HELENA, Mont. — Standing in the backyard garden of a Helena home in mid-July, Ryan Busse told the crowd of Democratic supporters a story about how he plans to win the Montana governor’s seat, ousting Republican incumbent Greg Gianforte.
The 54-year-old Flathead Valley resident, a longtime hunter, recalled harvesting a bull elk near Kalispell last fall. He didn’t have time to butcher it before hitting the road for a campaign trip to eastern Montana. But, Busse reasoned, someone in the almost 600 miles between his home and Miles City was bound to be willing to help him out.
As the story goes, a few phone calls led Busse to Bob Ingram, who processes meat at his home near Havre. But while the location might have been convenient, Busse’s contact warned him that Ingram wasn’t exactly known for supporting Democrats.
Busse’s response, as he’s told fundraiser attendees: I couldn’t care less.
“I live in Kalispell. My next-door neighbor has the world record for Trump flags and he’s still a good dude,” Busse recalled saying. “I’m just looking for someone to help me out.”
Sure enough, Busse said, Ingram’s property was marked by a “huge” flag endorsing former President Donald Trump. Undeterred, the Democrat turned into the driveway to meet Ingram. After sorting out payment and shipping logistics, the two got to talking. Busse eventually told Ingram he was a Democrat running against Gianforte.
In Busse’s telling, Ingram opened up.
“He goes, ‘Ryan, you know I love Donald Trump.’ I said, ‘You know, Bob, I’m a ranch kid. I’m pretty smart. I’ve been picking up what you’ve been laying down,’” Busse recounted. “Then he looks at me a long time and goes, ‘But I really hate that Greg Gianforte.’”
The crowd of mostly gray-haired, dyed-in-the-wool Democrats cheered. Busse had arrived at the moral of his story. Without missing a beat, he sent his supporters on a mission.
“A lot of you have friends like this you may not see eye to eye with on some stuff. It’s time to let the national politics fade away,” he said. “We’re going to win this election, but we’re going to do it partially because people like you find the Bobs in your life and you talk to them and you convert them.”
As the November election looms, Busse and his campaign, including running mate Raph Graybill, have publicly acknowledged what political advisers and academics privately take for granted: The Democratic challenger, a political novice, cannot win his race with support from Democrats alone.
“People are ready for a change, but it hinges entirely on what we do in the next 95 days,” Graybill said during a convening of Democratic voters at Helena’s Pride celebration in late July. “It requires having the tough conversation with your Trumpy uncle who might get converted on these issues The votes are there. They are ready to do the right thing. But as we leave here today, it is up to us to make sure that it happens.”
Montana Democrats have long relied on split-ticket voters, a group that has helped them win some races by close margins in election cycles where Republicans elsewhere on the ballot were victorious. Back in 2004, Democrat Brian Schweitzer was elected governor by a 4-percentage-point margin, the same year Montana voters backed President George W. Bush’s reelection by 20 points. Again, in 2016, incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock defeated Gianforte’s initial bid for the governorship in the same election that Trump won Montana by 20 points. Two years later, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester won reelection by 3.5 points as Gianforte won reelection to Congress.
But over the past two state election cycles, in 2020 and 2022, Republicans swept every partisan office on the statewide ballot and gained a supermajority in the state Legislature, relegating Democrats to their weakest position in the state Capitol since the 1990s.
Trump’s 2020 victory margin in Montana, nearly 99,000 votes, presents a daunting difference for any Democrat seeking statewide office to overcome. Paired with the nationalization of politics at the state and local level, it can make Busse’s quest to recruit Republican-leaning voters seem like an impossibly uphill climb. In social media jabs and interviews, Gianforte’s team dismisses Busse and Graybill as unserious loudmouths making disingenuous efforts to appeal to non-Democratic voters without alienating their Democratic base.
“I think this is an act. He’s trying to be the Brian Schweitzer, ‘Democrats don’t have to be wimps, we can be tough guys. We can say ‘shit’ and ‘damn’ and that will make people think that we’re tough guys,’” Gianforte campaign manager Jake Eaton said in an August interview. “I think it’s a schtick.”
Perhaps more fundamentally, Eaton said, he doesn’t believe Busse’s campaign is spending the advertising dollars necessary to reach a broad expanse of voters before November. The Democrat, who had roughly $300,000 cash on hand as of the latest campaign finance disclosures in mid-June, has so far put two advertisements on television, which Eaton doubted would break through the avalanche of ads from Tester and his Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy. Gianforte, by comparison, had about $870,000 available in mid-June.
“In order to connect with voters in any meaningful volume, you have to have the resources to do that. And he doesn’t,” Eaton said.
The first-time candidate, meanwhile, sees his dogged messaging and eagerness to engage with voters like Ingram as two of his greatest strengths. He’s challenged Gianforte to public debates, none of which the Republican has agreed to, and seems to relish every opportunity to stick his proverbial finger in the governor’s eye — even going so far as to call Gianforte a “fascist” at a January press conference in the Capitol rotunda.
Democratic operatives say those traits — his rapport with voters and willingness to launch sharp attacks — make Busse a formidable opponent. Where Busse shines, said former Bullock adviser and friend of the Busse campaign Matt McKenna, Gianforte struggles.
