Lee Montana State Bureau: Democratic Candidates 'Burn Shoe Leather to Reach Voters'

Candidates across the state are taking to the doors to elect Democrats up and down the ballot

Helena, MT – New reporting from the Billings Gazette outlines how the Big Sky Victory, the Montana Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, is reaching voters in every corner of the state, thanks to their robust organizing operation. 

This year, Big Sky Victory has knocked on 500,000 doors to re-elect Jon Tester and Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, working across party lines to find new supporters. And those efforts will bring them to victory on Election Day. 

Read more below: 

Billings Gazette: Montana legislative candidates burn shoe leather to reach voters
By Victoria Eavis and Carly Graf
October 30, 2024

• The 2024 election cycle is the first time legislative candidates will compete for the new districts that were redrawn to account for population changes in the state following the 2020 census. With the new maps, nearly all the 100 House and 25 Senate districts up for election this year lean heavily Democrat or Republican, save for a handful that are more purple.
   
• Democrats are predicted to claw back some seats and are likely to end a term of a Republican supermajority. But the exact balance of the Legislature will come down to these few toss-up districts and the election outcomes could sway some of the major policy decisions on the docket like property tax reform, Medicaid expansion and more.
   
• Scott McNeil, director of the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, acknowledged the stature of the Senate race, adding that “breaking through … that noise is critical especially in Montana when you're running in these tight districts.”
   
• In a residential neighborhood near downtown Whitefish, multiple households have posted signs outside their door telling political door-knockers to not even try. They’re handwritten on notebook paper. “I’ve made up my mind,” one says. “I’m voting for Tester,” another reads. 
   
• In House District 19, former Cascade County Commissioner Jane Weber, a Democrat, is running against Republican Hannah Trebas, a lifelong Montana resident and wife of state Sen. Jeremy Trebas.
   
• “I’m a moderate Democrat, but I’m running because they socked it to us on our property taxes,” she tells the residents who open their doors.
   
• Democratic candidate and retired physician Mark Nicholson has taken a different approach from other candidates.
   
• On a sweltering afternoon in Billings, most people didn’t answer their doors. When someone does respond to his knocks, Nicholson will sometimes mention Tester before his own candidacy, based on the script provided by Big Sky Victory, a coordinated campaign effort backed by the state Democratic Party which aims to get Tester and down-ballot Democrats elected. Then he mentions his own race, followed by the House Democrat running in that district and then Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse, making sure to add that his own district is one of the most competitive in the state.
   
• “It’s only fair,” Nicholson said. “Being part of that get out the vote thing is how I’m going to win. You gotta dance with the one that brung ya. If Tester is generous enough to share, I should share back … not everyone agrees with me.”
   
• “So (Tester’s) got the most important race, but I have the second most important race,” Nicholson said.
   
• “Do you think you’ll be able to support Sen. Tester this go around?” Nicholson asked one local business owner. The man said yes, but added he also plans to vote for Trump.
   
• Nicholson said he was told by a hardline Republican that he’ll secure his vote “just because you show up.”
   
• The machines behind these door-knocking efforts are the Democraticand Republican coordinated legislative campaign committees.
   
• Big Sky Victory is the Democratic coordinated campaign organizing for Tester and other down-ballot Democrats. According to a press release from March, Big Sky Victory’s plans included multi-million dollar expenditures, more than 20 offices across the state and over 50 full-time organizers. Some of these tight legislative races, for example, have one or more full-time staffers.
   
• The state Democratic Party is adopting a "more is more" mentality — more spending, more staffers, more door knocking — and coordinating on races up and down the ballot in the hopes this approach leads to victories.
   
• Lindsey Jordan is one of the candidates benefiting most from the state party’s heavy investment into legislative races. Running for House District 4 in the Flathead, Jordan’s campaign strategy has been largely crafted by the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
   
• MDLCC hired a staffer to support Jordan with her race as well as two others in the area, Fern and Debo Power in the House district next door. Scott Rosenzweig in Gallatin County also has a full-time organizer who accompanies him on nearly every door-knocking venture. The staffers help with mailers, canvassing and media outreach.
   
• McNeil said the Montana Legislative Campaign Committee, the team focused on the legislative races, has a "seven-figure budget" this cycle.
   
• What’s more, based on the amount of money the MDLCC and individual candidates have raised, plugged-in Democratic donors appear to be more committed to these down-ballot legislative races than the statewide contests, McNeil explained.
   
• “The new maps and quality of Democratic candidates has generated Democratic donor enthusiasm,” McNeil said.
   
• The Montana Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, on the other hand, is a “lean mean machine,” with one full-time staffer and one part-time, plus volunteers from the local Republican central committees, Hertz said. Hertz also emphasized the work ethic of the candidates themselves.
   
• Most legislative Democrats like Weber and Jordan, however, are more targeted. Using their cellphones, they rely heavily on an interactive map created by the Democratic Party that includes only registered voters and gives candidates a list of houses to knock each outing. Sometimes, that means they crisscross the block multiple times rather than just stopping at every door.
   
• Jordan knocks doors three days every week, as she still works part time as a mental health counselor. She notes the outcomes of conversations on a cell phone app for the state party to collect.

During the springtime, the focus was voters identified as moderate but left-leaning. From July to early October, MDLCC had Jordan visit Republican-leaning households before transitioning to a turn-out-the-vote model of likely Democrats for the last few weeks.