The Democrats' Battle for Montana [View all]

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A long article well worth the read.
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Campaigning in a white cowboy hat and working 15-hour days, Rob Quist, a folk-singer-turned-populist House candidate, has caught fire with the grassroots of the Democratic Party, whose donations are transforming a shoestring campaign into a small-dollar juggernaut. You might assume the national Democratic Party would also be zeroed in: Montana presents a critical test of the party's renewed "50-state strategy" and a crucible for reconnecting with rural voters in advance of the 2018 elections. But you'd be mistaken.

It's the third week of April, days before early voting begins, but party leaders haven't even picked up the phone to call Quist. From across the dinette of a Winnebago that doubles as the campaign's mobile headquarters, now careening toward Bozeman, I ask Quist to describe his relationship to the national party. "I really don't have one," he says with a shrug. "We've been running our own thing here."

Montana may seem an unlikely battleground for Democrats: Hillary Clinton lost by 20 points here; Ryan Zinke – Trump's new Interior secretary whose statewide seat is up for grabs – trounced his House opponent by nearly 80,000 votes. But Montana voters are fiercely independent. On the same ballot, they gave the state's Democratic governor a second term, sending a charisma-challenged tech titan named Greg Gianforte to defeat. The same Gianforte is now the GOP's troubled nominee for the House. Montana is very much in play.

Responding to the threat, the GOP has launched a multimillion-dollar attack-ad blitz, and Donald Trump Jr. is en route to Montana to campaign against Quist. "They're worried," says Nancy Keenan, head of the state Democratic Party. "They know they have a race on their hands."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-democrats-battle-for-montana-w482375?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=052517_11