“I would put him in a bunker and I would spend a zillion dollars on television because the more people meet him, the worse he’ll do,” McKenna said about Gianforte’s ability to connect with voters. “I would never let him debate Ryan Busse.”
Some of Busse’s critiques are aimed at Gianforte’s personal life and public history: owning a private plane, trapping and shooting a collared Yellowstone wolf, and his infamous physical assault of a reporter in 2017, leading to a misdemeanor charge to which he eventually pleaded guilty. Busse also casts Gianforte as an out-of-touch elite who’s bungled his job of running state government, infringed on women’s reproductive rights and invited an avalanche of outside wealth to Montana that’s inflated home prices and driven up property taxes. The Democrat’s fervent delivery — often featuring literal finger-pointing — parks blame for everything from affordability strains to abortion restrictions and staff turnover at government agencies at Gianforte’s door.
It’s the inverse of the story that Gianforte’s team is simultaneously trying to sell voters. As they tell it, their candidate is a committed conservative and successful businessman who started a billion-dollar company in his living room. His team has launched three 56-county tours since Gianforte took office, making a point of placing the governor, often wearing a belt buckle, button-up shirt and baseball hat, in traditionally classic Montana settings: small-town businesses, old-school diners and family-owned farms. They champion the multiple income tax cuts and rebates he’s signed into law and say he’s committed to fixing property taxes when the Legislature meets next year.
Eaton scoffed at Busse’s allegation that Gianforte has hobbled or wrecked state agencies like Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Department of Public Health and Human Services — claims partly stemming from the turnover of longtime state employees, whom Eaton called “career bureaucrats.” Rather, Eaton argued, the state’s first Republican governor in nearly two decades is doing the hard and sometimes unpopular work of remaking state government to fit the conservative vision the public endorsed by electing him.
“Sixteen years of Democrat governors running these agencies, and now people are surprised when a Republican comes in and has a different approach?” Eaton said. “That’s what people voted for.”
A self-described ranch kid from Kansas, Busse is used to taking big swings at powerful adversaries. He spent 25 years as the vice president of sales for the gun company Kimber before writing a memoir critiquing the radicalization of the firearms industry. The book launched Busse into the national spotlight as a critic of the National Rifle Association and what he describes as a gun culture that feeds, and profits, on intimidation and fear.
Busse moved to Montana in 1995, the same year Gianforte arrived in the state from New Jersey. He began dipping his toes into politics through advocacy, volunteering with Trout Unlimited and other conservation groups to block oil and gas drilling from the Badger-Two Medicine roadless area in the mid-2000s. He writes in his memoir that he long described himself as a Republican, but credits his wife, Sara, and a passion for the outdoors for slowly transitioning him into an outspoken Democrat.
“I explained that I used to think of myself as a Republican but that I could not vote for a president who thought it was acceptable to trample over our last wild places to punch oil wells,” Busse wrote in “Gunfight,” describing a speech he gave criticizing the Bush administration. “My old politics were crumbling, maybe already turned to dust.”
On the campaign trail, Busse bullishly maintains that authenticity and neighborliness trump party affiliation in Montana — and that Gianforte is beatable if voters can be led to believe the Republican doesn’t care about their needs and values.
“He’s really trying to juxtapose himself as a kind of everyman versus this country club, gated-community governor,” said Kal Munis, an Auburn University political scientist who closely tracks Montana politics.
Two of the most salient examples of that portrayal, Munis said, are the property tax issue and fears about wealthy interests privatizing public lands and wildlife. On both fronts, Busse has amplified Republican voices raising similar concerns. County commissioners representing some conservative swaths of the state, he points out, have openly feuded with Gianforte over who bears responsibility for last year’s spike in residential property taxes.
While some Republicans have indeed voiced dissatisfaction with Gianforte, a primary challenge from Rep. Tanner Smith, R-Lakeside, failed to put a dent in his reelection prospects. Gianforte won the Republican nomination for a second term by 50 percentage points in June.
“This fall, Montanans face a clear choice,” Gianforte said following the primary. “We can continue with our positive momentum and common sense conservative agenda, or we can turn the reins over to unhinged, unpredictable far-left activism that’s out of touch with Montana and will undermine our way of life.”
At campaign rallies, Busse seeks to convince voters that it’s the other way around, painting Gianforte as a radical whose regimented style of conservative governance threatens Montana.
During a July rally in Bozeman, Busse’s message hit home with at least one persuadable swing voter: a moderate Republican and Gianforte turncoat named Lawrence VanDyke Sr.
The Gallatin County resident also has name recognition. His son, who shares his first and last name, was appointed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by then-president Trump in 2020. When VanDyke Sr. approached Busse to express his support, the candidate’s reaction was immediate.
“Get this dude on camera,” Busse later recalled saying. The campaign posted an endorsement video with VanDyke Sr. July 11.
