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The Cook Political Report shifted the Montana Senate race from “toss up” to “lean Republican” on Thursday as polls show Republican Tim Sheehy leading incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D) in a contest critical to control of the upper chamber. The nonpartisan prognosticating group made the move with less than two months before Election Day, giving Republicans a shot in the arm in the process “Today we are making a major shift — moving the Montana Senate race from Toss Up to Lean Republican,” the Cook Political Report’s Jessica Taylor wrote. “This means that Republicans are now an even heavier favorite...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is plowing ahead with his plan to avert a government shutdown despite GOP opposition that is large enough to tank the effort, setting the stage for a potentially embarrassing vote on the House floor that will foil the Speaker’s funding strategy. At least six Republicans, including hard-line conservatives and defense hawks, have said they will vote against Johnson’s government funding gambit, which pairs a six-month continuing resolution (CR) with a Trump-backed bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote. Republicans can only afford to lose four of their members if all Democrats vote “no” and there is...

A Montana county declared the wrong winner in a race after overcounting votes. During a post-canvassing audit of the Butte-Silver Bow County primary that was held in June, election officials suspected an overcount of more than 1,000 ballots, prompting a judge to order a recount. The recount discovered that 1,131 more votes were counted than voters who voted. Data shows a very similar number of votes in each precinct was overcounted. Election officials are not entirely sure what happened, though Butte-Silver Bow County Clerk and Recorder Linda Sajor-Joyce told leaders she believes the extra ballots were from sample data that...

A sentencing date has been set for man accused of slaughtering more than 3,600 birds, including more than 118 protected eagles, during a years-long wildlife trafficking ring out West, new court documents show. Travis John Branson, 48, pleaded guilty in March to charges including conspiracy, wildlife trafficking and trafficking bald and golden eagles, in federal court in Montana. According to a sentencing memorandum filed Tuesday, Branson and his “crew” killed eagles and then sold them across the country for profit on the black market. “It was not uncommon for Branson to take upwards of nine eagles at a time,” prosecutors...

The U.S. Senate race in Montana will almost certainly decide who controls the chamber in 2025. It may also mark the beginning of the end of split-ticket voting in a presidential year, when every election becomes intimately tied to the fight at the top of the ticket. Since 2006, Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, has narrowly survived three Senate races in his solidly Republican state by outperforming Democratic presidential candidates by up to 20 percentage points. He is attempting to do so again this year by disassociating himself from the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, who trails former...

As the 2024 election season intensifies, Montana's political landscape is heating up, particularly around the candidacy of Governor Greg Gianforte. While Gianforte’s financial success has been unfairly scrutinized by his opponents, the real story lies in the hypocrisy of one of his most vocal critics: Ryan Busse. A former firearms industry executive turned gun-control advocate, Busse has made a lucrative career out of attacking the Second Amendment, all while refusing to be transparent about his own finances. For pro-Second Amendment Montanans, this raises serious questions about Busse’s true motivations and the integrity of his campaign against Gianforte. Busse’s story is...

The Foo Fighters are clarifying that they didn’t approve of one of their songs being played during a Donald Trump rally in Arizona. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the presidential race and the independent politician is now backing the former Republican president. During a rally in Gilbert in the swing stage, the song “My Hero” was played, and now the band, fronted by Dave Grohl, is breaking their silence. “Let us be clear,” the band’s social media account on X/Twitter posted. The band shared a screenshot of an exchange with another X user asking the Foo Fighters if...

The Montana Democratic Party sued the secretary of state and the state of Montana on Thursday to get the Green Party's Senate candidate removed from general election ballots. The Democrats are asking a judge to permanently bar Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen from certifying any Green Party candidate in the Senate election, including who was slated to be on the ballot, Darby resident Robert Barb. That said, there were only hours left after the lawsuit was filed for the secretary of state to certify the November ballots, so it's unclear how it was meant to play out if ballots...

Montana officials on Tuesday approved a proposed amendment for the November ballot which would enshrine the right to abortion throughout pregnancy into the state constitution. “Supporters ended up with more than 81,000 signatures, about 10.5 percent of registered voters. The campaign needed just over 60,000 signatures and to qualify 40 or more of the 100 state House districts by gathering the signatures of at least 10 percent of the number of people who voted for governor in 2020 in that district. The initiative qualified in 59 districts,” the Associated Press reported.

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte blasted a unanimous decision rendered Wednesday by the Montana Supreme Court that struck down the Parental Consent for Abortion Act of 2013, eroding parental rights for the medical care of their minor children. “As a strong defender of parental rights, I’m deeply concerned and disappointed by today’s ruling from the Montana Supreme Court, which states parents do not have a fundamental right to oversee the medical care of their young daughters,” Gianforte said. “In its ruling, the Court has wielded its gavel like a hammer against one of the fundamental rights in our history: the right...

