Editor’s note: This is one of 12 profiles featuring a candidate in Montana’s Second Congressional House District primary race. The profiles are being published daily over 12 days and in alphabetical order. Each of the candidates were asked the same questions.
There’s a reason eastern U.S. House district Republican candidates drive to the outer rural corners of the district and don’t just stick to the handful of cities that account for more than half of its voter base.
Consider this. In 2022, the rural vote accounted for 39% of the ballots cast in the eastern district's general election, which U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale won comfortably.
But buried in the Rosendale column, rural voters account for almost 46% of his support. In an eight-candidate race like the Republican primary kicking off May 6, capturing the rural vote could win it all.
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Ric Holden, who raises cattle and grain near Glendive, sees strength in the rural vote. He’s one of two Republicans to have represented Eastern Montana in the state Legislature. Ken Bogner is the other. Holden’s district was larger in area than some small Eastern states.
“I feel very comfortable in going to these small towns I can tell others don't,” Holden said. “They don't even drive. They're not going to drive to Scobey unless they're forced to. And they’re not going to drive up to Plentywood. I’ve been to Plentywood three times. Yeah, I've been there. I've been to Ekalaka, all over. I just go because, well, quite frankly, those are my people. Those are the people that know me best. We can speak the same language.”
He's also picking up votes in cities. He wound up on a conservative group's voting tip sheet issued recently in Cascade County.
Holden traces his political roots to the Montana Wool Growers and a lobbyist by the name of “Wooly” Bob Gilbert. At the time there were two Bob Gilberts lobbying Montana politicians, “Wooly” and “Oily.” The nicknames sorted the Gilberts quickly.
“Wooly” Bob suggested to Holden that the Legislature needed another sheep rancher, which at the time Holden was. Holden won by knocking on every door in his district, twice, defeating a couple House incumbents in a race for state Senate.
Holden saw Montana a little differently than his city counterparts. There’s no shortage of government in Eastern Montana. The federal government is the region’s biggest landowner. The irrigation canals trailing outward from the Yellowstone, Milk and Missouri rivers are the lifeblood of Eastern Montana agriculture.
“The need was to develop the land to produce food for America. And you could put that land in irrigation and produce many times over what you could have ever produced with just dry land,” Holden said. “That was the goal of the government, to feed its people. That’s what got it started.”
Holden is still a member of the Buffalo Rapids Irrigation District, of which he’s been the chairman. His grandparents helped dig the canals in the 1930s.
Holden wants to serve on the House Agriculture Committee if elected. Currently no one in Montana’s delegation serves on an agriculture committee. He considers many of the federal regulations governing land and water use to be detrimental to farmers, who he would like to see made exempt from federal policy.
Holden also sees himself as a representative for western coal. The eastern district has seen three coal mines collapse due to declining demand since 2021. The state share of coal revenue has paid for everything from art to infrastructure, Holden said. If coal goes away, the revenue for the state coal tax trust will, too.
“Think of all that money that those of us in the Legislature used out of the Coal Tax Trust Fund. Years and years and years of building that money to build all sorts of infrastructure projects across the state,” Holden said. “And now, they’re trying to shut that all down. And I don’t understand what we’re going to do to keep our infrastructure in place once we don’t have the Coal Tax Trust Fund anymore. It’s not going to be pretty.”
Q&A
Political party: Republican
Age and place of birth: 62, Spokane, Washington
Home: Glendive, rural Dawson County
Occupation: Farmer/rancher part-time insurance claims representative
Family: Married to wife Jan for 41 years , three adult children, Gavin, Krista, Deric
Education: Graduated from Montana State University, 1984, Major – Business Management, double minors- Business Finance & Business Marketing
Past employment: farmer/rancher
Military: U.S. Air Force ROTC
Political experience: Montana State Senator eight years; chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee; served on Judiciary and Transportation committees; Buffalo Rapids Irrigation board; chairman, church boards, 4-H club council
Endorsements: Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame members, Clint Branger, Pamela Harr, Wally Badget, Former Montana Stockgrowers Director and Senate president Jim Peterson, National American Sheep Association and many state legislators
Ways voters can contact you:
a.) Email: rich@midrivers.com OR richoldenformt@gmail.com
b.) Address: 101 Road 253, Glendive, Montana 59330
c.) Phone number: ranch line- 406-486-5644
d.) Web page: holdenformontana.com
Q. Identify two national priorities that are part of your platform, explain your position on each and tell voters how you intend to address both. If there’s an existing bill you support to advance your position, please identify it.
