Rosendale Scores Landslide Victory in Congressional Primary Race
Tuesday was a very big day for Montana’s lone Congressman Matt Rosendale, as voters swept him into the general election with a decisive win over three other candidates with 75 percent of the vote.
Rosendale called in to the KGVO Newsmakers Line early Wednesday morning, where he expressed his gratitude for the decisive victory.
“Honestly it's the earliest the AP (Associated Press) has ever called it a race for me and what an absolute compliment from the people across Montana,” said Rosendale. “I mean its one thing to win an election and come up here and serve but to serve for nearly two years and have people continue to come out and support me is a humbling experience, Peter, I will tell you.”
Rosendale was asked to explain what led to his lopsided win in the Republican primary.
“I think you can sum it up real easy, it’s promises made, promises kept,” he said. “I told folks that I was going to come up here and fight against out of control of government spending, I was going to protect their liberties and our way of life. Everybody talks about our way of life, and that means protecting life, protecting our Second Amendment rights, trying to keep the federal government from reaching into our state and our lives. Those are the kinds of things that I do on a daily basis, and I'm unapologetic about it. As long as the voters of Montana support me, I will continue to do that.”
Rosendale looked at some of the pressing concerns he wants to help tackle in Congress should he prevail in the upcoming general election in November.
“We’ve got a disaster taking place on our southern border with an invasion taking place in our country right now,” he said. “Not just the 2 million people that have crossed the border but also the fentanyl that's streaming across the border and the human trafficking taking place because the cartels have control over that area. We're going to have to tie funding directly to those things so that we can force the president in a split government situation to restore our country.”
Rosendale referenced the other Congressional race in Montana and hoped that Former Secretary of the Interior and Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke, or his opponent Dr. Al Olszewski can prevail over Democrat Monica Tranel to present a united front for Montana.
“It's critically important that we send another Republican to Washington D.C. to represent the western side of the state because if not, then my vote will be canceled out every single day, because regardless of what the Democrats proclaim while they're walking around and campaigning in Montana, when they show up in Washington, D.C.”, he said. “I've watched it time and time again. They fall in with (Democratic) leadership, and they support each and everything that we are opposed to.”
As this article is published, the Montana Secretary of State’s Election page shows Zinke with 32,752 votes and Olszewski with 31,688. That race could take days to decide.