‘I Know Rural America’: MT House Candidate Monica Tranel Explains Why She Is Running For Congress

7/29/2024

Two-time Olympian and gold medalist Monica Tranel joined “Forbes Newsroom” to discuss her background.

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Transcript

00:00Tell me a little bit about your background and how it led to today, you running for the House.

00:05So I grew up on a ranch in Eastern Montana with my nine siblings. And out in the country,

00:09we didn't have an address. We had a post office box. When my family moved to the county where

00:14I went to middle school, we raised a population of the county 1%. I had as many siblings as I did

00:21classmates. So I know rural America. It's where I grew up. It's what I call home. It's what formed

00:28me very much. And that growing up experience being very deeply connected to the natural world,

00:36sledding under the northern lights, and skating on rivers, and all of those experiences,

00:42I think really got me into rowing as well. I mean, the rowing experience is very much one where

00:47you're very much in the world, in the natural world. You know what the weather is because

00:53you're living it every day. So I think that that's super connected. And so running for Congress for

01:00me from Montana was really a step to have representation and a voice from rural America

01:07in the Democratic Congress. I think we very much need to have the voices heard from the people

01:13in rural America. And I know rural America. It's my home. It's where I grew up. It's very much

01:20something that I want to represent and be a voice and a champion for.

01:23There is a statistic thrown around a lot that men have to be asked maybe once or twice to run for

01:28office, but sometimes women have to be asked many times. So I'm always curious to ask women running

01:33for office, were there a lot of people telling you to run that you should enter the race,

01:37or was there one pivotal moment where you decided to throw your hat into the ring?

01:41The pivotal moment for me really came when I was working on an energy project for Montana. It was a

01:47project that would have brought $200 million of new investment into Montana. And we were working

01:53on this project in front of the utility commission. And one of the commissioners said, well, those wind

01:59turbines are dangerous. They cause cancer and they fly off and they kill people. And my client,

02:04who I was working on this project with, turned to me and said, did he just say that? And I thought,

02:10oh my gosh, he did just say that. And my client said, you know, I could go anywhere. I don't have

02:15to invest in Montana. I don't even have to invest in America. I can go to Columbia. And I thought,

02:21that is not the America that I know. I'm an attorney. I have practiced here in Montana for

02:27over two decades. And decisions really have to be made on facts, the rule of law, and practical

02:36experience. And so to go into a courtroom and to put on your case and to get a fair decision,

02:44up or down, we just want it to all be fair and to be sane and rational. And I thought, I'm not,

02:50that's not America. That's not our democratic world. And I'm not going to live in that world

02:55without fighting for it. So I, you know, I decided, I think that was the moment. I didn't decide right

03:02then and there I would run for office, but something switched in my brain. And I thought,

03:07you know, our elected officials have to be accountable to the people and they have to

03:13be willing to follow the rule of law set out in our constitution and be fair and make decisions

03:20based on the facts and the law. That's who we are as Americans. That's what I believe in. And that's

03:26why I ultimately got into this race, but nobody asked me to run. I mean, nobody said, hey, you

03:31know, this is something that you should do. It's something that I decided to do because I'm from

03:38here. I live here. I have one home. It's in Montana. I'm tired of rich people from California,

03:45like my opponent, coming here and saying, oh, I'm going to represent you. And they don't know

03:49anything about the world that we actually live in here in Montana. I live here. I'm raising my

03:54kids here and I pay property taxes. I pay the, you know, the expenses that are the function of

04:01the high cost of housing. I know the issues that we're facing on the ground because this is my home.

‘I Know Rural America’: MT House Candidate Monica Tranel Explains Why She Is Running For Congress

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