Between the coasts, populist Democrats see room to reclaim lost ground in red states
Sam Forstag poses for a portrait on a ranch outside of Drummond, Montana on October 7, 2026. A former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper, Forstag is trying to flip a House seat in the state’s 1st congressional district.
Tailyr Irvine for NPR
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Tailyr Irvine for NPR
WESTERN MONTANA — Voters are angry, and an unconventional crop of Democratic candidates see an opening in this year’s midterms to reclaim territory others in the party have given up on.
From the Great Plains and Upper Midwest to the Deep South, campaigns are taking a page from a progressive brand of economic populism that once flourished away from the coasts.
They are betting that harnessing anger at corporate power and both parties might succeed when many voters believe the economy and government are not working for working people.
If successful, they could forge a new playbook to compete again in places Democrats used to win.
In Montana, former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper Sam Forstag is trying to flip a House seat by speaking directly and from his own experience about the economic stress facing many Montana voters.
“I was making 19 bucks an hour jumping out of airplanes for the federal government in a community where you’d be lucky to find a home for a half million bucks,” says Forstag, who in 2022 joined an elite team of wildland firefighters parachuting into remote areas. “If a smokejumper is being left behind, a whole lot of other people are being left behind by both political parties.”
When President Trump cut nearly 400 Forest Service jobs in Montana last year, Forstag was his union’s vice president. Forstag says he tried to reach his Republican congressman, Ryan Zinke.
“Time and time again, I got crickets, so I decided if he’s going to come after my coworkers and our members’ jobs, I’m going to come and take his,” Forstag told a crowd of smokejumpers and wildland firefighters this month at the Great Burn Brewery in Missoula.
Zinke ultimately retired, opening a district that runs some 400 miles between Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Trump won the district by double digits in 2024. Now it is considered a toss-up.
A mix of factors are upending the typical political dynamics inside the district.
With an influx of wealthy transplants since the pandemic, the Montana housing market has become among the most unaffordable in the nation. That squeeze has been compounded as the cost of groceries, gas and health insurance have also soared.
Former Montana Senator Jon Tester on his ranch in Big Sandy, Montana on October 6, 2026. Tester says the Democratic brand is not good in Montana, but believes the Iran war and rising costs could prompt some voters to give his party another look.
Tailyr Irvine for NPR
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Tailyr Irvine for NPR
How the Democratic brand tarnished
Montana has not usually been thought of as a swing state in recent years. Not long ago, voters here regularly elected Republicans and Democrats. But as the urge for disruption and a strain of populist rhetoric trained on cultural elites and immigrants helped propel Trump to victory in 2016, Democrats increasingly struggled to hang on.
Sandi Ramos voted for President Obama twice before backing President Trump. Still she continued voting for Montana’s Democratic senator, Jon Tester.
In the Biden era, Ramos soured on Democrats more broadly. She says overall she is pleased with the job Trump is doing, despite not liking him personally, and says it would be hard to vote for a Democrat, even Forstag.
“I don’t think anything could happen that fast to make me vote for him,” Ramos says. “Although I really respect him as a person and I like him.”
With support from split ticket voters like Ramos, Tester was able to outperform national Democrats for years. But that record of electoral success came to an end in 2024, when he lost his bid for reelection.
Following the Blackfoot River and then crossing the Continental Divide, golden aspen trees give way to wide-open fields for wheat and peas where Tester’s family has farmed for over a century.
“Where you’re standing right now in 1960 was pretty damn blue,” Tester says. “These were the children of homesteaders in the Great Depression. They understand the role government played. Before my grandfather died, he said if it wasn’t for FDR, we wouldn’t be on this place.”
Tester says the Democratic brand here is not good. He believes many national Democrats have written off places between the Appalachians and the Rockies. But as the Iran war and tariffs spike prices for fertilizer and fuel under Trump, Tester says some voters may be willing to give Democrats another look.
‘Changing whose in those damn rooms’
Sam Forstag hears from farmers and ranchers at an event on a ranch outside of Drummond, Montana on October 7, 2026.
Tailyr Irvine for NPR
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Tailyr Irvine for NPR
That is one reason Forstag spent a sunny Wednesday afternoon talking with a group of farmers and ranchers gathered at Peterson Angus Ranch. Proprietor Sue Peterson also chairs the small Granite County Democratic Party. Atop a bluff with vistas in all directions, she says she has one theory why Democrats sometimes struggle to connect with ranchers or farmers in places they used to win.
“If you’re dealing with animals, you’re dealing with life and death all the time and sometimes the decisions are hard and it’s hard to relate to someone in a suit,” Peterson says.
Forstag says it is frustrating to hear so many Democrats talk about affordability like a novel messaging strategy or a buzzword.
“We don’t change this by giving a new term to it,” Forstag says in an interview. “We change it by changing who’s in those damn rooms. Because there are politicians who have been sitting in those offices for 10, 20, 30 years and nothing has changed.”
For Forstag, running as a populist means recalibrating the relationship between the people in power in Washington and the regular people who send them there.
“I’m going to answer to the people I’ve worked with for the last eight years,” Forstag says. “I’m going to answer to people like the kid I was growing up, whose belly is full because of food stamps. It does not feel like that’s who Congress is answering to right now.”
