MISSOULA, MT - Today, Matt Rains announced his campaign for Montana’s First Congressional District seat. Rains, a Democrat, is a fourth-generation Montana rancher, U.S. Army Veteran, and former Chief of Staff for the Montana Farmers Union.

“I am running for Congress because Montanans deserve better,” said Rains. “Like my neighbors and friends, I see and feel the cost of everything going up in Montana – and Ryan Zinke is making it worse by voting to support the tariffs and cutting Medicaid to drive up our health care costs.

“When I see a problem, I run towards it to find a solution: when our country was at war, I served our country. Abroad, I exposed genocide as a photojournalist. And when ranchers were getting squeezed by the big four packers, I led the project to build a meat-processing co-op so Montana ranchers get a fair price for their beef.”

Matt graduated from Simms High School, attended West Point, and served as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot and officer in Iraq and South Korea. After the Army, he became a photojournalist covering humanitarian crises. As an engineer he ran million-dollar power plant inspections and then returned home to help build Montana’s agricultural future. As Chief of Staff at Montana Farmers Union, he expanded support for family farms and ranches across the state, including helping to start the first rancher-owned, USDA-certified meat-packing co-op in Havre, MT so that producers could keep more of their hard-earned money.

Matt’s campaign released a video sharing why he is running. “My neighbors were promised lower prices and a government that said it cared about them,” said Rains. “Instead, they’re getting tariffs, and higher prices on everything from housing to groceries, and a worsening mental health crisis that is taking too many of our neighbors.”

Matt has seen first hand how politics as usual is failing Montanans. “I’m pretty fed up with extreme politics right now,” he said. “As a fourth-generation Montana rancher and West Point grad who has served his country, I've had enough of politicians like Ryan Zinke who use public office to enrich themselves while voting to make things more expensive for hard working Montanans."

Matt lives in Simms, Montana on his family ranch with his wife, Whitney. He looks forward to meeting with voters across the district and listening to what they have to say.

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