Boots to Ballots: Montana's Farmers and Ranchers Are Rewriting Local Politics
Boots to Ballots: Montana's Farmers and Ranchers Are Rewriting Local Politics
On a Tuesday morning in late February, Carla Stenvik was doing what she has done for most of her adult life: feeding cattle on the 1,800-acre operation her family has worked in Chouteau County for three generations. By afternoon, she was reviewing campaign finance disclosure forms at her kitchen table, preparing for her first run at a county commissioner seat.
"I never thought I'd be doing this," Stenvik said with a laugh, gesturing at the stack of paperwork beside her coffee mug. "But at some point you get tired of complaining about decisions made by people who've never set foot on a working ranch. You have to do something about it."
Stenvik is part of a growing movement taking shape in courthouse squares and community centers across Montana. Agricultural producers — ranchers, wheat farmers, hay growers, and multi-generational landowners — are entering local political races in numbers that veteran observers say are unprecedented in recent memory. Their motivations vary by county and circumstance, but a common thread runs through nearly every conversation: a conviction that rural Montana has been underrepresented in the rooms where decisions get made.
Why Now
Several factors have converged to push agricultural Montanans toward the ballot box in 2025.
Property taxes rank near the top of nearly every candidate's list of grievances. Following reassessments in multiple counties over the past two years, many rural landowners saw their tax bills climb sharply — increases they argue bear little relationship to the actual income their land produces. For operations already navigating thin margins, the additional burden has felt, to many, like a breaking point.
"My land didn't get more valuable to me," said Marcus Dillon, a dryland wheat farmer from Daniels County who filed to run for a local school board seat in March. "It got more valuable on paper, to assessors sitting in an office somewhere. My revenue didn't go up. My costs went up."
Federal grazing regulations have added another layer of frustration. Ranchers who lease public land through the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have watched permit conditions tighten in recent years, with some operators reporting reduced herd numbers and increased compliance costs. While federal policy is ultimately decided in Washington, local elected officials — county commissioners in particular — play a meaningful role in shaping how those policies are implemented and challenged at the regional level.
"Your county commissioners have a voice," said Stenvik. "They can push back. They can advocate. But only if they understand what's actually at stake."
Three Candidates, Three Counties, One Movement
The candidates stepping forward in 2025 represent a cross-section of Montana's agricultural landscape, reflecting the state's geographic and economic diversity.
In Ravalli County, in the Bitterroot Valley, cattle rancher and part-time farrier Tom Whitehorse is challenging an incumbent commissioner in a district that has seen significant in-migration from out-of-state residents over the past decade. Whitehorse, who has worked the same acreage his grandfather homesteaded, says the influx of new residents has shifted local priorities in ways that concern him.
"New folks move here because they love what Montana is," Whitehorse said. "But sometimes the policies they support change the very thing they came for. Agriculture is the backbone of this valley. I want to make sure that's still true in twenty years."
Whitehorse is careful to avoid framing his campaign as adversarial toward newcomers. He speaks instead about the need for dialogue — for elected officials who can translate between communities that sometimes struggle to understand each other's realities.
In Daniels County, Marcus Dillon's school board campaign carries a different focus. Rural school districts in northeastern Montana face persistent challenges: declining enrollment, teacher recruitment difficulties, and budget pressures that force difficult choices. Dillon, who coaches youth baseball and serves on his local volunteer fire department, argues that the people best positioned to navigate those challenges are those with the deepest roots in the community.
"I'm not running against anyone," Dillon said plainly. "I'm running for something. For the kids in this county who deserve good schools and a reason to stay."
And in Chouteau County, Carla Stenvik's commissioner race is drawing attention from agricultural advocacy groups statewide. Her campaign has emphasized practical land-use planning — specifically, how county zoning decisions affect working agricultural operations as development pressure creeps northward from the Great Falls area.
"Zoning sounds boring until it's your livelihood on the line," she said. "Then it's the most important thing in the world."
A Grassroots Infrastructure Taking Shape
What distinguishes this cycle from previous years, according to those who track Montana political trends, is not merely the number of agriculturally rooted candidates but the degree of informal coordination among them.
Groups like the Montana Farm Bureau and various county Farm Bureau chapters have historically provided civic education resources to their members. This year, those resources are being utilized more actively than in previous election cycles, with workshops on campaign basics, public records requests, and budget reading drawing higher attendance than organizers anticipated.
"We've always encouraged our members to be engaged," said one Farm Bureau regional director who spoke generally about the trend. "What's different now is that people are actually running. They're not just showing up to public comment meetings. They're putting their names on ballots."
Social media has also played a role, allowing candidates in geographically isolated counties to share strategies and encouragement with peers they might never meet in person. A farmer in Daniels County and a rancher in Ravalli County can now compare notes on filing deadlines and campaign messaging in real time — a connectivity that simply did not exist a generation ago.
What They Hope to Change
Ask any of these candidates what success looks like and the answers are remarkably consistent: they want local government that reflects the realities of working the land.
That means, in practical terms, county budgets scrutinized with the same discipline applied to a ranch's operating expenses. It means land-use policies developed with agricultural producers at the table rather than as an afterthought. It means elected officials who return phone calls from ranchers and farmers because they understand the urgency that a broken fence line or a dry water source can represent.
"People in agriculture are used to solving problems," Stenvik said. "We don't wait for someone else to fix things. We figure it out. That's exactly what local government needs."
For Tom Whitehorse, the aspiration is simpler still. He wants his grandchildren to have the option to do what he has done — to work land that has been in the family for generations, in a community that values what that work produces.
"That's not guaranteed," he said, looking out across the Bitterroot toward the Sapphire Range. "But it's worth fighting for. And right now, the fight is at the ballot box."
The June primary filing deadline has passed in most Montana counties, setting the stage for what promises to be one of the more consequential local election cycles in recent memory. Whether this wave of agricultural candidates translates into lasting shifts in county governance remains to be seen. But the movement itself — neighbors deciding that the most productive thing they can do for their communities is to show up and serve — reflects something enduring about the Montana character.
The land shapes the people. And now, the people are shaping the politics.
