Montana 2012 Election Results

Montana held its general election on November 6, 2012, deciding 126 legislative seats and 6 statewide offices led by the governorship. No chamber changed party control.

Highlights

• Democrats kept the governorship and Republicans kept the Legislature, so divided government continued. The chambers moved in opposite directions: House Republicans slipped from 68-32 to 61-39, while Senate Republicans edged up from 28-22 to 29-21.
• Attorney General Steve Bullock (D) beat Rick Hill (R) by about a point and a half to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Schweitzer. The race's final weeks turned on whether Hill should have kept a $500,000 donation from the state GOP, and Bullock called his win a repudiation of outside money. Bullock's running mate, John Walsh (D), became lieutenant governor.
• Down the ballot, Tim Fox (R) won the open attorney general seat Bullock vacated, beating Pam Bucy (D) by about 7 points. Superintendent Denise Juneau (D) held off Sandy Welch (R) by about 2,200 votes; a judge ordered a statewide hand recount, but Welch dropped it when she could not post the $115,000 bond. Secretary of State Linda McCulloch (D) and Auditor Monica Lindeen (D) were re-elected.
• Montana voted on its old district lines, and 8 legislators lost, all but one of them House Republicans:
  • Tom Jacobson (D) unseated Cleve Loney (R) by fewer than 80 votes in House District 25.
  • Franke Wilmer (D) beat Tom Burnett (R) by about 140 votes in House District 63.
  • Democrats also unseated Republicans in five more House districts: Frosty Calf Boss Ribs (D) beat Joe Read (R) in House District 15, Lea Whitford (D) beat Lila Walter Evans (R) in House District 16, Rae Peppers (D) beat Sterling Small (R) in House District 41, Reilly Neill (D) beat Dan Skattum (R) in House District 62, and Ryan Lynch (D) beat Max Yates (R) in House District 74.
  • In the Senate, Rep. Elsie Arntzen (R) unseated Sen. Gary Branae (D) by fewer than 200 votes in Senate District 27.
• Voters passed all 5 measures. Four were what the Flathead Beacon called GOP ballot measures, three referred by the Legislature and one a referendum on a state law: LR-120 requires parental notification before a minor's abortion, LR-121 bars state services to people in the country illegally, LR-122 opposes government health insurance mandates, and IR-124 kept the Legislature's medical marijuana restrictions. Citizen initiative I-166 declared that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights.

Legislature

• House (100 seats): 32 D, 68 R before the election, 39 D, 61 R after; control stayed with Republicans.
• Senate (50 seats): 22 D, 28 R before the election, 21 D, 29 R after; control stayed with Republicans.

Statewide races

Legislative races

Ballot measures