Montana Gubernatorial Candidate Ryan Busse Switched Parties To Do ‘What Is Best for the Country’
For decades Ryan Busse was a Republican working in firearm sales. But when he realized his values didn’t align with the GOP anymore, he switched parties and is now running as the Democratic candidate for governor of Montana.
Busse grew up on a conservative ranch and spent more than 25 years as a senior sales executive of a major firearms company. In 2021, he published a book detailing why he left the gun industry, exposing how the industry began to foster extremism and violence that threatened Americans’ freedoms — and even democracy.
Busse hopes to unseat Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R), who has signed multiple voter suppression laws since taking office in 2021. Prior to Gianforte’s 2020 election, Montana had Democratic governors for 15 years.
In Democracy Docket’s latest candidate Q&A for the 2024 cycle, Busse discusses how he strives to reduce threats of violence against election workers and voters, his plan to make it easier for all Montanans to vote, and how he will fight for reproductive rights.
Responses have been edited for style and clarity.
Why are you running for governor of Montana?
I’ve been involved in Democratic politics here for a long time. I live in a state that a lot of people romanticize, and it’s not without reason. It has made me a better person. It’s made my kids and my family what we are. It’s a magic place. And the truth is, it’s under attack, and running for governor is hard; running for any seat is hard. So, I didn’t do this for some vanity project.
Our democracy in this state is under attack, and so many things that we value are in peril: public education, public lands and just good, decent, responsible governance. And so, I felt a calling and responsibility to get in and do something about it.
Can you talk about your transition from the Republican to the Democratic Party?
I grew up in “flyover country.” I’m a conservative ranch and farm kid. And I kind of thought everybody was conservative and everybody was Republican. Montana really changed me [when] I moved here 30 years ago. About 20 [years ago], I was engaged in a battle over the Bush administration’s attempt to industrialize a place that had become very spiritually important to me, a wild place called the Badger-Two Medicine.
And when I did that, I was attacked by all these Republicans. I worked in the firearms industry, so not only did I grow up on a ranch and farm, which is a traditionally conservative thing to do, I worked in the gun industry — which is a very conservative place.
But, I had taken some of the claims of the Republican Party at face value, like they are for environmental responsibility. And when I stood up for one of these things, I was attacked vociferously by the Republican Party and by the members of the firearms industry. I just kind of stood back, looked at my existence and my reality, and thought, “You know what? I’m fighting on the wrong team here.” I’ve been duped into believing this. I’m not going to do that anymore.
From here on out in my life, I’m going to assess what is best for me, and what I think is best for the country. I don’t care about the sides anymore. And so, here I am as a loud and proud Democrat, but I came to that through examining my own values.
On your campaign website, you have a section on democracy. As governor of Montana, can you talk about what you would do to protect democracy in the state, but also in the country in general?
My lieutenant governor, Raph Graybill, spent the better part of the last four years of his life suing [our current] governor and attorney general over undemocratic things. For instance, right now, our state has fought for a ballot initiative protecting the right to abortion, the right to choose and the right to bodily autonomy — which is codified in our beautiful constitution written in 1972 in Montana.
So it’s codified in there, but this governor wants to take it out. This attorney general wants to take it out. And what they have done very interestingly is [engage in] unconstitutional actions, one after another to try to disenfranchise all the people who wanted this on the ballot — all the people who have signed the initiative. They’ve tried to say that active voters are inactive voters. They’ve tried to say that qualified voters are unqualified voters. They’re doing everything they can to disenfranchise the voice of the people.
And we are going to do everything we can to increase the franchise, not reduce the franchise. That’s just a pertinent example. Rafe, my lieutenant governor, has become the most ardent, qualified and celebrated constitutional attorney in this state. He is my running mate, and we’re going to do everything possible to make it easier for people to participate in the system, not harder.
Gianforte has passed all these voter suppression laws in recent years. Some of them have been blocked by courts, but some of them remain implemented — like tightening photo ID restrictions for voters, restricting Election Day registration and making it harder for people to get ballot return assistance. Can you just talk about how these laws are impacting voters and what you would do differently policy-wise?
We have seven native nations in our state, and they’re hard places to vote. A lot of these places don’t have everyday mail service. Gianforte has restricted the access to their ballot because he has restricted the number of polling places and same-day registration. A lot of these folks move. It’s not unconstitutional to move. It’s not unconstitutional to live in a place where you don’t have mail service every day. I don’t care if they moved 10 times in the last year, they still should [have] equal access to the voting franchise. Gianforte restricts it every way he can: cuts back their polling places and cuts back same-day mail or same-day registration.
We will fight that. We will veto those sorts of actions. We will make it easier for people to vote. These people are 20th, 50th and 150th generation Montanans. They deserve the right to vote.
As governor, you said you would veto a lot of these laws coming in from the Republican-controlled legislature, who clearly have an agenda that harms voters. How would you work with them to make it easier for people to vote — or at the very least not make it harder for them to vote?
Even when we have Republican majorities — and we do have a Republican majority in our legislature — there are still good, decent Republicans who want to do good, decent and responsible things.
The best way to make that happen is for a strong Democratic governor to be elected and give these people a relief valve and somebody to lead responsibly from the gubernatorial chair. When we have all areas of government, like the gubernatorial seat and the legislature, all in control of one party — bad, irresponsible, undemocratic stuff happens. In Montana, some of the best stuff over the last 30 years has happened when we’ve had [a] divided government.
