In Deep Red Legislative District, Creston Republican Sees Path to Electoral Win. But Not Without a Fight.

Following a 30-year career as a strategist with the U.S. Army, Ed Byrne has been waiting his turn to run for office in his local legislative district, which, despite a redistricting overhaul, appears poised to receive him. But even with a clear path to electoral victory in his sights, Byrne is not going to win House District 11 in eastern Flathead County without a fight.

Pitching that battle is Democrat Jennifer Allen, a social worker and mental health professional who is making her third bid for state office, although she considers it to be her first full campaign. Allen in 2018 ran for the Legislature against incumbent Sen. Bob Keenan, but withdrew before the general election because her husband was diagnosed with cancer. In 2020, she unsuccessfully ran for state House against then Rep. Mark Noland; however, Allen said the pandemic prevented her from conducting the sort of grassroots campaign required of a Democrat in a deep red legislative district.

And none are as red as House District 11.

“When you look at the distinctions, Creston has always been a very, very red, hard red,” Byrne said. “There’s probably 100 Trump flags flying from houses.”

A former U.S. Army colonel with roots in the Flathead Valley, Byrne retired from the military in 2013, settling on his family’s farm where he runs a small specialty sawmill. A student of GOP politics in Flathead County, he’s also an active participant, serving on the Flathead County Republican Central Committee (FCRCC), the Glacier County Pachyderm Club and the Flathead County Republican Women.

Until this election cycle, however, there was always someone ahead of him in the queue. So, instead of crowding the Republican primaries, he’s bided his time.

“I’ve never been narcissistic enough to insist I run for the Legislature during previous election cycles, and I wanted to run in my own seat,” Byrne said. “The timing is right now.”

If the GOP candidate seems confident, it’s because the district in 2020 voted for Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte by 47 percentage points, Attorney General Austin Knudsen by 52 percentage points, and former President Donald Trump by 48 percentage points.

With 8,182 eligible voters, the newly redrawn district continues to lean conservative, absorbing the Willow Glen neighborhood while purging precincts in Bigfork.

Byrne noted that the district remains overwhelmingly conservative and conceded that he campaigned harder against his Republican primary challenger, former Bigfork School District Transportation director Rob Tracy, than he has in his general election contest with Allen. That race was one of six Republican primaries in the Flathead Valley where conflicts between conservative and moderate members of the party reared their head. Still, Byrne won 63% of the vote (1,636) to Tracy’s 37% (965). 

With the Nov. 5 general election just over a week away, Byrne said he’s optimistic.

That hasn’t discouraged Allen, whose aggressive door-knocking campaign wasn’t slowed by the district’s rural character, nor by its conservative residents.

“This district is the reddest, most conservative district in the Flathead Valley, and I haven’t seen that change as a result of redistricting,” Allen told the Beacon. “But I have seen a difference in the willingness of people who are middle of the road or independent to talk about why they are unhappy. And believe me, there are a lot of disgruntled Republicans in my district. The local Republican party is split and not getting along really well and you can see that in my district.”

Allen moved to Montana in the 1970s, raising her children in Billings and working at the Montana Women’s Prison. She has spent much of her career working in the mental and behavioral health field, administering crisis response programs, training law enforcement and working with legislative committees on policy development. She has lived in northwest Montana for 16 years, working in local law offices and mental health programs. Allen told the Beacon she hopes to fix Montana’s broken mental health system, help the state’s tourism and agricultural economies adapt to climate change, and advance legislation to spur the development of affordable housing. She also “strongly supports access to abortion and birth control” and encourages the “development of reasonable ‘red flag laws’ and safe gun storage assistance to protect communities from gun violence.”

“Half of my running for office is to send the message that we need to normalize talking about these societal issues,” she said. “In my district, there has not been this sort of door knocking and these kinds of conversations in decades. I don’t believe that my opponent is door knocking because he doesn’t have to; he’s an ‘R.’”

Allen continued: “I probably will not win this election, but I will get the message out there about these issues that I know are important and are important to a lot of Montanans. Even in my district, Democrats are 35% of the base and that’s a huge chunk of people who have not felt listened to in our electoral process in a very long time.”

