Democrat Steve Bullock Won a Red State in 2016. Can He Beat Trump in 2020?
HELENA, Mont.—Yes, another Democrat running for president. Another white guy. Another politician most of the country has never heard of. Another candidate who doesn’t have a lot of money to start with, or any real hopes of meeting the low bar to make the stage for the first debates next month. Another dude whose last name begins with B who thinks that entering the 2020 race after 21 others makes perfect sense.
That’s Steve Bullock, the Democratic governor of Montana, who was elected to his second term in 2016 by four points on the same day Donald Trump won the state by 21 points. Bullock is not so subtly inching toward a presidential announcement expected for this week. On Friday afternoon, a Bullock aide and I rode in a slow-moving car while the likely 2020 candidate was literally running down the side of the highway as part of a charity race, a clip of which was then tweeted from his account with the caption “Feels like a good season to run.”
A few hours later, Bullock and I settled into a table at Jesters, a dive here a few blocks from the capitol building. “Hey, Steve!” the young bartender with the black baseball cap and the neck tattoos said. Supporters talk up how Bullock un-ironically wears cowboy boots. His natural affability was on display Friday afternoon at the bar. “Happy birthday, Sheila’s mom!” he said to a woman introduced to him by her daughter, who recognized his face. “Are you going to buy me a drink?” Sheila’s mom asked. He laughed. “I may have to!” Many others approached him during our conversation.
“Trump may have been right in diagnosing the frustration,” Bullock told me. “A whole lot of those folks were like, ‘All right,