I think it’s really important that we have a governor who calls to the responsible members of the Republican Party and says, “Hey, come on. You have an ally here. Stand up and do the right thing.” They’re there, and they want to do it, but just like we see in our national politics — the loud, screaming folks with the microphones tend to make all the decent, responsible folks cower in the corner, afraid to do the right thing and support legislation that’s decent and responsible. We can change that. It’s happened here before. We’re going to do it again, but we’re going to have to lead loud and proud on this and we will do that.
You mentioned this ballot initiative that got a lot of signatures to enshrine abortion rights and democracy reforms in the state constitution. But Secretary of State Christy Jacobsen (R) tried to disqualify thousands of signatures. Fortunately, that was blocked by the court. But what do actions like this do to voters? (After this interview, a Montana judge required Jacobson to count these voters’ signatures)
It obviously disenfranchises their voice, but to put a finer point on it, it pisses them off. It should piss them off. [Jacobsen’s office] decides to change the definition of what a qualified elector is.
They say if you’re still registered to vote, but we sent you a postcard [to your residence] after you moved and you didn’t send it back, we’re going to call you an unqualified elector. We’re going to kick you out. So they tried, they’re trying their best and they’re still trying. They’ve kicked it to the Supreme Court now, and Rafe is fighting this battle.
We needed 60,000 [signatures] to get this on the ballot. We got 117,000 signatures. We got almost twice as many. That’s how loud the people spoke. And still, these people look for every little illegal trick to disenfranchise people.
We’ve seen a recent rise in threats to election workers and voters, along with voter intimidation. You worked in gun sales and manufacturing. Coming from that perspective, how can we mitigate these threats of violence to voters and election workers just trying to make sure that democracy runs as it’s supposed to?
I state this in my book, and I believe it wholeheartedly: No good idea has to be supported by intimidation or these jackwagons running around with loaded rifles trying to scare people into not exercising their right to vote. No good idea has to be supported by that.
And it’s going to us, and it’s going to take people who care. It can be frightening. It’s going to take a little bit of courage, but we have to stand up and fight for [the right to vote] in the same way they are trying to disenfranchise us from it.
So, I think leading by example and having a governor who will stand up and say, “No, it’s not right to have armed people scaring voters at polling places. It’s not okay.” Right now, we have a lot of silence on the right because they know it’s useful for them to scare people who want to exercise their franchise. They want to scare them into silence. No good idea survives that way, and we have to be the ones that make sure it doesn’t survive.
In what ways do you do that? In what ways do you make sure that these people aren’t able to accomplish what they want to accomplish, basically intimidating people out of voting or working as election officials?
If anybody uses intimidation, especially armed intimidation, they are a tiny little slice of the populace. They’re not the majority. And so, I really do think [fighting voter intimidation] has a lot to do with communication style and being ardent and overt that [this fight] is pro-democracy. The patriotic thing is to shout that insanity down as unpatriotic, un-American, and anti-democratic. As progressives and Democrats, we better get to the point where we’re willing to say that, not just do little arcane things. We have to stand up and fight for democracy in the same way folks are trying to crush it. And until we do that — especially our elected officials — we can expect more [threats], not less.
What would you say to Republican or Independent voters who are hesitant to vote for a Democrat for governor, especially because they have an incumbent Republican right now? What would you say to those voters on what your appeal is and why they should vote for you?
It’s actually very hopeful what we have going on in Montana. Our national politics can feel pretty dispiriting and broken to a lot of folks, but there are things going on in Montana. For instance, this incumbent raised everybody’s property taxes. He’s a Republican who raised everybody’s property taxes. He’s a Republican who has also fought very hard to roll back the freedoms of women and frankly, the freedoms of everybody.
What could be more basic to your freedom than bodily autonomy? Is there something more basic than that? And Montanans across the political spheres don’t like this. We appreciate freedom. We’re a live-and-let-live place. If a woman needs an abortion… that’s her business. That’s not my business. It’s not the business of the governor to sit in somebody’s doctor’s office and tell them what they can and can’t do.
Montanans across the political sphere believe in this, and it’s a heartening thing to come to our events, to be at our rallies where tons of Republicans are coming up and saying, “I can’t take it anymore. This guy has gone too far.” It’s what you hope for democracy to be. It’s not an adherence to a party. It’s a belief in something bigger. It’s a belief in freedom. It’s a belief in liberty. And it’s a pretty cool thing to see.
You’ve lived in Montana for decades. You’re raising your kids there. The state is known for its beautiful landscapes. What is your favorite spot to enjoy nature or the outdoors?
There’s a place in Montana called the Rocky Mountain Front. It’s where basically the prairies and the ranch country of Montana collide with the Rocky Mountains, and the mountains just sort of spring up out of nowhere.
A particular place there is called the Badger-Two Medicine. [My wife] Sara and I named our second son Badge after the Badger-Two Medicine. And it’s the place where my dreams came true. It’s the mythical ancestral homeland of the Blackfeet Tribe. I consider it to be the place of my rebirth and sort of my political awakening. It’s a wild, windy, grizzly bear-filled rough place, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s a place where you really are still in the most untouched part of nature in Montana. It’s a place where you don’t get to write the rules all the time. Sometimes they’re written for you, and it’s a pretty magic thing to be in a place like that.