Scandal-plagued former Trump official running for Congress in Montana -- from his wife’s yacht in California
October 08, 2021
Ryan Zinke, who infamously rode on horseback to his first day on the job as Donald Trump's Interior secretary but slipped out under a cloud of scandals, is running for Congress in Montana -- but appears to spend most of his time in California.
The former Trump official has Trump's endorsement to represent Montana's newly designated 2nd congressional district and has pitched himself as cowboy hat-wearing native son, but he's got one major problem apart from the series of ethics scandals and federal investigations, reported Politico.
"We really haven't seen him in Montana," said Cora Neumann, a Democrat from Bozeman who's also running for the seat.
The 59-year-old Zinke has for years split time between Whitefish and Santa Barbara, where his wife owns property and a yacht, but that dual residency could be a bigger issue in this race than the previous two congressional campaigns he won.
"I think it's pretty obvious when you show up in March with a really killer tan that you haven't been here for a long time," said Jennifer Fielder, a GOP former state senator who's backing Zinke's challenger.
Zinke and his wife Lolita have frequently posted photos of their life in Santa Barbara on their personal Instagram accounts, which showed the couple quarantining and spending the holidays in sunny California and returning to Montana mostly in summer.
"I don't think Ryan has been a true Montanan for a very long time," Fielder said.
Nearly half of Zinke's campaign donations have come from Texas, with his larges single donation coming from an oil company CEO in Dallas, and his outsider status could be an even bigger campaign issue in the Trump-loving state than the ongoing Justice Department investigations into his time in that administration.
"Maybe if he had come back after he resigned as Interior secretary and moved back to Whitefish and came back to the community, that would be something," said his GOP primary rival said Al Olszewski. "But Ryan didn't show up until there was an announcement for an open seat."
Also Friday, former President Donald Trump found himself at the center of a brutal Twitter storm after he told Sean Hannity Haitian asylum seekers "probably have AIDS." WATCH:
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