Forstag poses for a portrait outside of Drummond, Montana on October 7, 2026. He says it is frustrating to hear Democrats talk about affordability like it is a buzzword. “We don’t change this by giving a new term to it,” he says.
Tailyr Irvine for NPR
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Tailyr Irvine for NPR
Prairie populism is having a moment
With a campaign hyper-focused on answering the economic pain shaping the lives of voters, Forstag has managed to attract endorsements from the party’s left flank, like New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and also more moderate members of the Blue Dog Caucus in the House.
“Populist language is a way to unify disparate groups who might lean towards or be willing to vote for Democrats, but might have problems with the beliefs or the priorities of one or another constituency within the Democratic Party,” says Georgetown University professor Michael Kazin, who studies the history of American populism.
In places like Iowa, Arkansas and Wisconsin this year, candidates are embracing a more specific identity – as prairie populists, a nod to the late 19th century political movement with Great Plains roots that united small farmers and workers against corporate monopolies.
Kazin says it was also a reaction to states in the heartland feeling neglected in favor of more populous, urban states on the coasts. Kazin says claiming this identity today allows candidates to tap into the anger that’s fueling anti-establishment campaigns across the country this year, without alienating voters in more conservative-leaning states who might be put off by the party’s toxic brand or divisive social issues.
In Iowa, Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek calls himself a “common sense prairie populist” and says his north star is “to go up there and fight for the people that can’t afford to make a political donation or afford a lobbyist.”
The Democratic candidate for governor, Rob Sand, is campaigning on issues like the big agriculture corporations stymieing politicians from addressing polluted water supplies.
In Kansas, Democrats have nominated the Rev. Adam Hamilton as their candidate for Senate. Hamilton does not use the kind of anti-establishment rhetoric employed by other Democrats showing traction in red states. But he often ends his stump speech citing the Wizard of Oz, which some historians see as an allegory for the 19th century populist movement.
“Do you remember what the scarecrow needed? A brain. And then what did the Tin Man need? The heart. And what did the Cowardly Lion need? Courage,” Hamilton tells crowds. “This is what’s missing in the United States Senate right now.”
Forstag hears from farmers and ranchers at an event on a ranch outside of Drummond, Montana on October 7, 2026.
Tailyr Irvine for NPR
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Tailyr Irvine for NPR
For some Democrats, embracing this ethos is less about a position on the ideological spectrum and more about speaking to voters fed up with the status quo.
“The most common thing I’ve heard, whether I’m in Kansas or Wisconsin or Michigan, is we want a new generation of leaders and we want big and bold ideas. People are absolutely done with what they’ve known in the past,” Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin told NPR after stumping for progressive Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a local Democratic club this summer in Michigan.
Jane Kleeb, the state party chair in Nebraska where Democrats are backing a mechanic running as an independent and a populist for Senate, says it is perplexing when Democrats complain that the only way to win power in the Senate is to reform its structure. She says the answer is to earnestly compete in more states.
“So trying to focus on eight battlegrounds never made mathematical sense,” says Kleeb, who is also a vice chair at the Democratic National Committee.
With frustrated voters, candidates see an opening
But if Democrats gain ground in Republican-leaning places, it might not be clear how much of that success is a reflection on the type of candidates and messages or just the deteriorating national environment for Republicans.
GOP candidates are also feeling the pressure to speak to anger over the economy.
Campaigning across the vast district in an RV, Forstag’s Republican opponent, veteran Aaron Flint, is promising to “make the Montana dream affordable again.” As a conservative radio host, Flint has an intimate relationship with many Montana voters and hears about the challenges they are dealing with.
Aaron Flint, the GOP candidate for the House in Montana’s 1st District, speaks ahead of an address by President Trump in Kalispell, Mont. on Oct. 14.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
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Ross D. Franklin/AP
He is also trying to pierce Forstag’s working class biography and effort to appeal to the middle, pointing out Forstag has campaigned with Ocasio-Cortez and lobbied in the off seasons for the ACLU. Flint says if Democrats take power, they will hike taxes and make Montana’s problems worse.
“I’m not just running because of deep frustration with the damage that was done to this party by the Democrat party,” Flint said in an interview after a stop in the old mining town of Butte. “I’m also running because there’s some Republicans back in Washington that aren’t doing enough to fix everything either.”
Voter Nicholas Babcock is skeptical. He is a mail carrier in nearby Anaconda, where an old smelter for the once behemoth Anaconda Copper Company rises 585 feet above town. Babcock voted for Trump three times. He says the first term was more good than bad.
“The second term is the exact opposite,” he says. “We have seen a complete betrayal of almost every campaign promise that was made. It just feels almost like a slap in the face that we were sold one thing and none of it was delivered.”
Sam Forstag speaks at a rally geared toward former and current firefighters at the Great Burn Brewery on October 5, 2026 in Missoula, Montana.
Tailyr Irvine for NPR
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Tailyr Irvine for NPR
So Babcock showed up at a Forstag town hall. He says his hero was Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was assassinated last year. “He would listen to absolutely anybody, discuss anything with anybody,” Babcock says. “I’m absolutely willing to change my mind.”
Babcock says Forstag also knows what it’s like to punch a clock and thinks he might actually buck the establishment. He hopes this politician will follow through.
With reporting by Barbara Sprunt in Nebraska, Stephen Fowler in Kansas and Danielle Kurtzleben in Iowa.
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