‘I love a challenge’: New head of Montana Democrats sees opportunity, not crisis

As Montana Democrats look to regain ground in a state now run by Republicans but once known for its stubborn purple streak, they’ve put their faith in a former small town mayor and campaign operative from Pennsylvania to steer the party into its next chapter.

There’s not a single Democrat in statewide office, and they occupy a minority in the Legislature. Even Democratic darling former U.S. Sen Jon Tester, who was unseated by a Republican political newcomer in 2024, has said the party label is poison.

But Emily Marburger, hired last month as the party’s executive director, doesn’t agree that Montana Democrats are in a moment of crisis. Instead, she sees opportunity.

Her plan? A grassroots approach that rebuilds party credibility in places where once-Democratic voters have fallen away, in part, because they feel forgotten and re-establishing a vision for what makes Montana Democrats distinct from the national brand.

“We are letting the people of Montana tell us what the Democratic Party looks like to them, and what they need the Democratic party to be for them,” Marburger said in an interview. “It’s less about what part of the tent are you hanging out under. We’re all under this big tent, and we’re all doing the work together.”

Marburger, who had never visited Montana before accepting the executive director role, has spent her first few weeks on the job behind the wheel visiting communities around the state. Before moving to Helena, Marburger previously served stints on the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. She was the mayor of Bellevue, an 8,000-person town in Pennsylvania, and chaired the Allegheny County Democratic Committee.

She hopes to get to know voters and find people interested in getting more involved with party politics at the local level, a blueprint she followed in Pennsylvania and she said helped her flip a key statehouse seat from red to blue.

“I think it's a lot easier for someone to listen to tropes brought about by the, you know, Republican Party to try to vilify people if you don't see a Democrat in your area, if you don't have someone elected representing you, if you don't have someone knocking on your door and making sure they're engaging with you,” she said.

Shannon O’Brien, the state party chair, said Marburger’s commitment to getting behind the wheel is what’s impressed her most so far.

“I would venture to say she’s spent more nights on the road than she has in her home in Helena,” O’Brien said. “She just hasn’t taken time off. I hope she’s pacing herself, but she said ‘This is how I operate.'"

Having lost every statewide election in every cycle since 2020, the Montana Democratic Party has clearly struggled in recent years to figure out what resonates with voters.

“The state has changed so much in the past decade, and I think that the party is certainly feeling that change, trying to figure out what kind of party to be, how can they differentiate themselves between the national Democratic Party which is not popular in Montana,” said Jessi Bennion, a political scientist at Carroll College in Helena.

Tester long acted as the party’s north star, and his 2024 loss left a vacuum of leadership at the top of the party and thrust into the open the push-and-pull between the party’s progressive factions from urban strongholds like Missoula and Bozeman and moderates in rural areas.

Marburger said it’s a unique moment for someone in her role because there’s an opportunity to redefine what it means to be a Montana Democrat, though she shied away from articulating that vision in detail after only four weeks on the job.

“I need the people to tell me what Montana needs. I'm an expert on building the Democratic Party. I'm an expert in, you know, making sure that we're starting to flip seats and getting people to deliver for us,” Marburger said. “So absolutely, I'm not going to tell Montana what needs to happen in Montana. I need Montana to tell me what needs to happen in Montana at this point.”

She also committed to investing more resources into rural areas, where Democrats have failed to muster much support in recent cycles.

“We need to listen to them and give them the resources they need, and make sure we're engaging with people in ways like their local radio stations or their local newspapers, ways that people are going to get that information and make sure that we are not just focused on methods of communication that feed to population bases as a primary way to move forward ,” she said.

Marburger, who rose to the top of an 18-person applicant pool to get the job, pointed to her time in Pennsylvania as proof she knows how to engender more broad appeal for the Democratic Party.

“Well, clearly, being from Pennsylvania, I love a challenge, right?,” she said of her past roots in a battleground state.

Progress, Marburger believes, can start as soon as this year with the race for the western house district, where there are four Democratic candidates in a primary contest to unseat Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke.

“The opportunity here is amazing for the people of the Western District to kind of get someone who's engaged with them and ready to serve them,” she said.