BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Democratic candidate for Montana governor Ryan Busse on Tuesday produced 10 years of income tax records in an effort to get Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte to debate him ahead of the November election.
The release of the tax records to The Associated Press comes after Gianforte last week dismissed Busse as not a “serious candidate” and said he would not debate him because the Democrat had not released his tax returns.
“It’s a complete charade,” Busse told the AP after presenting his results. “If this is the only reason why Gianforte doesn’t want to debate, then I’m not going to give him that excuse.”
With the election just over two months away, Busse’s campaign is scrambling to gain a foothold in a Republican-dominated state. In 2020, Gianforte was elected by a margin of 13 percentage points.
Jake Eaton, Gianforte’s campaign manager, said Tuesday that the governor is pleased that Busse “is joining him on the transparency train.”
“As the Governor has made clear, now that Mr. Busse has released his tax returns after repeated urging, he welcomes a debate,” Eaton wrote in a statement.
Last week, Eaton had said in a memo to reporters that his boss was willing to debate a credible candidate, but he claimed it was not Busse, who won the June primary with 71% of the vote.
“The first step to having a debate is we need a serious candidate who will release his tax returns, just like every other candidate has done, and then we can talk about scheduling a debate,” Gianforte said in an Aug. 28 interview with KECI-TV in Missoula.
Busse is a former gun company executive who said he left the industry after growing alienated by the aggressive marketing of military-style assault rifles. His 2014-2023 tax returns show he and his wife, Sara Swan-Busse, earned about $260,000 a year over the past decade.
Their main source of income before 2020 was gun company Kimber Manufacturing, where Busse was vice president. The bulk of their income in recent years has come from Aspen Communications, a public relations firm run by Swan-Busse.
Busse said he had previously refused to release his tax returns for privacy reasons, but that he had nothing to hide and that he reconsidered his decision after Gianforte’s campaign alleged he was not transparent.
Gianforte amassed enormous wealth through the 2011 sale of his Bozeman, Montana-based software company RightNow Technologies to Oracle Corp. His income over the past decade has come primarily from investment gains and has averaged more than $6 million a year, according to his returns. He is paid about $120,000 a year for his role as governor.
Gianforte spent more than $6 million of his own money on his failed 2016 campaign for governor and $7.5 million of his own money on his successful 2020 campaign.
Busse raised more money than Gianforte in the most recent financial reporting period, but still trailed the incumbent in total proceeds with about $234,000 in cash on hand, compared to Gianforte’s $746,000, campaign documents show.
