Republicans clean up in Election

Republican candidates had great success following last Tuesday’s General Election, both nationally and in the state of Montana.

At the national level, Republican Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America as he and his Vice President Mike Pence won 290 of 518 delegates to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Trump/Pence ticket won the State of Montana – defeating Clinton by nearly 100,000 votes – as well as in Phillips County were the President-elect received 1,751 votes to Clinton’s 315 (Libertarian Gary Johnson garnered 98 votes in the county, Green Party’s Jill Stein got 19 and the Fuetna/Steinberg ticket earned two votes.) The Republican Party also swept the U.S. House and Senate.

In Phillips County, 81-percent of registered voters participated in the General Election (2,236 out of 2,753) and statewide 73-percent of registered Montana voters cast their ballots. In one of few wins for Montana Democrats, Montana Governor Steve Bullock won reelection against GOP Candidate Greg Gianforte and his Lt. Governor nominee, Malta’s Lesley Robinson. Bullock defeated Gianforte 250,845 votes to 232,078, though Gianforte and Robinson won in Phillips County by a 1,684 to 491 margin (Libertarian candidate Ted Dunlap received 16,792 votes statewide and 44 votes in Phillips County.)

In the Montana Senate, Malta’s Mike Lang won District 17 over Douglas Adolphson as he received 7,727 of the 9,940 votes cast in that race. Lang will replace long-term Senator John Brenden who has termed-out and unable to run for reelection.

Sen. Lang, who vacated his State Representative position to run for SD17, told the PCN that he will be on the agriculture, business and labor, natural resources (and, perhaps, fish and game) committees in Helena.

"I will play as a team player there as to where they feel my area of expertise is needed the most," Sen. Lang said. "I think the money will be an issue and for us, in Eastern Montana, a big issue is our rest homes and medical facilities. We will be carrying a bill for Medicaid, higher payments, higher reimbursements, but I don't know where the money will come from yet. That is the big question mark and that is what people have to understand.”

When Sen. Lang stepped away from his State Representative for District 33 position to run for the Montana Senate seat, Malta’s Casey Knudsen stepped up to run for the empty spot as a Republican. Sen. Lang said he believes the people in his former district are going to be represented well by Rep. Knudsen.

“I think Casey will do a good job,” Sen. Lang said. “The reason I ran was to have people step forward and pavethe road so that people will want to do this job. We need to represent ourselves if we want the government to do what we want it to do. Casey is a young, conservative guy with ambition and I think he has the common sense to listen to people and the fortitude to make up his own mind.”

Rep. Knudsen defeated Democrat Mike Finley 3,553 votes to 1,052 and won the Phillips County vote handily, 1,319 to 263.

“Getting that kind of support, it sure makes you feel like you are doing the right thing,” Rep. Knudsen told the PCN, “and not just from my community and district, but statewide as well. Not being a part of politics, I was kind of wondering if this was the right time to jump in and having all this support from everybody made me feel like I made the right choice.”

Rep. Knudsen said in this term, his first, he plans on doing a lot of listening and learning.

"I don't want to be the guy that introduces 50 bills in his first session and none of them are worth anything or get passed because I didn't take the time to see how things work," Rep. Knudsen said. "I want to come away from this session not just doing some good, but I also want to come away with a deep, good understanding of how the place works. I'm not going to just dive in and think I can change the world and come away with nothing our district can say was good."

Both Sen. Lang and Rep. Knudsen are in Helena this week receiving training and will be sworn in on January 2, 2017. Both Sen. Lang and Rep. Knudsen said they will let the people of Phillips County know how things in Helena are going as often as possible in the pages of the PCN.

In State District 16 (which represents a portion of Phillips County) Democrat Frank J. Smith defeated G. Bruce Meyers (3,655 to 2,716, though Meyers won Phillips County) and Democrat Jonathan Windy Boy ran unopposed in the State Representative District 32 race and received a total of 2,476 votes, 250 from Phillips County.

In other Phillips County elections, John Carnahan was elected as Phillips County Commissioner for District A (replacing Robinson) and Tami Christofferson was reelected to the Phillips County Clerk of Court position. Carnahan and Christofferson, both Republicans, ran unopposed in their races.