Who Is Amanda Curtis?

In the wake of the withdrawal of Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont) from November’s election following charges of plagiarism, the Montana Democratic Party in August chose another Butte Democrat to fill his shoes, freshman Montana legislator Rep. Amanda Curtis.

Curtis, who is also a high school teacher in Butte, and Steve Daines of Bozeman, who currently holds Montana’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, face off in November for the Senate seat vacated by Max Baucus earlier this year after his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to China. As of press time, the race is a David vs. Goliath affair of sorts, with Daines leading Curtis in the polls by over 20 points. Democrats have held the Senate seat for more than a century, but the race was already seen as a tough one for Democrats to hold onto this time around, even before the plagiarism allegations against Walsh were published by The New York Times in July.

After Walsh dropped out of the race, Democrats scrambled to pick a new candidate. Rep. Franke Wilmer (D-Bozeman) Bozeman expressed an interest in running against Daines, but decided to instead to keep her focus on state politics. Former Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s name surfaced, but no interest in the seat from his camp emerged. In a first-of-its-kind convention for Montana Democrats in Helena on Saturday, Aug. 16, the 129 attending party delegates from across the Treasure State really had only two choices: the 34-year-old Amanda Curtis, who earlier that week received backing from some of Montana’s largest unions, and Wilsall area rancher Dirk Adams, who in June lost the primary race to Walsh.

At Saturday’s convention Curtis made her pitch to working-class Montana voters, portraying Daines as a corporate candidate more interested in serving the interests of the wealthy, rather than Montana as a whole.

“This is the worst job market in a generation, but the stock market is doing just fine,” Curtis told convention delegates. “Wall Street is doing great. The recovery has not reached the rest of us...if we win here in Montana, outspent and outgunned in a race where we were left for dead, it will send a message to Washington, D.C., that we want change.”

After the delegates’ votes were cast and counted, Curtis bested Adams by an 82-46 vote margin, but with less than 10 weeks until Election Day, Curtis certainly has an uphill battle ahead of her, not the least of which is name recognition.

“The ability to brand anything, a candidate...a product...is really tough in three months,” Ravalli County convention delegate Lee Tickell told the Associated Press. “But it can be done, if we come out of here with enthusiasm.”

If enthusiasm can be equated with money, Curtis is off to a good start. Within 10 days being chosen as the candidate to replace Walsh, Curtis had already raised $180,000. That’s small potatoes compared to Daines’ $1.7 million warchest, and Curtis is not expected to draw much money from large donors outside the state unless the race tightens, but it is a good start. She has received backing from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's Democracy for America organization, and an endorsement from Montana’s other U.S. Senator, Jon Tester, who told CNN News that “Amanda's energy and enthusiasm will be a refreshing change, and will bring attention to issues facing working families, like education and access to our public lands.”

Younger Montana Democrats are the demographic most familiar with Curtis, whose issues include student loan reform and human rights. It’s this younger voting base which Democrats hope to invigorate in this off-Presidential election year.

Using an avenue more likely to be navigated by this younger generation, Curtis kept a daily YouTube diary of the 2013 Montana Legislative Session she served in, a diary which reveals much about the candidate’s beliefs and background. Within hours after she was chosen to run against Daines by party delegates in Helena, the Montana Republican Party published a not-so-complimentary compilation of clips from her diary on YouTube entitled “Meet Amanda Curtis.”  The GOP’s video montage had received over 142,000 hits as of Aug. 30. It focuses on Curtis’s statements regarding topics including gun control (she favors expanded background checks) and Medicaid (she wants to see the program expanded in the Treasure State). It hints at her labor union background (she states she is an “anarchist at heart” in one clip), and one clip seems aimed at questioning Curtis’s “family values.” In another segment, Curtis says she has to stop herself from walking across the aisle and punching another state legislator after his anti-gay statements on the floor. Montana Republican Party Chair Will Deschamps told the AP that “All you have to do is listen to her words.” But Curtis stands by her legislative video diary, accusing the Montana Republican Party of publishing an assembly of clips out of context, and urging everyone to watch her diary as a whole.

“Of course that's the first thing that they're going to do,” Curtis told the AP regarding the GOP’s YouTube release. “The great thing about those videos [in their entirety] is folks can go and see exactly what context I said any statement that they're curious about.” It remains to be seen whether those YouTube videos will help get Amanda Curtis’s name out there, but it’s certain that name recognition is a priority in her campaign.