Tom Woods is a rare breed of Montana politician.
I mean, not everyone will wear a kilt to the first day of the legislature. Fewer will comment on this site.
The guy was born in ’61, ran for the legislature in ’12, won with 63% of the vote, then won again in ’14 with 95% of the vote.
Then in ‘16, no one challenged him for HD 62. Same story in ‘18.
Won’t be the same story this year. Woods is termed-out of the House and is going for the PSC...again.
While it’s true no Dems have filed to run for PSC #3, three Republicans have: James Brown, Walter Derzay, and Alan George. Robert Elwood has also filed, as an Independent.
Brown has raised $5,000. George has raised $2,600. Derzay has raised $0. Elwood has raised $0. Woods has about $9,000.
I’ve never heard of any of those other guys. We do know that Brown ran for PSC #3 back in ‘12, but lost in the primary to Koopman.
Koopman went on to run again in ‘16, and beat out Noonan that year. I gave $25 to Noonan that year, but it wasn’t enough.
You might remember that race, as Caron Cooper ran as an Independent. This pissed off a lot of Dems.
Woods tried to make the jump out of the legislature in ‘18, with his sights set on Congress.
He entered the 2018 field early (October), and dropped out early (January). Money was the main problem, and he said that a campaign had to spend $10,000 in the first month and more afterwards.
This Montana Post article gives you good insight into that angle, and MTPR mentioned it as well:
“It’s about the money. There’s a few folks of folks in the race here who have raised about 10 to 15 times as much money as I have and we’re heading to a time in the race where you really have to start spending money on media and I just don’t have it."
Woods got pissed and dropped out and got back into his legislative race. You might remember that he didn’t really want to run for the legislature again.
Like many passionate people that are fond of trying, he got frustrated.
Tom Woods is nearly 60 now and has decided to run for the PSC...again.
He didn’t get a lot of support when he ran in ‘16. In fact, few cared. Here’s an image of one of his campaign events, where less than a dozen attended.
He has just 548 likes on his candidate Facebook page. Here are some images from that page:
He’s got a lot of support from Missoula Dems, but he needs support from Bozeman and Butte.
At least PSC #3 has a well-known candidate in Woods. Here in Missoula for PSC #4, we have a bunch of unknowns.
Woods’ biggest benefit is that it’s an open seat, and that all the Republicans running are unknowns.
He could win it this year. If Butte and Bozeman show up at the polls, he could win it.
But he’s got a helluva uphill battle, mainly against Trump and his immense coattails.
Gianforte and Daines and Rosendale will all benefit from those coattails; Tom Woods will not.
I personally believe that we’ll see Trump win bigger than Reagan did in ‘84.
This’ll wreak havoc on all down-ballot races, and Dems will suffer because of it.
Like I said yesterday, Trump is fun and none of the Dems running against him are.
Voters notice this.
