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Montana has gained tens of thousands of new residents since the start of the pandemic, as they've left more COVID-restrictive states. How those relatively new residents might vote could be a factor in a race that could determine control of the U.S. Senate. As NPR's Kirk Siegler reports, incumbent Democrat Jon Tester is criticizing the wealthy for moving in and driving up costs.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: When Donald Trump campaigned in Montana for the Republican Senate candidate, Tim Sheehy, the other day, his first stop was a fundraiser at the ultra-wealthy Yellowstone Club. It's about five miles through locked gates from where Barry Hukill is setting up for his Saturday side hustle, slinging burgers outside a brewery in Big Sky.
BARRY HUKILL: I mean, it's blowing up with money, where the rich people are just taking over.
SIEGLER: The Big Sky Ski Resort has never been cheap. But in the past few years, Andy Liedberg, co-owner of the Beehive Basin Brewery, says everything got glitzy, and it's now too expensive for workers to live here.
ANDY LIEDBERG: It changed from a ski town to - I don't know - like, land grab.
SIEGLER: You hear this from Big Sky to Whitefish to the Bitterroot Valley - all popularized by the TV show "Yellowstone" - and places that locals say are being McMansionized (ph). Liedberg is an avid hunter.
LIEDBERG: It's just harder and harder. I mean, I used to be able to knock on doors or ask permission, and people would let you on, and now it's more like, you know, pay me.
SIEGLER: It's this resentment that Democrats are trying to zero in on this election season.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's pure Montana beauty, but you're not allowed. This is Tim Sheehy's private playground.
SIEGLER: This is an ad running against the Republican Sheehy, who owns a home in Big Sky and a 20,000-acre ranch in central Montana.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Only accessible to those who can dole out thousands to hunt or fish.
SIEGLER: In Montana, there's an old saying - poverty with a view.
GEORGE OCHENSKI: The people who have lived here a long time, we've been down at the bottom of the per-capita income barrel for the last 50 years, at least.
SIEGLER: This is longtime Politico and liberal-leaning columnist George Ochenski in the capital, Helena, where new real estate offices are now opening up on historic Last Chance Gulch. Now, he thinks the Dem's strategy could backfire because today's electorate sees financial success as a good thing. And most everyone here, except for the Native Americans, he says, is from somewhere else.
OCHENSKI: So if you're a new person and you come to Montana and somebody says, I hate you because you're an out-of-stater, well, that doesn't make you want to vote for those people.
SIEGLER: Republican Tim Sheehy moved here from Minnesota in 2014, after retiring from the Navy. He started a wildfire aviation company. And at a recent Trump rally, Sheehy leaned in, saying he's created hundreds of local jobs.
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TIM SHEEHY: And I'm proud of that. Jon Tester attacks my company every single day, and it's disgusting. You should be ashamed of that.
SIEGLER: But the political newcomer, Sheehy, still has hurdles to overcome too, because he isn't that well known here. And ironically, he also has a fraction of the campaign cash as Jon Tester.
JEREMY JOHNSON: Every six years, he's in this position in a very competitive election. He's battle-hardened, if you will, about very close races.
SIEGLER: At Carroll College, political science professor, Jeremy Johnson, says Tester could be on to something, hammering wealthy outsiders. Montana's governor moved here from New Jersey and sold his software company to Oracle. Land developer and congressman Matt Rosendale moved here from Maryland and lost to Tester in 2018. Tester's ads blame them for a 20% property tax bump.
JOHNSON: It hasn't really been central to the U.S. Senate race, but this is where a lot of the recent discontent is in Montana.
SIEGLER: School mill levies in towns that usually pass them are starting to fail as property taxes get astronomical. And some places aren't feeling the boom so much.
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SIEGLER: Michael Winters is a former mayor of Great Falls, a blue-collar town that used to house the smelter for the old Anaconda Copper Company.
MICHAEL WINTERS: It's the guys with the big bucks at the top that are jerking around. And all of a sudden, they're making all the bucks, and the little guy down at the bottom doesn't make anything.
SIEGLER: Winters, a registered Republican, says he's voting for Tester partly because he's from here.
WINTERS: He's a working man yet. He's working on a farm. He'll go into a bar and sit down and have a beer with people. You know, those are the kind of things that make people happy.
SIEGLER: It's a strategy Senator Tester has always counted on. In fact, his campaign claims he won't even attend the upcoming DNC because he's busy with the harvest.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Helena, Mont. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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