The politics of Montana State are complex and involve a variety of stakeholders. The state's largest political party is the Republicans, who control the governor's office, the state legislature, and two US Senate seats. As with other states, the major issues include education funding, economic development, environmental protection and social services. Montana also has a strong presence in the federal government with its two US Senators, both Republicans. Local elections in Montana are mainly non-partisan and focus heavily on local issues such as land use, tax structure and infrastructure improvements. Candidates from a wide range of political backgrounds tend to run for office in Montana as voters have shown an interest in electing representatives with different views on how to best solve their problems.
The political climate in Montana is moderately conservative.
In Montana 40.5% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 56.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.5% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, Montana remained very strongly Republican, 56.9% to 40.5%.
Montana voted Republican in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Montana is moderately conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Montana, Montana: R R r R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Montana
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 108,175 contributions totaling $12,748,322 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $118 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 19,763 contributions totaling $10,130,154 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $513 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)