Green Party candidate applies to participate in the race for the US Senate

There is a new Green Party candidate for the US Senate.

Robert Barb has filed to replace Michael Downey as the Green Party’s challenger to Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester.

The two Greens were primary opponents in June, when Downey prevailed in a race that drew 1,089 voters. Barb’s attorney, Rob Cameron, said Barb sought the nomination after Downey withdrew his candidacy on August 12.

“He came second in the Green Party primary with 38% of the vote. When Downey dropped out at the last minute, in the last hour of the last day he could run, my client expected to be the nominee,” Cameron said.

Barb filed suit against Secretary of State Christie Jacobsen and the Green Party, arguing that he had the right to replace Downey and that the Green Party had an obligation to nominate a replacement candidate. Cameron said the lawsuit was a precautionary measure that turned out to be unnecessary after he spoke with Steve Kelly, a longtime Green Party chairman in Montana.

“I have a higher obligation, and it’s not to him,” Kelly said of Barb. “I have to get someone on the Green ballot for those people, the 1,089 voters who voted in the primary. Then they can vote again for a Green candidate in the general election if they want.”

Downey dropped out of the race days after former President Donald Trump called on Republicans in Bozeman to support Tester’s challenger, Tim Sheehy. He told the Montana Free Press last week that he did not want to be seen as a spoilsport in what is expected to be a close race between Tester and Sheehy. At the rally, Trump called on another third-party Senate candidate, Libertarian Sid Daoud, to stand up from the rally’s VIP section to acknowledge him. The former president told the crowd of 8,400 people at Montana State University’s Brick Breeden Fieldhouse that Daoud would make a big announcement in the coming days.

Daoud, of Kalispell, later told local radio station KGEZ that he was flown to the rally in a small plane to meet with Sheehy, U.S. Senator Steve Daines and other Republicans who had urged him to drop out of the race.

Daoud declined and told Trump directly that the Libertarians would stay in the Senate election.

Kelly said Democrats were putting pressure on him not to replace Downing.

“The principals never call me, but that’s the same thing with the Republicans,” Kelly said. “They send an emissary, a lackey clerk. They don’t come anymore because I’m trying to convert them. I’m the green devil, right? They think I have this power, like their young staff member is talking to me. The next time they turn around, he’ll be a green guy.”

Just a few years ago, Democrats accused Republicans of fielding fake Green Party candidates in order to steal environmentally conscious voters from the Democratic frontrunners.

In 2020, a Lewis and Clark County district judge disqualified a Republican-backed Green Party candidate from the ballot because Montana Republicans had tried to qualify the third party to lure unsuspecting conservation voters. Republicans had spent $100,000 on signature gatherers to help the Green Party qualify for the 2020 ballot. The Montana Green Party said it had nothing to do with the scheme. A similar attempt was stopped by Democrats in 2018.

In previous elections, a liberal outdoor group supported the campaign of Libertarian candidate Dan Cox in the 2012 U.S. Senate race. Cox received 31,000 votes, 13,000 more than the Libertarian candidate running for governor in the same election cycle. Republicans cried foul, accusing Democrats of supporting Libertarian Cox in order to steal votes from Republican Denny Rehberg, who was Tester’s challenger.