Trump's plane has apparently made a U turn on its way to Bozeman and has instead landed in Billings. Rumors of a medical, but could be anything.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in 2018 praised an apocalyptic Pearl Jam concert poster that depicted former President Donald Trump dead, according to his 2020 book, Grounded: A Rural Democrat’s Fight to Unite America. Tester’s last reelection campaign enflamed controversy when a Pearl Jam poster for a get-out-the-vote concert promoting the Montana Democrat featured a dead Donald Trump and an American bald eagle eating the remains of his corpse. Tester is close friends with Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, who designed the poster. Tester’s campaign, not Tester himself, disavowed the poster, only after the media shed light on the controversy. Two...

COLUMBIA FALLS, Mont. — A man picking huckleberries in Montana shot and killed a grizzly bear after it attacked and injured him badly enough that he had to be hospitalized. The 72-year-old man was alone when the adult female charged him Thursday. He killed the bear with a handgun, according to a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks statement Friday. The attack happened in Flathead National Forest about 2 miles north of Columbia Falls, a northwestern Montana city of about 5,500 people, according to the state wildlife agency.

Buried beneath the surface of Sage Mountain Center is a foundation of granite and crystal. Above the earthen surface are magnificent rock formations of magical scale and form. Our lives here have been embedded within these formations that are a part of the little known 75-million-year-old Boulder Batholith of North America.The Boulder Batholith is a relatively small batholith in southwestern Montana. A batholith is a mass of plutonic rock larger than 100 square kilometers (40 square miles) in area, which forms from cooled magma deep in the Earth's crust. The Batholith was named for the prominent rounded boulders that typify...

Washington, Arizona, Colorado, California, and Oregon would see the biggest number of stores flipped to C&S.. Kroger and Albertsons have released a list of hundreds of stores that would be divested to C&S Wholesale Grocers if federal regulators approve its proposed $24.6 billion merger deal, and the states with the largest numbers include Washington, Arizona, and Colorado. Under the proposal, Kroger and Albertsons would divest stores in Washington (124), Arizona (101), Colorado (91), California (63), Oregon (62), Illinois (35), Texas (28), Nevada (16), and Alaska (18). Several states would see 10 or fewer stores divested, including: Idaho (10), New Mexico...

***The fight for Senate control appears more clear-cut. With former Democrat, now-independent, Sen. Joe Manchin retiring from his West Virginia seat, Democrats have virtually ceded the seat to Republicans. That GOP pick-up would take Democrats’ current 51-49 majority down to an even 50-50 split.Democrats could retain control of the Senate by the narrowest of margins if they maintain control of the vice presidency. That brings with it potential complications for their congressional majorities if Joe Biden remains president and suffers (further) health issues, but put that aside for the time being.To ensure themselves a majority not contingent upon the outcome...

The ruling requires the administration to keep processing new applications to export LNG as the Texas-led lawsuit proceeds. Attorney General Ken Paxton obtained a temporary injunction in his lawsuit against the Biden administration over their decision to halt liquefied natural gas exports. Joined by 15 other state attorneys general, Paxton secured the win Monday after a federal district court judge in Western Louisiana ruled that the new administrative plan should be paused as the case proceeds. “This ruling means [President Joe] Biden’s illegal ban does not prevent Texas natural gas from reaching market while the lawsuit continues,” stated Paxton in...

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) warned in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News last month that the Democrats have “radical” power-grabbing plans for the United States if they hold the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. When asked what the plan is for Republicans to combat that potential by retaking the U.S. Senate majority, Daines — the man who leads the NRSC, the party committee charged with doing so — laid out how close the margins are in the chamber right now, but how very far apart the two parties are ideologically.

Despite huge acreage and treacherous terrain, most missing persons at Yellowstone National Park are found. But a small number of disappearances have never been solved. The reasons why are as vast as the park. =============================================================== Dan Campbell was illegally hunting elk antler sheds in Yellowstone Park when he disappeared more than three decades ago. Campbell had set off from Hellroaring Trailhead to Jardine, Montana, outside of the park's boundaries, with his dog Freckles for a four-day trek. However, when the 42-year-old Montana man failed to appear at the designated location and time, his girlfriend, Tracy Erb, reported him missing April...

S.A. McCarthy @pipesmoknpapist S.A. McCarthy is a news writer at The Washington Stand. A Montana judge is striking down a state law defining “sex” as either male or female, claiming that the law violates the Montana State Constitution. In an order issued on Tuesday, Montana District Court Judge Shane Vannatta, the first Montana judge to openly identify as homosexual, declared Senate Bill 458 to be facially unconstitutional according to Montana state law. The legislation, passed by the Legislature in 2023 and signed into law by Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, revised state law to declare: In human beings, there are...