Forstag holds flurry of events in Flathead as VP stumps in Belgrade

Before the sun crested the Swan Mountains on Monday, Democratic candidate Sam Forstag was meeting with a group of small business owners in a Whitefish bagel shop.

Sesame seeds, a topping of one of the best selling bagels, are more expensive these days, said Dan Moe, owner of Cutthroat Bagel Company, as are paper products and “all of the things” needed to run his business. 

Forstag, listened to concerns that global tariffs, the war in Iran and federal rhetoric against Canada — which has led to a decline in tourism in Montana — will continue affecting Montana businesses.

Afterwards, Forstag toured the SmartLam mass timber manufacturing facility in Columbia Falls, met with local faith leaders and then headed across the Continental Divide for an event in Browning. 

Forstag, running for the state’s western U.S. House seat that is considered competitive by political analysts, has kept a packed schedule of events every day in recent weeks as Nov. 3 looms. 

His opponent, Republican Aaron Flint, has drawn several VIP visits on the stump — President Donald Trump in Kalispell two weeks ago, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson last week in Bozeman, and Monday in Belgrade, Vice President J.D. Vance.

“What it says to me is that they’re pretty desperate,” Forstag said on Monday morning. “They’re desperate because they see the same numbers we’re seeing.”

In the last two weeks, three political analyses — Fox News, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections — all upgraded the race in favor of Forstag, with two moving the race to “toss up” status. 

A Libertarian, Nick Sheedy, is also running.

Forstag said the presence of high-profile “party bosses” stumping for Flint is an attempt to “bail him out” and rely on spectacle, and that more and more political rhetoric in stump speeches, ads, and his opponent’s campaign, is leaning into fear and anger. 

“You’re not seeing any attempt from (Flint) — or frankly, a lot of people nationally in either party — to try to get past this politics of anger,” Forstag, 32, said. “That seems like it has been most of what I have known in my adult life, where most politicians are all too happy to … scream about everything that’s wrong with the other guy, but they don’t actually tell you how they’re going to make our life better, and then our life doesn’t get better.”

In Whitefish, an hour south of the Canadian border, business owners from around the Flathead Valley talked about rising costs due to tariffs, the effect of decreased tourism from Canada on their businesses, and a lack of constituent services from the state’s current federal delegation. 

Moe said as a food business, labor is his biggest cost, and the lack of affordable housing in the Flathead makes it hard to find full-time workers.

Forstag said if elected he would push for affordable housing solutions to be part of H.R. 1, the first bill introduced under the new Congress next year. 

“This campaign is about getting back to the absolute basics,” Forstag said. “The simple notion that you should be able to work one good job in this country and afford a roof over your head and health coverage that actually gets you healthcare when you need it, childcare if you’re somebody like me who would like to stick around and raise a family and doesn’t want us to get run out of town because you can’t afford it, and a good retirement on the back end that you spent your whole life paying into. These are the things that 80% of us can agree on.”

Montana’s western congressional district is an open seat due to incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke’s decision to retire.