Campaign 2012

Rural Montana voters critical to winning 2012 election

Posted: Feb 20, 2012 7:32 AM by Marnee Banks
Updated: Feb 20, 2012 7:32 AM

About two-thirds of Montana's population lives in or around seven major cities. This leaves about 350,000 Montanans living in rural areas.

According to the 2010 Census, the state's rural population is continuing to shrink as people move toward town.

Author of Big Sky Politics Jon Bennion has been studying these population trends and how they affect elections.

"Candidates cannot ignore rural Montana. If a candidate thinks they want and go and just campaign in the seven or eight largest cities the rural areas will understand that they are getting ignored. They don't appreciate that and nor should they. They are still a part of the state and a very important part of the state economically and politically," Bennion says.

He says rural Montana generally tends to vote Republican, but he says there are pockets which vote Democrat. He says the key issues for rural voters are agriculture, ranching, and natural resource development.

Montana Republican Party Executive Director Bowen Greenwood says Republicans are counting on these issues to lock up the rural vote.

"A lot of times natural resource development happens much more often in rural districts than urban districts. The Party's platform which encourages natural resource development works very well out there," Greenwood says.

However, Montana Democratic Party Spokesperson Chris Saeger says Democrats are hoping that values like hard work and advocating for good paying middle class jobs will play well in rural Montana.

"You look at Jon Tester, like I said the US Senate's only working farmer, Brian Schweitzer, comes from an Ag background, and Max grew up in a ranching family. We come from rural Montana," Saeger says.

Both parties will be launching campaigns to make sure rural voters cast their ballots on election day.

"Our campaigns run on neighbors talking to neighbors, directly talking to voters in a face-to-face way about what matters," Saeger says. "That's not easy. But we put in the hard work that it takes to defend our democratic and our Montana values in these elections."

"We have every hope that our message will resonate very thoroughly with rural Montana," Greenwood says. "As votes are coming in on election night you should see a lot of Republican votes coming from rural Montana."

According to recent polling, Montana's top tier races: U.S Senate & House and the gubernatorial race are all close contests.

In the race for U.S. Senate, Incumbent Jon Tester (D-MT) and Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT) both believe they are the right candidate for rural voters.

Tester says the biggest challenges facing rural Montana are infrastructure, access to healthcare, and making sure Montana has a good highway and transportation system.

"The fact is that we have fewer people to pay for all that stuff so a lot of times we need help from the state and federal government to make those projects a reality. That's where I come in advocating for good projects," Tester says.

Tester says his work advocating for better care for rural veterans will also help win over votes outside the urban areas.

Rehberg says rural voters can look at his work in committee to see why he is the best candidate for less populated areas.

"I asked for agriculture committee, and then I asked for transportation because what is more important than moving our products in and out of our communities and our state," Rehberg says.

He says he quickly realized that wasn't enough and became the Chair of the House committee which sets the budget for Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. He says by controlling the purse strings he helps secure adequate funding for rural Montana projects.