{"id":262736,"date":"2026-03-03T14:34:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/montanafreepress.org\/?p=262736"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:35:02","slug":"75-of-voters-want-montana-to-have-at-least-as-much-federal-land-as-it-does-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montanafreepress.org\/2026\/03\/03\/75-of-voters-want-montana-to-have-at-least-as-much-federal-land-as-it-does-now\/","title":{"rendered":"75% of voters want Montana to have at least as much federal land as it does now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This piece is part of <\/em>MTFP’s 2026 poll week<\/em><\/a>, where we’re exploring data on how Montana voters feel about their elected officials, environmental concerns, immigration enforcement and other issues.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A majority of Montanans believe there is the right amount of federal land in the state, according to a recent poll conducted by Montana Free Press in coordination with Rutgers University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About one quarter of respondents, 24%, said there was too much federal land in the state, compared to 21% who said there was too little. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, despite the fact that federal land transfer appears in both the state<\/a> and national<\/a> GOP party platforms, a majority of Republicans polled, 62%, said there is the right amount or too little federal land in Montana. About 96% of Democrats and 81% of independents also said they feel that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Weddell, a professor who studies recreation and tourism at the University of Montana, said she\u2019s not surprised that the MTFP-Eagleton poll demonstrates bipartisan support for federal lands \u2014 even though Montanans occasionally express frustration with the way federal agencies manage natural resources and growing numbers of recreational users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are where anyone can go. They can go for free. They can see people of all different sizes and colors and backgrounds. It really is a phenomenal system,\u201d Weddell said. \u201cThey are the foundation of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montanans\u2019 keen engagement with public land issues could be explained, at least partially, by their regular use of federal land. Polling conducted by Colorado College last year as part of its State of the Rockies initiative<\/a> found that Montanans are more likely to report regular use of national public lands than residents of the seven other Western states polled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 30% of Montanans, according to the Colorado College poll, reported visiting public land more than 20 times over the previous year, while just 8% of Montanans said they hadn\u2019t made any visits in the last year to a national public land, such as a national park, national forest, national monument or national wildlife refuge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service oversee about one-third of the land in Montana<\/a>. Congressional negotiations over federal land ownership and management played prominent roles in last year\u2019s debate over President Trump\u2019s massive spending package. The issue also featured in Montana lawmakers\u2019 2025 discussion of a failed resolution<\/a> to support Utah in a land-ownership fight that state has pending in the federal court system<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, made multiple attempts<\/a> to include a proposal to transfer Bureau of Land Management holdings out of the federal estate in last year\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the multi-trillion-dollar <\/strong>budget package that made sweeping changes to federal tax, health care and natural resource policies. <\/strong>But the bill garnered the necessary votes to pass both chambers only after the land-sale amendments were stripped from the final package. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The land transfer issue cast Montana\u2019s federal delegation into the national spotlight. U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, who represents Montana\u2019s Western District in Congress, staked out an early position against land sales, declaring the issue his \u201cSan Juan Hill.\u201d<\/a> Other Western Republicans followed suit<\/a>, asserting they would not vote for Trump\u2019s megabill with the land sale provision in it. Zinke\u2019s colleague in the Senate, Steve Daines, took a different approach. He negotiated with Lee when the bill was before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee<\/a> to ensure that federal lands in Montana would be barred from sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public land transfer advocates like Lee argue that there is too much land in the federal estate, particularly in states such as Utah and Nevada, where the BLM is the state\u2019s largest land manager. They often also argue that federal agencies mismanage the land and that state governments are more responsive to local recreational and commercial users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who support keeping federal land under the umbrella of federal land managers argue that transferring ownership to the state government opens the door to the eventual sale of that land to private individuals and corporations. They also maintain that state agencies don\u2019t have the budget to cover high-dollar expenditures for wildfire suppression, a dynamic that they say could produce financial pressures to sell public lands to private owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State lawmakers also contemplated federal land ownership when the legislature was in session last year. Two-thirds of legislators in the Montana House of Representatives voted down<\/a> a resolution<\/a> that sought to support Utah in its legal attempt to wrest control of 18.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management-administered federal land. House Democrats were united in their opposition to that bill, which garnered the support of a majority of the body\u2019s 58 Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Forest Service is the largest single landowner in Montana by acreage. It manages 17 million acres of land in the state, as compared to 8 million acres under Bureau of Land Management control and 1 million acres of National Park Service holdings.

The MTFP-Eagleton poll surveyed 801 registered voters through telephone interviews and text-to-web questionnaires. Data was collected from Dec. 23, 2025 to Jan. 3, 2026. The poll, which was weighted to reflect the demographics of the state\u2019s voters, has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piece is part of the <\/em>Montana Insights project<\/em><\/a>, which is commissioning rounds of polling to help MTFP readers understand public sentiment on key Montana policy issues. Further findings from the Dec. 2025-Jan. 2026 poll <\/em>are available here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\tLATEST STORIES<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

75% of voters want Montana to have at least as much federal land as it does now<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t

Federal land transfer has been a party of the GOP party platform at both the state and national level, but a recent MTFP-Eagleton poll indicates that a majority of Republican voters oppose reducing the amount of land in federal ownership.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby<\/span> Amanda Eggert<\/a><\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen joins contest for Zinke\u2019s western U.S. House District seat<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t

Jacobsen made her announcement on Facebook with a campaign video portraying her as both a political outsider and the favorite of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby<\/span> Tom Lutey<\/a><\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Montanans want more solar, natural gas development, are less interested in new coal plants<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t

The poll results on Montana\u2019s energy mix come as politicians and policymakers grapple with surging electricity demand spurred by investment in artificial intelligence and the data centers that support it.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby<\/span> Amanda Eggert<\/a><\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t