Zinke Wins House Race, Narrowly Defeats Olszewski
The results were nail-biting to Zinke, who overspent Olszewski by millions of dollars
Ryan Zinke has narrowly defeated Al “Doc” Olszewski for the newly created second seat in the U.S. House, edging out his competitor by a mere 1600 votes, or 1.9%. Zinke received 35,241 votes and Olszewski received 33633. Mary Todd was a distant third.
The results were nail-biting to Zinke, who overspent Olszewski by millions of dollars and was widely considered the incumbent, on account of having previously won the house seat by a 16% margin back in 2017 before Trump picked him for interior secretary.
Still, Trump did endorse him this time around, which is why he even has a fighting chance against his more conservative, honest, and competent competitor.
In a statement posted to Facebook, Olszewski shared that he has called Zinke to concede the race and that he was proud of his showing, on account of being a major underdog. In April, Zinke raised $2.5 million to Olszewski’s $678,000 and his super PAC brought in $360,000 compared to Olszewski’s $ 11,500.
With victory in Hand, Zinke is going to face Monica Tranel, who herself handily beat Cora Newmann by a 40% margin. While Montana is a red state, it is not certain how well Zinke will perform against Tranel, given how easy it will be to paint him as a corrupt politician. Zinke was battered relentlessly throughout the campaign by his critics, the result of having been forced to resign from his job as Interior Secretary on account of having so many ethics complaints.