Russel Cleveland is running as a Democrat for U.S. Congress against U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke in 2026.
NBC Montana interviewed Cleveland to get an idea of his policy stances.
The full interview is posted in the YouTube video below:
Cleveland’s distant cousin is Former-President Grover Cleveland and is a U.S. Navy Veteran.
He grew up in Stevensville, has a background in childcare and describes himself as an independent.
“I’m fiscally responsible. I think we need to reign in our national debt and some of our expenditures and so what that looks like is that spectrum to me has been shifting further right and even life-long conservatives are feeling like they’re more in the middle now. And for me I’m a little bit further to left than that but all that means is I think we need to invest in things like education and healthcare because we’re the richest country in the world I think we need to take care of some of those things first and then we can focus on helping those other countries,” Cleveland said.
His policy ideas include raising teacher pay, creating dual-credit high school courses, raising the minimum wage and putting a cap on property taxes.
“Students repeat some of the same courses in college they already took in high school. That should be a pipeline helping them earn both education and college credit without more debt,” Cleveland said.
Cleveland started the childcare company Rocky Mountain Kids.
“I spent the last 10 years running a childcare company. We had 42 locations and took care of about 9,000 kids. And so I think education starts from a very early age on, and Montana is a child care desert. So how do we help get parents back to work by making sure their kids have a safe place to go from early on, and then also that cascades into the education as well,” Cleveland said.
Cleveland also said if elected he hopes to make healthcare more affordable.
“That’s the reason our federal government is shut down right now, but also what is this going to look like in 10, 20, 30 years to be able to make it to where people like you and I can afford health care, and it’s not as much as our mortgage or half of our paycheck,” Cleveland said.
When asked what he would do different than Zinke, Cleveland said, “I think it’s important to remember that we are a public servant and our number one job should be showing up and giving time and energy to the people that elected us, not necessarily lobbyists or special interest groups or PACs that paid our way to get there. I’m not taking corporate PAC money. I’m not taking any dark money from special interest groups.”
But when asked if he was committing to not take any money from PAC’s he said, “I mean, there are some really, some really great PAC’s out there as well. But the corporate PAC money and the super PAC’s are often funded by what we call dark money, which means like a C4 took money from somebody and then they donate to a super PAC, but they don’t have to tell where that money came from.”
For more details on Cleveland’s campaign click here.
NBC Montana has reached out to Zinke for an interview.
