He’s actually a former district court Judge, former State Rep, and 2018 Senate candidate from Yellowstone County (Billings). IIRC, Fagg is pretty popular in the Billings area and only lost the 2018 primary to Rosendale by ~5%. Honestly, an argument could probably be made that Fagg would be a much stronger candidate than Rosendale or Zinke. He seems like Generic R with some real local popularity in a key area.
Incidentally, both Rosendale (terrible speaker, nutjob, photographed with prominent neo-Nazis, easy to brand as “not a real Montanan,” potential for a Kobach-style dynamic) and Zinke (hopelessly scandal-ridden, only avoided indictment due to corrupt interference by Barr, under-performer, IIRC he has lied a bit about his resume/past jobs/etc, generally has a general air of untrustworthiness to him) have some serious vulnerabilities. I think national Republicans can probably keep Zinke out if they really want to, but Rosendale is gonna do whatever he wants to do.
Rosendale is a backbencher who has gone all in on the crazy caucus schtick and already burned many of his bridges in the House trying to ensure he’d have that lane to himself. He was among the few anti-McCarthy rebels who didn’t get anything and held out until the end. He’s not the strongest candidate so he can’t count on being the frontrunner for the nomination in six years if Tester wins and he’s stuck as a particularly impotent House backbencher if Tester loses to someone else this year. It’s likely now or never if Rosendale wants to move up the ladder to the Senate (and he pretty clearly does). Maybe he can be bullied or bought into sitting things out, but if he held out Re: McCarthy even when it was clear the battle was over, then why would he back down from a fight he has a very real chance of actually winning just to appease folks (the National Republican establishment) who don’t like him and whom he has made a such a point of antagonizing?
Plus, if Rosendale is the nominee, then national Republicans are stuck with him whether they wanted him or not. That Rosendale is arguably the weakest Republicans Tester might realistically face (hard to say if Rosendale or Zinke is weaker tbh) and national Republicans don’t like him is beside the point. If he’s the nominee, they’ll line up behind him all the same.
But I digress (this post really wasn’t supposed to be about Rosendale
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