Byrne acknowledges that his style of campaigning has favored flyers, mailers and meet-and-greets over door-knocking, but that’s due in large part to its expansive geography, he said. Running from Doris Mountain to Echo Lake, and from Hungry Horse Reservoir to the Kalispell Bypass, the district encompasses U.S. Highway 2, U.S. Highway 93, Montana Highway 206, Montana Highway 83, and Montana Highway 35 — not ideal terrain for canvassing neighborhoods.

“I think I’m running for the only district with five highways,” Byrne said. “It’s a unique district to campaign in. I did a lot of flyers, events and meet-and-greets, and limited the door-knocking to the subdivisions. But then, I know everyone. My family has been here since 1902, and we know the majority of farmers and anyone else who has been established here over the past century.”

Even with Byrne holding what seems like a clear advantage, he acknowledged Allen’s sophisticated understanding of the key policy issues.

“She’s a very nice lady,” he said. “Politically we are polar opposites, but she truly believes everyone should have an option on the ballot even though we are the most red district in the Flathead.”

Byrne, 60, was born in Anchorage in 1964, moving with his family to Missoula when his father got a job in the area, spending family vacations traveling to the Flathead Valley to tend to the family farm.

Byrne obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Montana, where he participated in ROTC and served in the Montana National Guard. He spent three decades in the Army, where he rose in the ranks to colonel and worked in strategy, both domestically and through tours in the Balkans, Iraq and Haiti. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Central Michigan University and a master’s of military strategic studies from the Army War College.

Following his retirement from the Army, Byrne moved back to Montana, settling on his family farm in Creston. He has served as the commander of the Bigfork VFW, president of the Northwest Montana Westerners history group, strategy committee chair for the FCRCC and treasurer of the Glacier Country Pachyderm.

Byrne hopes to focus on tax policy and appropriations in Helena, lowering property taxes and passing relief for seniors and farmers. He wants to end Montana’s policy of taxing seniors on Social Security, rectify what he describes as the “ill-gotten” water compact between Montana and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) and introduce legislation to protect property owners against squatters. On tax relief, Byrne believes the state could return its 4% Lodging Facility Use Tax to the counties of origin instead of depositing it into the General Fund and other statewide allocations.

Byrne supports Medicaid and the Healthy Montana Kids children’s health insurance plan, but believes the state’s Medicaid expansion program, which allows more low-income people to access the public health insurance, should not be reauthorized in its current form.

More than 132,000 Montanans lost Medicaid coverage between April 2023 and January 2024, according to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), making the future of the program a pressing issue ahead of the election.

For Allen, reauthorizing Medicaid expansion is a critical step toward solving a mental health system in crisis.

“I know we will not get our mental health system fixed until we reauthorize Medicaid expansion,” she said. “I knocked on the door of a woman who is a nurse practitioner and has already seen the impact of the Medicaid unwinding on the health of their agency. It’s a foundational issue — mental health treatment centers depend on Medicare and Medicaid as a key part of their funding base and we can’t expect people to get their mental health in line if we can’t get their physical health in line. They are so closely tied.”

“My opponent says he wants to consider expansion from a budgetary perspective,” she continued. “But the truth of it is that we now have decades of data on Medicaid expansion and it’s an economic booster; it’s essentially revenue neutral for the state, with 80% in federal dollars and then savings in multiple areas as a result of good health care for our community members. The budget is a red herring. It’s an excuse for not reauthorizing Medicaid expansion.”

According to Byrne, his opinion on Medicaid expansion isn’t so black and white, even though he believes that, in its current form, the program’s drawbacks far outweigh its benefits. Specifically, he said he disagrees with diverting resources to able-bodied adults and away from children and people with disabilities, allowing people with coverage the option of not working.

“I will not say I’m for or against Medicaid expansion, but I will say that I’m much more supportive of looking out for children than looking out for adults with bad behavior,” he said. “I know business owners who have good employees, but they don’t want to work over 14 hours a week because they don’t want to lose their social benefits. So now we’re encouraging people not to work a full 40-hour week because it’s too costly to replace those benefits. It’s a Gordian Knot and it’s hard to know where to start to pull. The more we can hammer at the little things, the more progress we can make. If anyone thinks they are going to change the whole world by themselves in their freshman year, they are delusional. You’re not the governor; you’re one of 150.”

The general election is on Nov. 5. Read more about the candidates running for Legislature in the Flathead and Tobacco valleys here, and find out what legislative district you live in here. Check your voter registration here.

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