1. The most immediate threat that we have to our national security and safety is the flood of illegal aliens streaming over our national borders daily. The situation is totally out of control. There are days when thousands of people simply ignore all sense of civility and cross barriers and turnstiles even at official ports of entry. Illegals are tunneling underground while others are swimming the river and crawling through barbed wire in order to evade proper channels of entry into our country.
Most of these illegals are beholden to the Mexican drug cartels. Most don’t cross the border unless they have paid their dues to the drug lords that are overseeing the Mexican side of the boundary. Our border patrol can only estimate how many people are coming across the border. Many steal away under the cover of darkness only to reappear in our communities searching for items to take in an effort to survive. Currently, illegal aliens make up not only people from Latin America, but also from countries all over the world, meaning that we have a worldwide flood of aliens driven by foreign influences. We need to completely shut down the border, get the wall built and deport as many of these people as we can find. The cost to our taxpayers for free health care, education, cell phones, debit cards and security is too much for us to bear. Our current elected leaders are allowing this to happen and the cost to our children in uncalculatable. Vote for me and I will strongly support securing our borders, even if it means sending in the military to help get it done.
2. The inflation rate is eating up the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. Our ability to buy goods and services is getting harder by the day. This greatly affects our middle- and lower-income families. Our economy is stale, while at the same time our national debt is as high as $34 trillion. When I was in college back 1982, the big news was that the national debt had broken $3 trillion, and everyone was blaming President Reagan for the increase. He was trying to get Democrats to reduce spending in an effort to regain control of the situation. Today we are flat broke. The government takes in about $5 trillion a year and spends $7 trillion per year. I support putting the brakes on more new spending. Let’s revitalize our natural resource industries so they can once again produce electricity and other energy products that in turn create new jobs for our children and lift up the entire economy with new growth.
2.) Name two issues unique to the Eastern District that you will have to advance because no one else in the House will be familiar enough to do so. Explain how you’ll get the job done.
1. Montana agriculture is our largest industry. I am the only active farmer/rancher in this race. I have farmed and ranched for 33 years alongside my wife, Jan. We have been married for 41 years and it takes a team to make a ranch survive. The federal government continues to attack agriculture with regulations. My number-one committee assignment request is to be placed on the full House agriculture committee. The family farmer needs what is called an “ag exemption,” similar to the type of exemption that we used in state government. I can provide Montana with the voice in Washington, D.C., to amend legislation to include an ag exemption when warranted. Farmers work on extremely narrow profit margins and it does not take much to make an operation fail. Government regulations can kill any industry and the family farm is very sensitive to government overreach.
2. Montana is full of natural resources. The Obama-Biden administration attacked our coal industry for years. Our state has what is considered clean burning bituminous coal. The high carbon and low moisture content of this particular type of coal makes it ideal in the production of steel and cement, as well as in electricity generation. The power plants in Montana are equipped with industrial grade filters called scrubbers in the plant chimney. As the smoke rises up the chimney the particulates are captured in the filters and then used for other products later. The smoke coming out of the stack is at this point water vapor that appears as steam. It takes a Montanan to explain the attributes of Montana coal in Washington, D.C., and support this very important natural resource to congressmen who may not be familiar with coal. The jobs and taxes that coal production provide to Montana are just too valuable to ignore. In the 1990s geologists determined that Montana has 2,000 years of coal reserves. Coal accounted for nearly a quarter of Montana’s minerals income in the past. When it is below zero, it is nice to know that we have a reliable source of electricity coming from a coal fired electrical generation plant.
