Dylan Heintz grew up in Bozeman, Montana, loving the scenic views of snow-capped mountains and small-town charm. Things were cheap: His father bought the family home for about $80,000.
These days, Bozeman feels less quaint. A steady stream of out-of-state relocations into Big Sky Country became a flood during the pandemic, leading to rising prices, a boom in luxury apartments displacing rural surroundings and a flood of high-end businesses like Whole Foods . Attracted by Montana’s natural beauty and easy access to outdoor activities, the newcomers have created an affordability crisis and a local backlash that is reshaping the state’s economy and politics.
“I love this place, but it’s just a difficult place to live,” said Mr. Heintz, 28, an auto body mechanic. The rent in his trailer park has doubled, and he and his wife can’t afford to buy a house in the city, so they’re thinking about moving to Florida. “There are many foreigners who have some money and are willing to pay more than the asking price. That definitely hurts people.”
The new population of wealthier residents — often retirees, technology workers who can do their jobs remotely and other big-city relocatees — is one of the biggest question marks hanging over Montana’s crucial Senate race. As Jon Tester, the Democratic incumbent, tries to fend off Tim Sheehy, a businessman and retired Navy SEAL who is expected to win the Republican nomination, tensions over skyrocketing growth will be a major issue in November.
And how Montanans’ new vote could prove decisive.
On the face of it, their presence could benefit the embattled Mr. Tester, as a sizable portion of them – 35 percent of 2022 arrivals – come from census data analyzed by real estate firm CBRE from left-leaning states such as California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. But some political experts believe the newcomers may be leaning more rightward, pointing to a broader phenomenon in which conservatives have left their home states in part because of what they see as liberal overreach.
“Especially during the pandemic, there was a movement of people from more blue areas looking for a different, more republican way of life,” Dr. Jessi Bennion, professor of political science at Montana State University. “My best guess is that a lot of the people moving to the state are transplants.”
There is no party registration in Montana, so the leanings of these voters remain controversial.
“It’s a mystery,” said Dr. Bennion. “This next election will show us a lot about the way these voters approach politics.”
Although the tide of transplants has slowed in the last year, it could account for a significant portion of the vote. According to the state Department of Labor and Industry, about 52,000 more people arrived than left Montana between 2020 and 2023; Mr. Tester won re-election in 2018 by fewer than 18,000 votes. The state’s total population is just over 1.1 million.
Montana is traditionally conservative, but still controversial. At the presidential level, the country votes by a wide margin, but repeatedly sends Mr. Tester back to the Senate and elects Democratic governors to lead the state from 2005 to 2020. Still, political strategists and experts say Montana has moved to the right in recent years.
Don Kaltschmidt, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the influx of new people is an important factor.
“We have a lot of what I call political refugees,” Kaltschmidt said. “There are more and more conservatives leaving the “blue states”.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is dedicated to electing Republicans and is supporting Mr. Sheehy, said its analysis found that about 41 percent of newcomers who registered to vote in Montana since late 2018 were registered Republicans in their old states about 25 percent were registered Democrats.
Democrats dispute that the newcomers are overwhelmingly of one party and say their data is more mixed. They find that Montana’s fastest-growing counties are increasingly left-leaning, suggesting that liberals are moving to these areas.
Mr. Tester has weathered past elections by relying on his bipartisan reputation and background in rural agriculture to win over Republican voters. Exercising this charm on the new residents could be crucial to staying in office.
Mr. Tester “necessarily needs to find that small group of voters who are willing to split their votes,” Dr. Bennion.
Jennifer Glad and her husband moved from Redondo Beach, California, to Bozeman at the end of 2020, attracted by the easy access to ski resorts and the good public schools for their children – but also by the desire to escape California and its political shift to the left.
“So far it has changed, and the politics, the taxes and everything else that comes with it make it hard to take,” said Ms. Glad, 47, a lawyer who declined to say how they are voting in the Senate election wanted . “I’m tired of the crime and the homelessness.” In contrast, she said, Bozeman felt “pretty much in the middle of the street.”
