Neumann, 44, was born in British Columbia and moved to Bozeman as an infant after her father died in a lumber mill accident. She said that experience, and her childhood with a stepfather who was a union construction worker, helped shape her political ideas and this Senate run.

“We lost my dad when I was a baby to a traumatic head injury in a lumber mill. If we had been closer to good care he may very well have survived,” Neumann said. “That really motivated me to work on public health.”

She also recalls her stepfather traveling to Great Falls for union jobs during the economic downturn of the 1980s, a struggle that eventually led them to leave the state for six years before coming back.

Later Neumann earned a doctorate in public health and launched the Global First Ladies Alliance a decade ago. The organization leverages the power of First Ladies around the world to work on issues such as access to health care and economic development, she said.

“You have this group of women who are at the pinnacle of society but nobody's really taking them seriously,” Neumann said.