Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up November 14, 2024Not So Fast…It took a week to count the votes in southwest Montana’s new legislative swing district, but Bozeman Democrat Scott Rosenzweig pulled ahead of Pray Republican Marty Malone in the race for House District 57 late Tuesday.Rosenzweig, a tech entrepreneur, had trailed in the count for several days as Park County’s votes were tallied and Gallatin County sorted through a full slate of provisional ballots and several thousand ballots with issues to be resolved unrelated to the HD 57 race. People were still waiting in line to register and vote at the county courthouse in Bozeman after midnight on Nov. 5 as volunteers offered pizza and hand-warmers as incentives to stay in line.Rosenzweig was seen at the Capitol in Helena on Tuesday as lawmakers from each party selected new leaders.Montana’s secretary of state put the winner’s blue check beside Malone’s name after a few days, but the count continued. Malone led Rosenzweig 2,889 to 1,767 in Park County.Newly drawn after the 2020 census, House District 57 stretches from Bozeman City Hall to the remote mountain community of Cooke City, some 133 miles away. Republican and Democratic observers both identified HD 57 as a swing district, telling Capitolized in August that while the district has slightly more Democratic than Republican voters, laid-back Park County doesn’t shine to frenetic “Bozangeles” and might reject Rosenzweig.Rosenzweig told Capitolized that when he knocked on doors in Park County, voters wanted to know specifically what part of Bozeman he lived in. He said he personally knocked on 2,000 doors across both counties. “I did not get to Cooke City, but I do want to get to Cooke City,” Rosenzweig said, “but we did everything else that is Park County. Everything that is the Gallatin County portion of the district and downtown Bozeman. We did everything. I raised somewhere between $65,000 and $70,000 and spent all of it.”There are some nuances to HD 57 that only a political cartographer could appreciate. The district nearly encircles Livingston, avoiding Park County’s most populous community. Because HD 57 includes parts of two counties, only candidates who live within the district are qualified to run. This ensured that the most densely populated portion of the district is in Bozeman.When the count ended Nov. 12, Rosenzweig had 3,803 votes to Malone’s 3,783. The Democrat’s vote share was remarkable, one Republican consultant explained, because Rosenzweig’s total was just 7 less than the 3,810 Democratic voters identified in the district when it was redrawn prior to the 2024 election. The state senator representing the area is Republican John Esp, of Big Timber.This week, Malone told Capitolized he is consulting with an attorney about pursuing a recount. Montana covers recount costs if the margin in the race is .25% or less. The final margin in HD 57 was .27%.—Tom LuteyThe Fleeting Prospect of ‘Secretary Rosendale’ As President-elect Donald Trump forecasted his cabinet nominations this week, U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale surfaced as a possible secretary of Veterans Affairs. Both Politico and CNN reported that Montana’s eastern U.S. House district representative was a prospect. Thursday, Trump announced that his pick for VA secretary is former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Georgia.It was the second time a member of the Montana federal delegation has been in the conversation for Trump’s cabinet. The first was Rep. Ryan Zinke, who became Trump’s Interior Secretary in 2017 and resigned the position under a cloud of ethics investigations in 2019. Earlier this week, Rosendale’s staff explained that Rosendale, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, was worth consideration because he serves on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and hadn’t sought reelection, so his appointment wouldn’t threaten Republicans’ slim majority in the House. Rosendale’s seat will go to Republican Troy Downing in January.Rosendale had sounded an early alarm on former Montana VA Chief of Staff Dr. J.P. Magneto for providing pregnancy care outside of approved privileges, as well as substandard gynecologic care to two female patients.He has also been outspoken about problems with electronic health record software by Oracle. In May, Rosendale accused Oracle of spending money on lobbying to keep its federal contracts rather than fixing its software. —Tom LuteyPACs Spent Late to Promote Libertarian HayesQuestions remain about the secretive group that recruited Townsend retiree Dennis Hayes to run in Montana’s western U.S. House District. Patriots Run Project, a furtive recruiter of hardcore conservative third-party candidates, contacted Hayes through Facebook, offered to help him run for office, then sent someone to meet Hayes outside a Helena bank where money was deposited to cover candidate registration costs.Facebook later identified Patriots Run as a group based in Bangladesh that created more than 96 different social media accounts to recruit candidates to run for Congress.Shortly before Election Day, two political action committees popped up to promote Hayes’ long-shot candidacy against Republican incumbent Rep. Ryan Zinke and Democrat Monica Tranel.Save Western Culture, a political action committee that disclosed no donors but spent $1.3 million, was created Oct. 11 and began targeting Republicans in several U.S. House and Senate races. The group’s filing information shows its address as a UPS store in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The contact email for the PAC was [email protected]. Save Western Culture spent $20,000 on Hayes.The second organization, Voter Protection Project, is a Seattle-based hybrid political action committee that’s been involved in past election cycles. VPP spent $429,751 in the western district U.S. House race, mostly supporting Hayes, who received 3% of the vote. Zinke won the race with 52% of the vote. —Tom LuteyOn BackgroundAfter Capitolized reported in June about the recruitment of Libertarian congressional candidate Dennis Hayes by a secretive online group, Helena resident Paul Golter came forward with a similar story. The 2024 general election was the first held with Montana’s newly drawn legislative district maps. Democrats picked up House and Senate seats in the state Legislature even as the party’s candidates were soundly rebuffed in elections for statewide and federal offices. Rep. Matt Rosendale, a hardliner who was elected to the House in 2020 after serving as Montana’s state auditor, launched a long-anticipated campaign for the U.S. Senate Feb. 9, but called it off six days later when Donald Trump endorsed Tim Sheehy, who ultimately won. Then, at the end of February — by which point several Republicans had already begun campaigns to fill his U.S. House seat — Rosendale reactivated his House campaign committee only to announce in March that he wouldn’t run for reelection.The post A Photo Finish, Finally, in House District 57 appeared first on Montana Free Press.