when montana republican senator steve daines arrived at the montana state house today to give a little prepared speech about his support for the donald trump supreme court nominee, he was greeted by a whole lot of his constituents who would really like him to meet with them, would really like him to hold a town hall meeting with the constituents. they intercepted him at the airport, he wouldn t answer their questions. they held their own town hall outside the state house yesterday when senator daines was originally scheduled to visit the state house, when he heard about his constituents waiting for him there at the last minute he canceled his visit. they held a town hall meeting without him. his constituents did find him at this conservative press conference including the listless guy in the yellow chicken suit. this is the climate in montana right now, as a brand new strange controversy has sprung up around the election they re going to need to hold in that
his district only went for donald trump by 1.5 points. there s a huge amount of democratic interest nationwide in trying to make that seat a democratic pickup wheny ve got at special election for thateat in april. we profiled the it s of the liberal coast website to support a candidate named john ossoff. they ve raised nearly $1 million on behalf of john ossoff in that race. the first polling in the georgia race puts john ossoff not just ahead of the democrats but the giant field including the multitudeness of republicans running for that seat as well. in montana, there sing if to be another one of those special elections. like i said montana only has one member of congress, a congressional district special election in montana is a statewide election, because that s the congressional district. depending on when ryan zinke gets confirmed to the cabinet, it s likely that the race to replace him in congress will be,
they re run without the expense of opening up the polling places, run instead by mail, montana is a huge state with not that many people in it. running an election by mail just makes economic sense in a state where the people are that spread out. and montana elections administrators have a lot of experience of running elections by mail because of it. why not do the congressional election as well, just mail everybody a ballot? here s the tea time county clerk and recorder making the case, as representative zinke s pending appointment looms over montana, election administrators across the state see mounting costs for an unbudgeted election. election administrators have a solution to save the taxpayers money, we are proposing a bill to conduct the congressional special election by mail. conducting the election by mail would conservatively save taxpayers statewide between half a million and three-quarters of a million dollars. another county clerk making the case in her local paper mail
on the ballot in all of those races. the last election in which mike fellows ran was this last one we held in november. montana is one of seven states in the country that has only one member of congress for the whole state. every state has two u.s. senators, but there are seven states in the country that have such small populations they only have one representative in the house, and montana is one of those states, current member of congress is republican congressman ryan zinke. this past november mike fellows ran as the libertarian candidate against ryan zinke for congress, and nobody thinks that mike fellows had a shot at unseating this incumbent congressman, but it still had a really big political impact on the state of montana, when mike fellows unexpectedly died in the leadup to the election. only 59 years old, he was driving home from a campaign event on a monday night in september, he got into a head-on car crash, and mike fellows
capitol a day late, he turned up today. he still would not meet with any of his constituents who wanted to meet with him, would not agree to a town hall. he did speak at a press conference, sponsored by a conservative interest group but as he did so his constituents would not leave him alone. they were holding up signs, they were saying you work for us they were asking him for a meeting, this one woman over the course you see there on the right side there, one woman holding up a sign that quotes adele hello from the other side, i must have called a thousand times. randomly the guy in yellow there, a guy in a chicken suit now who follows steve daines around everywhere he goes. we only have this little bit of footage. he s not even wearing the chicken head, standing there flapping his chicken arms no matter where steve daines goes because steve daines won t meet with his constitch wepts. montana civic life is different than what it used to be because of the outcome of this election