MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Democrats advanced deep into Trump territory last night, racking up victories across heartland states, rural districts. Democrat Sam Forstag, a former smokejumper and union leader, is poised to win a Montana House race against a conservative radio host and military veteran. That's a seat that Republicans had held for three decades. Well, we are joined now by NPR's Kirk Siegler in Missoula, Montana. Hey there, Kirk.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Hey. First of all, I just identified him as a former smokejumper. That's what - a firefighter who jumps out of a plane or something into the smoke?
SIEGLER: Right. It's funny. Here in Missoula, it's a pretty commonplace term, but, yes, you've got it right - an elite firefighter who parachutes into remote forests...
KELLY: Got it. OK.
SIEGLER: ...Forest fires (ph).
KELLY: OK. So Sam Forstag, he has declared victory. Montana went - what? - resoundingly for President Trump and has since 2016. Did he talk about that?
SIEGLER: Oh, of course. His victory over Aaron Flint, the conservative Republican, you know, hearing him a lot today and last night, and throughout the campaign, you know, he's been laser focused on the needs of working people, he says. And he's been taking a lot of shots at President Donald Trump, which is notable because especially here in Montana, Democrats have really struggled with how to respond to Trump for a decade now as he's been hugely popular here. So taking to the party last night, Forstag called Trump one of the, quote, "richest men in the world" who gut our public lands and the public services that working-class Montanans, he said, depend on.
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SAM FORSTAG: We could again be a state that bends the course of this country's history for the better, that we can show in the country that...
(CHEERING)
FORSTAG: ...The only way we fix this is we send working-class people to Washington so that we can go fight for ourselves.
SIEGLER: And, Mary Louise, you can hear him addressing a boisterous crowd of supporters here in Missoula - a lot of young people in that room, including most of his staff. Now, this race has gotten a lot of national attention from Day 1 because it's the seat that Ryan Zinke, the former interior secretary under Trump, won. He's retiring. The Forstag campaign was an underdog. They had said they were confident going into this, though, due to his huge social media presence. And he's really risen to national notoriety, and this is going to go down as a big upset.
KELLY: Republicans had gone all-out for his opponent, Aaron Flint. President Trump, Vice President Vance - they were in Montana campaigning for Flint. Do we know is Forstag's win - is that part of the backlash against Trump nationally, or is it maybe part of a picture of how Democrats could start winning again in rural areas?
SIEGLER: Well, that's the big question. I think we can add it to our pundits' to-do list. The answer may be a little of both. You know, looking at the preliminary results, Forstag appears to have done pretty well, even in some of this district's most conservative places. I mean, this is a huge district. You go from Glacier National Park down to Yellowstone. A lot of people work in tourism, forestry, healthcare, federal lands, the U.S. Forest Service. And, you know, Forstag said he personally got into the race when President Trump's DOGE team started slashing public lands agencies. And, you know, there were hundreds of people here in western Montana who lost jobs as a result of that, and these agencies are major employers. And Forstag today in a press conference just a few moments ago told us that he credits his victory, you know, partly to having probably gotten some crossover Republican votes.
KELLY: And just - in just a few sentences, culture war - that was big in this particular campaign as well.
SIEGLER: It was. The Flint campaign targeted Forstag with ads about transgender people in sports, and it seems as though it didn't really seem to click. Flint did talk about affordability, but he really seemed to struggle to get a lot of enthusiasm.
KELLY: NPR's Kirk Siegler reporting in Missoula, Montana - thank you, Kirk.
SIEGLER: You're welcome, Mary Louise.
(SOUNDBITE OF DINA RAE SONG, "LET GO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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