How well do you know Montana’s recent political history?

The Montanans who responded to the most recent Big Sky Poll had a tough time answering the one trivia question that was part of the survey.

Dr. Sara Rinfret, associate professor and chair, UM Department of Public Administration and Policy and Director of the Big Sky Poll provided the question that stumped most of the poll’s respondents.

“We always do a Montana state trivia question,” said Dr. Rinfret. “One of the things that are important since this is an academic mission and to help our students understand data from start to finish, so the students wanted to get back to a state trivia question. This time we asked about Montanans if they were aware about how many members have we sent to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the answer is two.”

Rinfret said there were only a small percentage of the respondents who knew the answer.

“There weren’t a high percentage of folks that realized that,” she said. “It gears us up to think about the upcoming census and redistricting. One of the things we talked to the students about was this was back in the 1990’s, so a lot of our students weren’t aware, so it’s not surprising, so it’s just another way to think about how this is a way to get more representation out of the state of Montana at the federal level.”

Rinfret said the next Big Sky Poll will be issued in the spring.

The last time Montana had two members in the U.S. House of Representatives, they were Democrat Pat Williams and republican Ron Marlenee. Williams won the runoff election in 1992 with 50 percent of the vote, and became the sole U.S. House member for Montana.

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