In a recent phone interview, VanDyke Sr. described himself as a “born and bred Republican, through and through.” But, he said, he soured on Trump after voting for him in 2016, and now often disagrees with his conservative family members and friends. Though he voted for Gianforte in 2020, he said, he’s been disillusioned by the rise in property taxes and his perception that Gianforte doesn’t support public lands access — a characterization Gianforte has rejected.
“I’m not putting Gianforte in the same camp as Trump when it comes to craziness. All I’m saying is, I don’t like his policies,” VanDyke Sr. said. “Especially the way he handled the property tax thing. That’s probably going to be his downfall, to be honest.”
VanDyke Sr. said he learned about Busse from the candidate’s memoir, and noted that what he regards as the extremity of the gun industry lobby no longer reflects his values as a hunter and sportsman. He said he likes the Democrat’s commitment to public access and wildlife and his generally “common sense” approach to policy issues.
He said he’s not sure how many other Republicans and independents may have converted to Busse’s cause. But, he reflected, the Democrat’s appeal must have some resonance.
“Well, it worked on me,” VanDyke Sr. said.
For Busse, the question of how many voters like VanDyke Sr. could turn out to vote in November is a great unknown.
Alex Street, a political science professor at Carroll College in Helena whose students have conducted exit polling in recent election cycles, said ticket-splitting has become less common in Montana in recent years. In 2020, for example, Democratic candidate for governor Mike Cooney lost to Gianforte by almost 13 percentage points. Street’s research indicates each candidate in that race pulled only about 5% of their support from the party of the opposing presidential candidate — a fraction of the roughly 20% of Trump voters that Street said Bullock attracted in 2016.
Street said the motivations behind ticket-splitting are changing, too.
“Forty years ago the split-ticket voter might have been someone who had centrist views and wanted balance. Nowadays it is more likely to be someone who isn’t paying close attention to politics but happens to favor one candidate or another,” Street said. “The parties are fairly distinct in their platforms and in the social composition of their supporters, and voters who are paying attention tend to be much closer to one than the other.”
Democrats who can generate turnout from historically disengaged voters may fare better in a Republican-leaning state like Montana, Street said. But his current forecast doesn’t predict that more Montana voters will turn out in November than they did four years ago — which could spell trouble for Busse.
“The trend is against him getting a lot of split-ticket support,” Street said.
Busse’s campaign is betting that the urgency of Montana-specific issues — namely public lands access and property taxes — will motivate more voters to show up this fall. As the U.S. presidential race heats up, Busse is remaining laser-focused on Gianforte, avoiding most mentions of Trump, President Joe Biden or newly confirmed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
“No bs when we say we really are not focused on anything to do w national stuff,” Busse said in a July 27 text to Montana Free Press.
As of Aug. 12, Busse had not endorsed Harris, but had spoken approvingly about her running mate, Tim Walz, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, on the social media platform X. A spokesperson for the campaign did not answer a question Monday about Busse’s support for the national ticket.
With less than 100 days until the November election, Busse is continuing to court Republican supporters. In at least one case, though, the hurdle of national politics remained stubbornly in place.
The day after the July campaign event in Helena, Busse finished a more than 200-mile drive to the home of Ingram, the game processor outside Havre. The Democrat was hoping to record an endorsement video after Ingram said he was willing to fly a Busse flag underneath his Trump flag.
But no video with Ingram ever appeared on Busse’s social media feed.
Ingram, who spoke to MTFP in early August, largely confirmed Busse’s account of their interactions. But he said he does not recall explicitly saying that he “hates” Gianforte when they first met, instead describing his attitude toward the incumbent as a “love-hate relationship.”
Since then, Ingram said, he has developed nuanced opinions about both candidates in the governor’s race. He disapproves of Gianforte’s management of some state agencies, including FWP, and said he can’t imagine the current governor packing a dead elk in the back of his truck on the way to a campaign rally, as Busse did.
After months of exchanging texts and emails, Ingram now describes Busse as a friend. He finds the Democratic candidate respectful and enjoyable, he said, and could imagine them sharing a hunting camp or meeting up for a beer.
But before the two were scheduled to meet up again in July, he said, Ingram did his homework on Busse’s platform, taking notes and thinking deeply about the issues. Ultimately, he said, he felt like Busse’s stances were too reminiscent of national Democratic politics. As a self-described “Trumper,” he said, the platform didn’t resonate with him.
“I said, ‘I just don’t think I can support you,’” Ingram recalled, saying he told Busse, “‘I’m going to go with the devil I know instead of the devil I don’t know.’”
They parted ways after speaking for well over an hour. But after Busse drove off, Ingram said, the Democrat texted him a parting promise.
“‘I’m still going to get you to come over to my side, Bob,’” Ingram recounted Busse saying. He said he has no hard feelings about Busse’s mission.
“Hope springs eternal,” Ingram said. “If you’re putting your heart and soul into something, that’s how you better feel.”
Mara Silvers | Reporter
Mara writes about health and human services stories happening in local communities, the Montana statehouse and the court system. She also produces the Shared State podcast in collaboration with MTPR and YPR. Before joining Montana Free Press, Mara worked in podcast and radio production at Slate and WNYC. She was born and raised in Helena, MT and graduated from Seattle University in 2016. More by Mara Silvers