Montana congressional candidate Sam Forstag removed Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and five other national progressive endorsers from his campaign website, even as his fundraising emails still touted their support.
Forstag, a Democrat running for Montana's 1st Congressional District, had featured a "National Leaders" section on his campaign endorsement page at samformontana.com that listed Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and five other left-leaning members of Congress: Reps. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, and Lateefah Simon of California. Sometime between June 9 and August 28, that entire section vanished from the site, Breitbart News reported, citing archived web captures that show the page before and after the change.
The endorsement page now jumps straight from "Former Montana Elected Officials" to "Organizations." No trace of the seven national lawmakers remains. But on September 7, days after the website scrub was already complete, Forstag's campaign sent a fundraising email that still name-dropped both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, calling Forstag a "progressive brawler" who had earned their backing.
That gap between the public-facing website and the donor-facing email tells its own story. In a deep-red district where President Trump and retiring Rep. Ryan Zinke have both endorsed Republican candidate Aaron Flint, advertising your ties to the Democratic Party's most prominent progressives is a different proposition in a general election than it was in a primary.
During the primary, Forstag did not merely accept progressive endorsements at arm's length. Ocasio-Cortez personally campaigned with him at a rally in Missoula. Sanders lent his name to the effort. Those were not quiet, behind-the-scenes nods, they were public, high-profile signals designed to energize the Democratic base and raise money.
Now that Forstag faces a general electorate in Montana, the calculation has apparently changed. The endorsements were useful when he needed progressive donors and primary voters. They became a liability the moment he needed to appeal to the broader district.
The NRCC was quick to point out the contradiction. Spokesman Christian Martinez issued a statement that framed the website change as a cosmetic exercise that could not undo Forstag's record:
"Socialist lobbyist Sam Forstag can scrub Bernie Sanders and AOC off his website, but he cannot bleach them out of his political DNA. A last-minute campaign facelift won't erase years of lobbying for far-left groups that fought to allow men to compete in women's sports and allow sex changes to be performed on children without their parents' permission, all while backing tax hikes that would hammer working Montana families trying to get by."
Martinez's characterization is partisan, but the underlying record he references is drawn from Forstag's own professional history, a history that tells voters more than any endorsement page ever could.
Before running for Congress, Forstag spent years in progressive advocacy and lobbying. From December 2020 to May 2021, he served as legislative program manager for the ACLU of Montana, where his duties included full-time lobbying at the Montana Capitol, mobilizing ACLU members, coordinating with partner organizations, and working on coalitions focused on criminal justice, immigrants' rights, and voting rights.
The national ACLU has called for reducing "the role, resources and power of police" and investing in alternatives. A former ACLU policing policy adviser, Paige Fernandez, published a 2020 commentary calling on activists to "defund the police." The national organization has also advocated alternatives to cash bail and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Forstag's involvement with progressive policy fights did not end when he left the ACLU. From November 2021 to April 2024, he was a partner at Central House Strategies, a lobbying firm whose clients included Planned Parenthood of Montana, the Montana Innocence Project, the Montana Library Association, the Montana Food Bank Network, and the Poverello Center. His professional profile stated that he advocated for policies benefiting "poor, working and marginalized people." He also helped lead the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness.
On his own public record, Forstag has taken specific positions on legislation that would put him well to the left of most Montana voters. In 2021, he praised the "strength and courage" of LGBTQ people and urged Montanans to tell lawmakers to vote "NO" on HB 112, a bill restricting transgender-identifying individuals from participating in women's and girls' school sports, and HB 427, which would have prohibited certain gender-transition surgeries for minors and referrals for such procedures. HB 112 was signed into law by Gov. Greg Gianforte.
As far back as 2017, Forstag shared a post from Catalyst Montana opposing HB 609, a bill that would have asked voters whether public-school students should be required to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their biological sex.
Forstag's Republican opponent, Aaron Flint, has built his campaign on a starkly different profile. A conservative radio host who runs the statewide Montana Talks program, Flint served as an infantry platoon leader in Ramadi, Iraq, and also deployed to Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. He has said the September 11 attacks inspired him to join the military and has described his congressional campaign as another chance to "step up and fight for your country."
Flint carries endorsements from both President Trump and retiring Rep. Ryan Zinke. During the primary, he drew attention to Forstag's progressive ties, calling him a "Bernie bro" and "far-left lobbyist for the ACLU" who "fought to get men in women's locker rooms." Those labels were aimed at Forstag's lobbying record, the same record that now sits uncomfortably alongside a campaign website designed to look more moderate.
Ocasio-Cortez, whose endorsement Forstag was happy to showcase months ago, has become a polarizing figure well beyond her New York district. Some in the progressive movement have floated her as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, a prospect that underscores just how far left her brand sits relative to a Montana general election.
Sanders, too, remains a figure whose political identity is defined by democratic socialism, not exactly a winning label in a state Trump carried comfortably. The broader progressive landscape that produced both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez continues to shape intraparty battles over the Democratic Party's direction, and candidates in competitive districts are left to decide how close they want to stand to it.
The Forstag campaign has not publicly explained why the "National Leaders" section was removed, and no statement from the campaign addressing the change appears in available reporting. Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and the other five lawmakers listed on the original page have not commented on the removal.
What is clear is the timeline. The endorsements were live on the site as late as June 9. They were gone by August 28. And on September 7, the campaign was still invoking Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez by name in donor communications, telling supporters that those two progressive icons backed Forstag because he was a "progressive brawler."
That sequence raises a straightforward question: if the endorsements are something to brag about in fundraising emails, why hide them from the general public? And if they are a liability with general-election voters, why keep using them to raise money?
The pattern is familiar in competitive races where Democrats try to run as moderates after winning primaries with progressive support. The ideological commitments that energize the base become baggage the moment the electorate expands. The trick is hoping voters do not notice the switch, or that the internet does not have a long memory.
In this case, the internet does. Archived captures of the endorsement page are public. The fundraising email is catalogued. And the record of Forstag's years lobbying for the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and progressive coalitions is not something a website redesign can erase.
Voters in Montana's 1st District can decide for themselves what a candidate's record says about him, but they deserve to see the full page, not just the version someone decided to leave up.