At 5 p.m. Monday, the window closed for candidates to file to run for elected office in Montana this year, officially setting the stage for a hugely consequential election season.
Toward the top of the ballot — not counting the presidential contest between presumptive nominees Joe Biden and Donald Trump — voters will have a choice between incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and a slew of challengers intent on stopping the Democrat from winning a fourth term, chief among them Republican businessman Tim Sheehy. But with 416 total candidates having filed to run for offices ranging from U.S. Senate to the state Legislature, there will be plenty of other names for voters to ponder come the June primary.
“Thank you and congratulations to all of the candidates who filed to represent our wonderful state,” Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, Montana’s top election administrator, said in a statement upon the close of filing. “I wish all candidates the best of luck in the upcoming elections.”
The 2022 election season in Montana was a relatively quiet affair. This year is already proving quite the opposite. At the federal level, Montanans will vote for president, the U.S. Senate and two seats in Congress. Statewide, they’ll vote for the governorship, two open seats on the state Supreme Court, the court’s clerk, three seats on the state’s utility regulation board, the superintendent of public instruction, state auditor, secretary of state and several district court positions. And they’ll elect state legislators using new legislative maps fresh off a once-a-decade update cycle.
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Montana’s 2024 ballot will host a suite of consequential elections — among them a race that could decide the balance of the U.S. Senate, two open seats on the Montana Supreme Court, two U.S. House races, Montana’s governorship and a bevy of statewide offices. Here’s who’s queuing up to run.
Hanging over the election are two cycles of electoral gains by Montana Republicans, who have won supermajorities in the state Legislature and persuaded voters to give them control of every statewide office except Tester’s Senate seat, which was last on the ballot in 2018.
Here’s a look at who’s filed for federal and statewide offices:
U.S. SENATE
Republicans are hoping to oust Tester — seen by political observers as one of the U.S. Senate’s most vulnerable members — en route to capturing the two seats necessary for a majority in that chamber. Montana’s junior U.S. senator, Republican Steve Daines, has an outsized role this cycle as well. Though he’s not up for election until 2026, he chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party organ tasked with electing Republicans to the U.S. Senate.
The NRSC has recruited Tim Sheehy, a wealthy political neophyte who owns an aerial firefighting business in the Gallatin Valley, to challenge Tester. For months, it seemed as if Matt Rosendale, a hardline Republican congressman who currently represents eastern Montana, would enter the race as well, which he did briefly before dropping out. Former Montana secretary of state and Public Service Commission member Brad Johnson is also running on the Republican ticket, pledging to give GOP voters an alternative to a candidate often critiqued by his competitors as having been hand-picked by powerful forces in Washington D.C. Sid Daoud, a Libertarian, is also hoping that some of what would have been Rosendale voters will come to his side. Also on the primary ballot is Republican Charles Walkingchild Sr. and Democrat Michael Hummert. Green Party candidates Robert Barb and Michael Downey are also running.
U.S. HOUSE, EASTERN DISTRICT
Rosendale’s decision to not seek re-election to the…
This article was originally published by a montanafreepress.org . Read the Original article here. .