MoveOn is proud to endorse Sam Forstag for Montana’s 1st Congressional District!

Leadership and Experience

As a wildland smokejumper and union leader, Sam Forstag is a working Montanan who understands the struggle of breaking your back just to get by in an economy that favors the ultra-wealthy. Raised by a nurse who picked up extra shifts and a public school teacher, Sam learned the value of hard work early on. After working his way through school at the University of Montana, he joined the U.S. Forest Service, eventually climbing the ranks to become a smokejumper—parachuting into remote areas to stop devastating wildfires before they grow.

Between fire seasons, Sam has consistently shown up for Montanans as a grassroots organizer and advocate at the state legislature, fighting for public education, libraries, healthcare access, and constitutional freedoms. As the Vice President of his union’s local, Sam successfully organized against corporate-backed efforts to gut the Forest Service and public land agencies. He is running for Congress to bring a new generation of leadership to Washington that puts working families ahead of corporate PACs.

How he’ll help your community:

• Housing Work for Working People: He believes housing costs in Montana have reached a crisis level. He will fight for federal investments in affordable housing construction and community-driven solutions so that working-class families aren’t priced out of the communities they live and work in.

• Raise Wages & Strengthen Unions: As a union leader, Sam knows firsthand that strong labor unions build a strong middle class. In Congress, he will advocate for legislation that raises wages, protects the right to organize, and ensures every Montanan can work a good-paying job with a secure retirement.

• Reinvest in Public Lands: Drawing on his frontline experience as a firefighter, Sam opposes efforts by billionaires to cut public land agency budgets. He views proactive investments in forest management and public service exactly like healthcare—investing upfront to prevent catastrophic, expensive crises later.

• Get Money Out of Politics: Sam refuses to take a single dime from corporate PACs. He is committed to ending the corrupting influence of corporate lobbyists and billionaires in Washington, building a campaign and a government that is entirely powered by regular people.

His position on key issues

• Healthcare Work for Working People: Sam believes no one should sit in an emergency room because they couldn’t afford a primary care visit. He advocates for a sweeping reform of the broken healthcare system to guarantee affordable, comprehensive care for every individual.

• Make Childcare and Education Work for All: Growing up the son of a public school teacher, Sam is dedicated to expanding federal support for early childhood education and making quality childcare affordable for working parents.

• Make Taxes Work for Working People: Sam is focused on rewriting the tax code so that corporations and the ultra-rich finally carry their own weight, easing the financial burden on middle-class and low-income families.

• Protecting Retirement Security: He stands firmly against any cuts to Social Security and Medicare, fighting to ensure that after a lifetime of hard work, every Montanan can retire with dignity.

To learn more about Sam, visit his website: https://samformontana.com