Candidate visits Thompson Falls

Democratic congressional candidate Cora Neumann stopped in Thompson Falls over the weekend as part of her "Hometown Tour." Neumann, who is running for the newly added U.S. House of Representatives seat for Montana, spoke to more than 25 residents at the Rimrock on Sunday.

Neumann said her focus throughout the tour has been to listen to rural Montanans. "What do you love about our hometowns and how do you want to see them thrive?" She said she is hearing a "huge amount of pain" around housing prices and labor for small businesses. When asked how we get past the current climate of polarization, she responded that we need to remain focused on issues not ideology. "Montanans have a tradition of being practical, not political. We need to stay focused on that."

Neumann shared that her family's experiences during her childhood in Bozeman provide her with an understanding to what families and communities are going through. Her father was killed in a lumbermill accident which he may have survived with adequate access to care, and her family was forced to leave Montana for a few years for her union carpenter stepfather to find enough work to support the family. These experiences, she said, influenced her choice of education and career, working to increase healthcare and economic opportunities for rural and Native communities. "I bring a deep, personal understanding to this work," she said.

Having worked as a public health expert in the U.S. State Department through the Ebola virus outbreak and other health and humanitarian disasters, Neumann said she knew early on that COVID would be dangerous and would hit rural and frontier counties the hardest. Her approach, she said, has always been to work to find ways to solve problems. She founded the non-profit "We Are Montana" that worked with rural and tribal leaders and small business owners across the state. The organization raised more than $250,000 to provide COVID-related assistance. Neumann served on both Governor Bullock's and Gianforte's COVID task forces.

Neumann said she considers healthy public lands to be an important part of public health.