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Meet the banjo-playing congressional hopeful who wants to turn Montana blue

Rob Quist supported Bernie Sanders for president, was called a cowboy hat wearing hippie and now wants to flip Montana into Democratic territory

Its mid-morning when Rob Quist slings his guitar across his chest and begins to strum. Hes crossed 175 miles of Montana for his first campaign stop of the day and stands tall, straight-backed and smiling out at a room of backcountry horsemen and women bedecked in cowboy hats and approving nods.

Quist makes a pitch for affordable healthcare as a right of citizenship, offers a passionate defense of public lands his main issue and a critical topic in the American west and fields questions about gun rights and his own backcountry adventures. Then, for a few moments, the upstart Democratic congressional candidate reverts to a much more familiar role, a troubadour who has serenaded Montanans for decades, playing to rooms just like this.

Ive really been representing Montana through my music and poetry all my life, he says later when I ask why hes decided to upend his life as an artist to enter the decidedly more bruising world of politics.

By days end, 69-year-old Quist has traversed more than 400 miles and spoken with hundreds of voters, asking each person to tell 10 friends about him and ask those 10 friends to tell 10 more. At each stop, turnout is bigger than expected.

This is a typical day on the campaign trail with Quist hundreds of miles and enthusiastic crowds.

There is a buzz; people know him through his music. The giant, looming unknown is whether grassroots support is big and sustainable enough to carry a progressive Democrat to victory over a wealthy, practiced, Trump-aligned Republican and flip a US House seat that hasnt gone to a Democrat in 21 years.

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On the day I ride along with Quists campaign, the Billings newspaper has published a story detailing his personal financial problems from a few years ago. Following a botched gall bladder surgery, Quist struggled with creditors and tax liens, eventually paying off roughly $25,000.

Quist works the hard times into his personal narrative, telling supporters he wants to create a healthcare system where medical bills wont ruin lives. In his rallies, there is little interest in pressing him about his finances and more questions about how hell preserve public lands and whether hed support an independent investigation of Trumps Russia ties (he does).

Quist supported Bernie Sanders, who won Montanas Democratic primary by seven points. Republican Rick Hill, who held the seat Quist seeks, referred to him in a Facebook post as a cowboy hat wearing hippie. Quists laughs about the description and isnt offended.

I think the thing I liked about Bernie is he was a man of the people and really connected to grassroots. Thats what Im all about. The other choices were offered are really connected to corporate America, which in a lot of ways has undue influence on the politics of our country, Quist says. My goal is to be a strong, independent voice for the people of Montana.

Rob Quist was raised on a farm and learned to play banjo and guitar in Cut Bank, just south of the Canadian border, on the edge of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Cut Bank is conservative, but Quist became politically progressive when he moved to Missoula for college and joined a band. The Mission Mountain Wood Band toured Montana and the region relentlessly, packing in partying crowds for a decade. Quist left the group in the 1980s and formed Rob Quist and Great Northern, another popular band, and continued making a living as a touring musician.

From that, hes widely known among people 40 and older. His challenge now is to get his name out to younger voters, while rallying those who know him to get out and vote. But hes up against a big money blitz, with no backing as yet from the national Democrats.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican Super Pac, has spent $700,000 on anti-Quist advertising, calling him out of tune with Montana.

In response, Quist challenged his opponent to a banjo duel to see whos really out of tune. Ruth Guerra, spokeswoman for the CLF, said the group wants to guarantee a GOP win and that the lack of national Democratic involvement in the race proves Quist will lose.

They dont see Rob Quist as a strong candidate, or as a candidate who has a chance in the race, so they dont want to spend a lot of time and money on this race, she says.

Democrat Rob Quist loads his guitar and amp into his van after a campaign stop in Livingston, Montana. Photograph: William Campbell/Corbis/Getty

The battle for Montanas lone seat in the US House of Representatives will be a test of the electorates mood in the first months of Donald Trumps chaotic presidency. Scheduled for 25 May, the special election to replace Republican Representative Ryan Zinke, who was appointed interior secretary, is one of the first contests for federal office since November.

While the race to fill a US House seat in Georgia, which begins with a primary runoff on 18 April, is getting the most national attention and party money, Montanas congressional battle is a heated, unusual race between opposites.

National politicos frequently write Montana off as a red state, but that dismissal belies a fundamental misunderstanding of its history and politics. Yes, voters go for Republicans for president most of the time, but down ballot things get interesting. And theres some concern that the absence of the national Democratic Party from the race indicates the party still doesnt get rural America.

I think this red and blue matter so simplifies peoples collective opinion that it does a disservice to a true understanding of a states political preferences, says retired congressman Pat Williams, the last Democrat to hold the states US House seat. Were almost always painted red every four years because of the presidential race.

Solely on the issues, Montanans are progressive. They do have this habit of westerners to vote for Republicans for president. However, we generally elect Democrats as our governors and as our senators, Williams adds. So all that means we may be purple, but were not red.

Rob Saldin, a political scientist at the University of Montana, has a slightly different analysis. This is a Republican state its been trending that direction for a long time and now I think it is, he says. Its always been a little different than other Mountain West states, a little more friendly to Democrats, and thats partly tied up in the labor history.

With vast open spaces, wildlife and a history of outlaws and vigilantes, Montana is easy to mythologize. Simplistic tropes about grizzly bears and guns miss the mark, yet its important to note the states voters flaunt an independent streak.

Trump won the presidential election here by 21 points over Hillary Clinton, but voters re-elected a Democrat as governor the same day. The Republican who lost the governors race, wealthy tech entrepreneur and ultra-conservative Greg Gianforte, is up against Quist for Congress. (Gianfortes campaign did not respond to requests for comment.)

Rob Quist supporters: If youre pissed, vote for Quist. Photograph: Kathleen McLaughlin

Montana is big and sparsely populated, a million people spread across just under 150,000 square miles a state slightly larger than the whole of Japan. So ads are an easier means of campaigning with a controlled message than to turn up at town halls, city parks and peoples homes.

Quist ends this day on the trail at a meeting with supporters in Libby, a north-western Montana town so isolated from the rest of the state that its deadly asbestos mine crisis was kept under wraps for decades. Todays Libby is on the mend, but often forgotten by political candidates. Quist visited Libby when he was beating the bushes to win the Democratic party nomination for this seat in that race he met with 40 of 56 county party committees.

Libby is not in a swing county; it tends to vote very Republican, but supporters still think Quist has a chance here.

I see him as being the best candidate to cross political party lines, says Alice Elrod, who is handing out handmade Quist buttons imprinted on to round wood blocks. People who know him for his music really like him. Hes got a lot of goodwill on his side.