Other recent transplants lean to the left.
Greg Gemette was already splitting his time between Palm Springs, California, and Bozeman when the pandemic shut down the country. He loved being close to nature and the area was less conservative than feared, so he and his husband decided to make it their permanent home.
“I thought to myself, ‘If the world ends, I might as well die here because it’s pretty,'” said Mr. Gemette, 60, a clothing manager who plans to vote for Mr. Tester.
Regardless of their politics, out-of-states have a huge impact on the local economy. According to the state’s Department of Labor, the average home value in Montana reached about $425,000 late last year, a 75 percent increase from five years earlier, and the state added 18,450 jobs in 2022, the most in its history. Montana had the fourth-fastest wage growth in the country this year, with an average annual wage of $54,525 — an increase of $12,000 compared to five years earlier.
But residents say increases in property taxes – which rose an average of 21 percent last year – are putting a strain on their bank accounts and that the cost of food, gas and other essentials has skyrocketed. Even as luxury homes become more available, locals say there is a lack of new, affordable housing, even as Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, is promoting a series of new housing policies aimed at alleviating the shortage.
Nowhere has the affordability crisis been felt more keenly than in Bozeman, a city of about 56,000 residents not far from Yellowstone National Park and the upscale ski community of Big Sky. Bozeman, where the average home sells for about $770,000, has seen so many arrivals from other states over the years that Montanans sometimes refer to it as “Boz Angeles.”
While prime rental apartments are being built next to historic houses in Bozeman and newcomers are snapping them up, a few tents and mobile homes have settled on the outskirts of the city: homeless residents whose prices are being pushed out by rising rents.
Many longtime Montanans balk at the newcomers, and bumper stickers proclaiming some version of “Montana Is Full” abound, occasionally laced with a curse word. Some locals blame the popular television show “Yellowstone” for romanticizing the Mountain West and attracting people to the state.
Terry Cunningham, Bozeman’s nonpartisan mayor, noted that many of the city’s more established residents were themselves transplants several decades ago, so “it’s not fair sport to turn around and blame the newcomers.”
Still, he said, he spends much of his time encouraging developers to build affordable housing and dealing with the community’s frayed nerves.
“That’s the tension that keeps me up at night, to be honest,” Mr. Cunningham said.
Not surprisingly, liberal and conservative Montanans disagree about who should be held responsible for these problems.
Republicans argue that President Biden is responsible for inflation that has driven up the cost of goods and led to a stubbornly expensive housing market. (Economists have said that Mr. Biden’s pandemic-era stimulus packages have actually contributed to a rise in inflation. Former President Donald J. Trump also signed a round of stimulus packages.) And they note that Mr. Tester is for has voted for several laws that have contributed to higher inflation, including the stimulus packages and the 2021 package to modernize the country’s infrastructure.
Democrats — and many county governments — see Mr. Gianforte and the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature as particularly guilty. They argue that the state has failed to protect property owners from the effects of higher taxes when reassessing their properties.
And they say Mr. Sheehy, a multimillionaire who grew up in Minnesota, is the epitome of wealthy out-of-staters, even though he arrived a decade ago and made his fortune in the state.
“He is trying to turn our state into a playground for rich transplants like him,” said Shelbi Dantic, Mr. Tester’s campaign manager.
Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for Mr. Sheehy’s campaign, said he and his wife, Carmen, “chose to make a home in Montana to raise their family and start a business because it was a place that aligned with their values.” and the way they wanted to live.” ”
Mr. Cunningham, who said he voted for both Democrats and Republicans, remained diplomatic about the Senate race.
He praised a donation Mr Sheehy made to the local health system and said he was committed to improving the community. And he said Mr. Tester helped increase funding for housing tax credits for low-income earners.
“I see two people who love their state, love their community and are trying to do good,” Mr. Cunningham said.
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2024-05-26 09:00:53
www.nytimes.com
