After primary Forstag’s ‘real’ fight begins

After a mostly sleepless night, hours from emerging one of Montana’s biggest primary surprises, Sam Forstag, union leader and newly minted Democratic nominee for Montana’s 1st Congressional District was already looking ahead to November.

“This is the end of a primary but the beginning of the real fight,” Forstag said during a phone interview from his 980 square foot Missoula home. “We knew it was going to be tight, and we always knew we would be coming from behind,” Forstag said. “We started with nothing six months ago, but the last two weeks we’ve been phone banking and knocking doors across the state.”

Election prediction markets heavily favored Busse less than one week before the primary.

Prediction Hunt reported Busse at an 86% chance of winning the primary. Another election market tracker predicted primary challenger firearms executive, author and 2024 gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse would garner around 93% while Forstag sat in the low teens.

Busse initially held a narrow lead in early ballot returns, reinforcing expectations that he could win. However, later-counted ballots swung toward Forstag. He ultimately won the Democratic primary with approximately 37% of the vote to Busse’s 33%.

“We’ve been talking about the same thing since day one,” Forstag said. “It’s the fact that you should be able to work one job, afford housing, and health coverage that actually gets you care, childcare, and a good retirement. Over the last month I could tell that message was gaining traction.”

By election day Forstag garnered endorsements from 14 unions, 35 current and former elected Montana officials, including four Republicans, and high-profile backing from Democratic socialists Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and New York Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who held a May 28 Missoula campaign rally.

Forstag, the only Montana U.S. 1st Congressional District candidate to personally contribute money to an opposing party campaign within the past four years, acknowledged he has to pull voters from across the aisle to win the November election.

“The strategy of this campaign has been two-fold; get back to the basics of what government can and ought to do, to make sure we are meeting people’s basic material needs when the market is not,” Forstag said. “The second is we can fight for big, bold policy change, and still be willing to sit across the table from someone we don’t agree with on everything and find common ground.”

Despite a perceived far-left affiliation from Forstag’s critics, he hopes to keep building on common ground.

“My hope is we can continue to build a coalition with more former and current Republican elected officials who might be disillusioned,” Forstag said. “We have space for working people of all stripes and all ages.”

After attending 15 Democratic primary debates, Forstag challenged Republican nominee, conservative firebrand radio host Aaron Flint, to a debate. He criticized a lack of discourse on the Republican side.

“I am excited to be on the debate stage with Aaron Flint, and talk about the fact that this guy has been spewing hate and hot air on the radio for a decade while I’ve actually been doing the work defending public lands and getting policies passed to make Montanans lives better.”

Riding high on his unexpected primary win, which garnered national headlines, Forstag hopes Montanans are left with a feeling that overcoming the odds is still possible.

“Montana can be a leader on the national stage,” Forstag said. “You don’t have to be a multimillionaire to run for Congress or a career politician. There is still time in this country to build a better world where working people can fight for themselves.”

“This is the end of a primary but the beginning of the real fight.”