Q. A rare earth minerals miner in Montana recently suggested that to sustain a domestic supply of metals essential to all things tech — semiconductors, batteries, advanced military equipment — Congress would have to act. Otherwise, China, which supplies about 80% of the rare earth minerals imported by the U.S., will continue the dominate supply. Consider the traditional basket of trade options — tariffs, subsidies, government purchases, federal leasing, and environmental laws — and suggest a policy approach to this challenge.
This is a problem of our own making in some ways. We need to become more independent from China. The American people support cutting our reliance on China’s influence. Rare-earth elements are used as components in high technology devices like smart phones, cameras, computers and even television screens. We have one operating mine in the United States that produces these minerals. It is operated by MP Materials and is located at the Mountain Pass mine about 59 miles southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. There are other countries that have these minerals, such as: Canada, Vietnam, Brazil, Sweden, Australia, India and South America.
We have other opportunities to explore concerning the importing of these minerals. Lax environmental standards enabled China to build its dominance in rare earth minerals in recent decades as Western producers left the industry. Hard left leaning politicians have virtually killed hard rock mining in America, certainly in Montana. The time has come to protect our national security and open federal lands to mine leasing and change our environmental laws to allow for more production of rare earth metals. The United States has significant reserves, estimated to amount to 1.8 million metric tons. We just need to have the willpower to go get them.
Q. Explain how an import tariff consequential to sales of U.S. Corn and Soybeans to China affects the price of Montana’s top export ag commodity.
In Montana,” agriculture is important” and questions like this show how important Montana food production is to our nation and the world. Montanans have always supported international trade of agriculture products. We certainly can not eat everything that we produce and that is why we are part of the American breadbasket. Montana cattle and wheat production represents our largest export. Wheat and cattle produce three fourths of our farm receipts. Generally, if a country such as China places a import tariff on U.S. corn and soybeans then it makes it less likely that China will purchase those products. This in turn builds the supply of these products up in America and forces prices downward. The adverse effect continues over into the wheat markets. Sellers now have more wheat, corn and soybeans to purchase and due to a government-imposed barrier the domestic buyers can expect to purchase those products at a lower cost which relates to a lower price received by the farmer. Cattle feed lots can buy cheap feed grain, and this can help drive up the price that the rancher receives for cattle. That is why so many Montana operations are diversified between cattle and wheat in an effort to maximin free market profits.
Q. President Joe Biden has suggested “codifying Roe,” in other words creating a national right to abortion. Explain your position on this issue.
This has clearly been turned into a state’s rights issue by the U.S. Supreme Court to be controlled by the individual states. I served eight years in the Montana State Senate and maintained an A rating with the Right to Life proponents. I have no plans to support abortion. The killing of unborn babies is just not right. I don’t support “codifying Roe,” there has to be another way to settle this dispute. Let’s see how the states handle it before we move forward with a big government intervention.
Q. What role would you assign yourself as a member of a slim House majority? Would you get behind policies or leaders that 90% of your party supports to advance the preferences of your caucus? Or would you use your dissent as leverage to advance positions most of your caucus didn’t support?
As a legislator you must use both of those strategies to achieve a positive outcome for your constituents. There are times when you need to take a solid stand against a position that you do not feel is in the best interest of the people in Montana. However, you don’t want to make it a habit, or you will never gain any kind of credibility with your fellow caucus members.
Q. Would you have certified the electors from all 50 states as a member of Congress in 2021? Explain your decision while identifying any state whose electors you would have rejected.
I, like the majority of Montanan’s do not trust that the last election was counted or operated in a correct manner. Three states come to mind: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. The next day after the election the election administrators in Milwaukee were on television gleefully exclaiming that they had a great election turnout with 300% voter turnout. Not possible. You can’t have over 100% turnout. They changed their tune soon afterwards once this simple fact was pointed out to them.
Philadelphia shut down their counting on election night, kicked out the observers and tapped paper up on the glass windows. I watched that process unfold on TV from my own kitchen table.
Georgia conducted as large-scale ballot drop program with people getting paid to stuff ballots in drop boxes all around the City of Atlanta. This was all filmed on camera set up to film the so-called secure ballot drop boxes. What a joke of a system that turned out to be.
Under those circumstances it would have been very difficult for me to vote in favor of certifying those particular state electors.