Montana Gov. Steve Bullock

At the State Fair on Aug. 8, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock revolved his pitch around his ability to build relationships with Republicans while maintaining a “progressive agenda.”

The first speaker at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox, Bullock touched on his experience winning three statewide elections in Montana, which went to President Trump by 20 points in 2016. He could win California and Vermont, he said, both of which have gone for Democrats for president in the past three decades, and he questioned whether other candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination could win states such as Montana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, all of which went for Trump in 2016 (although the latter two quite narrowly).

“First, we’ve got to win,” Bullock said. “If we can’t win back places we lost, if we can’t change our strategy, if we can’t give people a reason to vote for us, not against us, Donald Trump will win again.”

Laced throughout his speech was what he called the main pillar of his political career in Montana — removing corporate donor influence from political campaigns.

He supports having a public option for health insurance but not removing people from private insurance. Plans from other presidential hopefuls, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., would do that. He also placed himself squarely toward the center away from Warren and Sanders when talking about higher education.

He supports expanding trade apprenticeships and lowering the cost of education by giving out more Pell Grants, he said.

He also said he supports universal preschool and increased access to rural mental-health care when answering questions from the audience.

In a response to another question from the crowd, he jokingly said his favorite historical figure was his great-great grandfather, born in Henry County, Iowa — a reference to national politicians grasping at obscure connections to Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state. His real answer was the first woman elected to Congress, who was from Montana.

Bullock missed qualifying for the first round of debates in June, but got the number of donors and polling to get on the July debate stage. He is polling in the single digits in national polls.