BILLINGS, Mont. — Democrats’ crushing defeat in Montana’s nationally significant Senate race ended a fierce political debate over whether the influx of newcomers over the past decade favored Republicans – and whether any of the new arrivals could even rise to high office.

Voters answered both questions with a resounding “yes” with Tim Sheehy’s defeat of three-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, helping secure a Republican majority in the Senate and laying bare a sweeping cultural shift in a state that is t has long been touted to elect local candidates. based on personal qualifications and not party affiliation.

This is the first time in nearly a century that one party has completely dominated Montana. The corporations and mining barons known as the Copper Kings once had a corrupt hold on state politics, and the aversion to outsiders that grew out of that era has faded, replaced by partisan fervor over which the Republicans capitalized on during the elections.

Tester, a moderate legislator and third-generation grain farmer from humble Big Sandy, Montana, lost to wealthy aerospace entrepreneur Sheehy, a staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump who arrived in Montana there 10 years ago and bought a house in the chic beach community. of Big Sky.

“Montana’s political culture has fundamentally changed over the last 10 to 15 years,” said Jeff Wiltse, a history professor at the University of Montana. “The us-versus-them mentality, between Montanans and outsiders, which has a long history in Montana, has weakened significantly.”

The old state instinct of choosing your own party, no matter what party you are on, has given way to broader trends that began more than a decade ago and accelerated during the pandemic.

Job opportunities in mining, logging and railroads — once key Democratic constituencies — have dried up. New arrivals, many drawn by the state’s natural social distancing, have arrived in droves — with nearly 52,000 new arrivals since 2020. That’s almost as many as the entire previous decade, according to U.S. Census data . As the population changed, national issues such as immigration and gender identity came to dominate political attention, distracting from local issues.

The 2024 Senate race brought a record influx of outside money to both sides — more than $315 million, much of which came from shadowy groups with wealthy donors. This effectively erased Montana’s efforts for more than a century to limit corporate money in politics.

Sheehy’s victory came after the party took the lead in recent elections in Montana, where voters elected other wealthy Republicans, including Gov. Greg Gianforte, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Rep.-elect Troy Downing .

Daines is the only one of the group from Montana – once a virtual requirement for high office in the state.

Apple whiskey and Champagne

The contrast between Montana’s old and new politics was stark on election night. Tester’s party was a quiet event at the Best Western Inn in Great Falls — rooms $142 a night — where the lawmaker mingled with a few dozen supporters and sipped apple-flavored whiskey from a plastic cup.

Sheehy’s loudest affair took place in Bozeman — the epicenter of Montana’s new wealth — at an upscale hotel where a standard room costs $395. Well before his victory was announced, carts carrying Champagne were wheeled away as the candidate remained sequestered on a secure balcony most of the night with select supporters.

Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL from Minnesota, moved to Montana after leaving the military and founded, with his brother, Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company that relies on government contracts. Sheehy also purchased a ranch in the Little Belt Mountains and, during the campaign, presented himself as the modern equivalent of an early Western settler looking for opportunity.

Tester received 22,000 more votes on November 5 than in his last election – a gain that exceeded his margin of victory in previous victories. Yet for every additional test voter, Sheehy gained several more. The result was a resounding eight-point victory for the Republican, knocking Democrats out of the last statewide office they still held in Montana.

For Republicans, this completed their domination of states stretching from the Northern Plains to the Rocky Mountains.

“We have North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah — we’re all a little red now,” said Montana Republican Party Chairman Don Kaltschmidt.

Until 2007, Democrats held the majority of Senate seats in the Northern Plains and in almost every statewide office in Montana.

Daines – who led the GOP effort to take back the Senate as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee – emphasized during Sheehy’s election that Republicans would control Montana’s two Senate seats for the first time in over ‘a century.

“Conservative refugees”

Tester and other Democrats lament the wealth that has transformed the state. It’s especially noticeable in areas like Big Sky and Kalispell, where multimillion-dollar homes occupy the surrounding mountainsides while throngs of service workers struggle to find housing.

It’s not quite the same as the Copper Kings — who, at their peak, controlled elected officials in both major parties — but Democrats see parallels.

“What they say: History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes,” said Monica Tranel, the defeated Democratic candidate in a western Montana House district. “It’s very reminiscent of what happened in the early 1900s. It’s really a time of change and turmoil and it’s about who has a voice.”

Montana won a second House seat in 2022 due to population growth over the previous decade, giving Democrats a chance to regain influence. After a narrow defeat that year to Trump’s former Interior Secretary. Ryan Zinke and Tranel ran again this year and lost.

Even as she looked to history to explain Montana’s contemporary political dynamics, Tranel looked to the future. She acknowledged that Democrats were out of step with a conservative electorate more sensitive to party labels.

“It’s the label itself that they’re reacting to,” she said. “Do we need a different party at this point?

Republican officials welcomed the wealthy newcomers.

Steve Kelly, 66, who calls himself a “conservative refugee,” left Nevada for northwest Montana at the height of the pandemic. He spent most of his 30-year law enforcement career in Reno, but said he grew tired of the city as it grew and became more liberal — “East San Francisco.” as he called it.

In 2020, Kelly and his wife bought a house outside of Kalispell on a few acres so they could have horses. He became involved in the local Republican Party and won a seat in the state Legislature this fall on his anti-illegal immigration agenda.

“It seems to be different here. Most of the people we met were also conservative refugees, fleeing other cities,” he said.

It’s transfers from Democratic-dominated western states, particularly California, where more than 85,000 Montanans come from, or about 7.5 percent of the population, that census data show. Nearly half of Montana’s residents were born outside the state.

Wages for Montana workers have been stagnant for decades, said Megan Lawson of the independent research group Headwaters Economics in Bozeman. Income from stocks, real estate and other investments has risen sharply, reflecting changing — and wealthier — demographics.

“A lot of that certainly comes from people moving into this state,” Lawson said. “When you put it all together, it helps explain the story of political change.”