it means to live out “the Montana dream.” Now the race has become a question of whether these political newcomers can keep the election about them and their record rather than the political forces of Washington that they aren’t a part of — yet.

Montana’s 1st District has been a relatively competitive seat since it was reestablished in the 2022 midterm elections. Zinke won the seat by just 3 points that year before being reelected in 2024 by a slightly wider margin of 8 points.

But with Zinke’s retirement, it leaves Republicans without a prominent incumbent to hold the seat in a midterm cycle already working against them.

Polling numbers for Flint and Forstag show a tight race. While some polls put Flint up by 1 point, other polls show a dead heat or even Forstag besting his Republican opponent by 3 points.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has the seat rated as an R+5 district, but updated its predictions this week to designate it as a toss-up. Before that, Republicans were given a slight advantage.

Meanwhile, the district’s voting history does not lean toward either party over the other. In 2024, Trump won the district by 11 points over then-Vice President Kamala Harris — but the district also voted for Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the same election. Tester ultimately lost his reelection bid.

While Flint has the backing of Zinke and other nationally prominent Republicans, he doesn’t have the same name recognition that has boosted his predecessor. As a result, the nature of the race creates an opening for either political novice to step in.

For Flint, his focus has become defining Forstag as an out-of-state transplant who is too radical for Montana voters. Republicans have pointed to Forstag’s history as a lobbyist working for the Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and for lobbying group Central House Strategies — arguing he is out of touch with the working-class policies he is promoting on the campaign trail.

Republicans have also criticized Forstag for endorsements he’s received from democratic socialists such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Socialist lobbyist Sam Forstag is a mouthpiece for Bernie Sanders and AOC’s socialist agenda that would jack up costs, crush Montana jobs, and put Washington bureaucrats in charge of Montanans’ lives,” Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement. “Forstag can slap a Montana label on his socialist garbage, but Montanans know a con job when they see one.”

Forstag and his Democratic allies have pushed back against those characterizations, pointing to his work as a wildland firefighter and smokejumper over the last decade. Instead, the Democratic candidate criticized his opponent for promoting division.

“What Aaron’s got to offer here is politics that is purely composed of anger and hate and fearmongering — and Aaron’s not the only one doing it,” Forstag told the Deseret News in an interview. “It feels like that’s what’s defined politics for most of my adult life. Candidates in (one) party, they just tell you everything that’s wrong with the other party.”

One of the defining tenets of the race in Montana is the push from both candidates to make the election about them and their backgrounds — breaking from the typical midterm messaging that focuses on the parties back in Washington.

Neither candidate currently holds office, so they don’t have to answer for the policies being passed thousands of miles away. But they still have to break through the political noise to sell themselves to voters that historically put individual candidates over party affiliation.

“This is the cycle for young first-time candidates who’ve never been in Washington before,” a Democratic strategist working with The Bench, a group seeking to recruit new candidates in battleground races, told the Deseret News. “People are fed up with the status quo. They’re fed up with corruption. They’re fed up with politics as usual.”

For Flint and Forstag, that means appealing themselves to voters from all political corners.

Even if the pair want to keep the election solely focused on local issues, Trump remains a factor. Midterm elections historically act as a referendum on the sitting president, and this year will be no different.

But in Montana’s 1st District, the candidates are not treating support for the president as a litmus test when campaigning. Both parties recognize Trump’s role in the midterms, but neither are leaning that hard into it.

Flint, for the most part, views Trump as an asset. The president is able to motivate voter turnout, and the district has voted for him three times. Flint’s relationship with Trump and access to the White House would be crucial for a Montana representative, he argued.

“I think whether the president was a Democrat or a Republican, I think we as Montanans … want a congressman who can pick up the phone and talk to the president of the United States,” Flint told the Deseret News. “We want a congressman who can go to the White House and sit down with the president of the United States of America when it comes down to important issues for the people of Montana and getting the job done.”

But Flint’s team doesn’t want to appear in lockstep with the president, particularly on policy issues that Montana voters may oppose from the Trump administration. Flint has also been intent on calling out Republican leadership in Washington.

“Let me just say that I think that there’s a lot of us that are frustrated that the Republicans on Capitol Hill aren’t doing enough, or aren’t doing enough quickly enough,” Flint said. “But we’re also disgusted by what the Democrats did to this country.”

For Forstag, his mission is to convince those voters who either voted for Trump or sat out in 2024 to cast their ballots this November — and in favor of a Democrat.

The Democratic candidate has leaned into a message that puts “people over party,” hosting town halls with former state Republican lawmakers to reach more voters. These events, called Civil Discourse town halls, are meant to reach the voters who on paper may not support a Democrat but may agree with several of Forstag’s policy positions.

“I understand why someone might have voted for the people in power right now even if I deeply disagree wi