Bartholomew D Sullivan

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — With congressional special elections completed in Kansas and awaiting a June runoff in Georgia, the nation turns its eyes to Big Sky Country and the election to replace former Montana congressman and current Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

The contest pits last year’s losing Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte, the current favorite, against Democratic cowboy poet and singer Rob Quist and Libertarian Mark L. Wicks, an Inverness cattle rancher and novelist.

The single, statewide congressional district has been in Republican hands for 20 years, but conservative Montana currently has two Democratic statewide office holders in recently re-elected Gov. Steve Bullock and second-term Sen. Jon Tester. The special election is May 25.

The race is likely to become the same kind of referendum on President Trump that the previous special elections have devolved into, with heavy spending from outside groups intended to move a national message, good or bad, about his national leadership.

“Gianforte is the favorite but it appears as though national forces are starting to tune into the race,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor and House races analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“Some Republican outside groups have started investing, and Democrats may enter soon,” Kondik said. “Democratic candidates have generally been running ahead of Hillary Clinton’s performance in special House and state legislative races so far, and it’ll be interesting to see if that effect manifests itself in Montana and, if so, how dramatic the effect is. The outside spending by national groups will give us a sense of how competitive the race is but, with special elections, there are always challenges in figuring things out in advance.”

None of the three contenders has held elective office. Gianforte, 56, a millionaire businessman born in California and educated in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, came to Montana in 1995. He sold his Bozeman-based software company, RightNow Technologies, to Oracle in 2011 for $1.5 billion.

He is known for his support of Focus on the Family, the conservative Heritage Foundation and for his family foundation’s contributions to the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, near the North Dakota border, a creationist institution whose current newsletter explains that it seeks to point out “that the Biblical worldview is consistent with the scientific evidence we find in the fossil record.” The museum teaches that dinosaurs were among those along for the ride on Noah’s Ark.

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“You can count on me to fight back against the D.C. elites who can’t point to Montana on a map, yet have no problem imposing burdensome regulations that threaten to devastate our livelihoods like what we’ve seen with our coal and timber jobs,” he says in his campaign statement.

Gianforte, who received 46.4% of the vote for governor, lost by 18,766 votes to Bullock, who took in 50.2% in a three-way race that netted 3.4% for Libertarian Ted Dunlap. Almost half a million votes were cast.

Gianforte has outraised Quist in the first campaign finance disclosure filings for the special election, $1.6 million to $903,976, although Quist has more cash on hand — $692,418 compared with Gianforte’s $542,351, Federal Election Commission records released April 15 show. But Gianforte spent $6 million of his own money in his losing gubernatorial bid last year and may be planning a similar strategy. Quist’s donations averaged about $40 per person and two-thirds came from state residents, according to the Associated Press. Three-quarters of Gianforte’s came from Montanans, it said.

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Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, is scheduled to campaign with Gianforte in Kalispell, Hamilton, Billings and Bozeman on Friday and Saturday.

Quist, 69, a native of Montana, is an internationally known banjo and guitar player who has performed across the state and has served as the state’s official cultural ambassador to Japan. He was appointed by two governors to serve on the Montana Arts Council. He was inducted into the University of Montana’s School of Art Hall of Fame, recognized as “a Montana musician and composer who has captured the spirit of the West in his music.” His songs have been recorded by Loretta Lynn, among others. His most recent campaign song includes such lines as “You can stand with me and I will stand up for you.”

In another song, he sings: “There’s enough millionaires in Washington and I’ll be a voice for the rest of us.” His campaign website bears the slogan: “Putting Mountains First.”

A Bernie Sanders supporter in last year’s Democratic primary, Quist and his candidacy have sparked revitalization of at least 13 county central committees across the state, Montana Democratic Party Executive Director Nancy Keenan said in an interview this week, with 43 of the state’s 56 counties now active in the party. Sanders, who won the Montana presidential primary, is expected to campaign with him in May.

Quist is also known for supporting arts education in public schools, a single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system and abortion rights and would seek continued funding for Planned Parenthood. Like three-term former Tennessee congressman Stephen Lee Fincher, a baritone and bass guitar player in his family gospel group before seeking office, Quist won’t be the first to attempt to parlay musical talents into a seat in Congress.

Kondik said he doubts the appearances by the high-profile surrogates for the Republican and Democratic candidates will move voters or influence the vote but said they will generate news coverage for the campaigns.

Wicks, 47, the Libertarian, is a trained aviation mechanic and Army reservist who returned to his family ranch outside Inverness, population 60, and plans to bring, “good old Montana common sense” to Washington.

According to his campaign biography, Wicks “understands the needs and wants of Montanans who put on coveralls, smocks, scrubs, and suits, and go to work just so they can live the life they want without interference.”

Wicks is also the author of Wrath of the Dodo, a novel set in post-apocalypse Montana, about which one Amazon reader-reviewer wrote: “This book is one of those that should be read by a lot more people … The landscape is painted in such a manner you know what the characters are seeing.”

Wicks, in an interview, said it is “the most realistic apocalypse novel about how things are going to be,” and said a sequel is in the works, tentatively titled Revenge of the Dodo.

He said he decided to run because “I’m fed up with what’s going on in Washington.”