Sam Forstag (MT-01)

Running to flip retiring Rep. Zinke’s seat, Sam Forstag is a Forest Service smokejumper – a firefighter who parachutes into remote areas to stop fires before they grow – and a union leader. Between fire seasons, Forstag worked as an organizer across Montana and an advocate at the state legislature, fighting for public education, libraries, health care, and constitutional freedoms. When Elon Musk and DOGE tried to gut the Forest Service, Forstag, as the vice president of his union, organized workers to unionize the last non-unionized forest in Montana, pushed back against cuts and helped Montanans get their jobs back, and organized events to support laid-off workers and hold Montana’s congressional delegation accountable. His campaign prioritizes affordability, banning congressional stock trading, reinvesting in public lands, and making healthcare, housing, and education more affordable. Forstag grew up Catholic, though his father’s side of the family is Jewish and he identifies strongly with his Jewish heritage. Much of his Jewish family was forced out of their homes in Latvia in WWII. Forstag said he takes rising antisemitism (and all forms of bigotry) very seriously, and considers hostilities based on identitarianism and nationalism one of the most profound problems facing not only the United States, but the global community.