Gianforte's quiet, no-drama campaign for a second term as governor

Montana's Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte is running for his second term against a political first-timer, Democrat Ryan Busse, in an election that some think is already decided thanks to the state of Montana politics.

Gianforte's campaign has adopted an aura of inevitability. According to recent polling from AARP, Gianforte has a 16-point lead over Busse. Gianforte is spending roughly half of what Busse is on his campaign. He isn't organizing big rallies or seeking out the press, and he only reluctantly agreed to debate Busse in mid-October, after mail-in voting is already underway.

Jessi Bennion, professor of political science at Montana State University, said slow-footing a debate works to Gianforte's advantage.

"There's just nothing incentivizing him to do that," Bennion said. "Does this help him electorally? No. Most voters are like, 'This guy is a Republican. I'm generally doing well. I agree with the Republican identity and philosophy ... so I'm going to vote for him.'"

Gianforte's campaign declined to make the governor available for an interview, but spokesperson Anna Marian Block said that Gianforte has made Montana a better place to work, live and "achieve the American Dream."

"Under Governor Gianforte's leadership, more Montanans are working now than ever before, hardworking taxpayers received the largest tax cuts in state history, the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners were defended, and hundreds of thousands of acres were unlocked for public access," Block said in a statement.

Gianforte, 63, was born in San Diego, California, and later lived in New Jersey. In the 1990s, he moved to Bozeman with his wife, where they co-founded RightNow Technologies, a cloud-based customer service provider. When the company sold to the Oracle Corporation in 2011, it was worth $1.5 billion.

Gianforte first ran for governor in 2016, losing to Democrat Steve Bullock. In 2017, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and later went on to win the 2020 gubernatorial election, beating Democrat Mike Cooney by around 13 percentage points.

Before 2020, Montana had a Democratic governor for 16 years. But recent political trends may facilitate an even longer winning streak for the Republican Party.

"Montana, much like the rest of the country, has become more polarized in recent years," said Jeremy Johnson, professor of political science at Carroll College. "There's less ticket-splitting."

He said Montana's rural demographic is following a nationwide pattern.

"Rural areas across the country have moved sharply toward the Republican Party," Johnson said. "This becomes a problem for Democrats running statewide in Montana."

As a result, Johnson said Democrats in Montana are trying to distance themselves as much as possible from national Democrats, while Republicans have been able to rely on national GOP calling cards like border security and tax cuts. In April, Gianforte sent 10 members of the Montana National Guard to Texas to spend a month helping secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

Gianforte has also found political success in cutting taxes - a main promise in both his 2020 and 2024 campaigns. Last year, Gianforte cut over $1 billion in taxes statewide, the biggest tax relief in state history, according to Block.

Another tax issue, however, may be one of Gianforte's greatest political vulnerabilities: rising property taxes. In Nov. 2022, the state legislature ignored warnings to reduce the residential tax rate from 1.35% to 0.94% because of rising housing prices. As a result, many Montanans' property taxes rose dramatically.

Bennion said the governor's playbook of lowering income tax is complicated by the fact that Montana only has two kinds of taxes: income and property.

"When you lower income taxes, then there's only one kind of tax that can make up for that," Bennion said. Still, she doesn't think this issue is having a major negative impact on voters.

"There's a whole lot of different sorts of people that could be blamed," she said. "The governor is just one person."

Johnson said the governor has reason to feel confident going into this election, and that may explain why he's keeping his head down, hoping a presidential year election with Donald Trump on the ballot will bring out enough Republican voters to guarantee him another four years in office.

"I think Gianforte is just fine running as sort of a standard Republican in Montana because I don't think he feels very threatened," Johnson said. "I think what we'll be seeing is Gianforte generally running on these national Republican issues, believing that's a safe track in Montana."