With his thick eyeliner, long blond hair and leather jacket, Dakota Adams does not look like a typical politician.
The 27-year-old, who is running as a progressive Democrat in a deep-red, rural corner of Montana, doesn’t have a typical politician backstory either.
Adams is the son of Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group who last year was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the January 6 insurrection. Adams grew up in what he describes as an environment of “extreme isolation and paranoia” – a situation he and his siblings escaped in 2018, when their mother left Rhodes.
In the last few years, Adams has been focusing on building his life. He was educated at home while his father led the Oath Keepers, and while he was a voracious reader, other subjects were neglected – Adams was never taught his times tables until he studied for his GED as an adult.
After six years out of the movement, he works in construction, takes college courses and rents space in an apartment in Eureka, a town of 1,400 people eight and a half miles from the Canadian border.
He first took an active role in politics in 2022, when he began canvassing for other candidates. He noticed that in many county-level elections – as with the seat he’s running for in Lincoln county – there wasn’t even a Democratic candidate on the ballot.
“The lack of candidates stepping up, especially in recent years, reinforces that perception that the Democratic party has turned away from rural America and given up the fight completely,” he says.
Still, despite his unorthodox appearance, Adams has been well received when he goes door to door.
“Montana elections happen at doorstep,” he said. “So far, my reception has been surprisingly positive at doors, [despite] canvassing dressed like Alice Cooper and openly admitting to being a progressive Democrat, or self-identifying even as a Democratic socialist when asked.
“I attribute that to there being a Republican supermajority that’s been running the state – it leaves very little room for excuses.”
Adams has come a long way from the days when he and his siblings lived with the Oath Keepers movement. His father, whom Adams refers to now as Stewart, founded the organization in 2009 in the wake of Barack Obama’s election.
Under Rhodes’ leadership, the Oath Keepers pushed various anti-government conspiracy theories, and Rhodes was committed to the American redoubt movement: a proposal that thousands of conservative Americans and militia members relocate to Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to be free from government tyranny.
Rhodes moved his own family to Montana in 2010, but even living 2,000 miles from Washington DC he was paranoid about the federal government, Adams says – a paranoia he passed on to the family. Adams and his family perpetually drilled for end-of-days events, and, he says, his family suffered due to Rhodes’ focus on survivalism and fear of government inspired by conspiracy theories.
“Anybody could be a secret government informant, including other people inside the movement or inside Oath Keepers. Child Protective Services was the tool of the new world order that would be used to retaliate against Stewart for defying them, so we had to conceal educational and medical neglect,” Adams says.
Adams visited a dentist once in his childhood, when he had “a ton of work done”. Rhodes had bartered the visit to the dentist, who was part of the movement, by offering “infantry tactical training” in return.
That upbringing took its toll. Adams has spent time in therapy but still has anxiety, caused by a childhood spent living “in looming dread”, he says.
“It’s something that still interferes with my daily life and holds me back. I wouldn’t have the mental bandwidth to attend school, or run for office, or anything if it were not for years of pretty extensive work,” he said.
Republicans dominate Montana politics. The GOP controls the state legislature and state senate, and the governor, Greg Gianforte, is a Republican. But Adams believes that could be a positive.
“Because they have such a strong majority and a trifecta in power, they really don’t have any excuse for the state of things,” he said.
Adams says that if he is elected, he wants to actually do things, rather than engage in posturing; he says some state legislatures “have been spending all their time waging performative crusades, especially against queer people and environmental causes”.
He discusses how taxes have increased for working-class and middle-class Montanans as wealthy people have moved into the state, driving up the cost of housing. He wants to diversify an economy that has become more and more reliant on tourism.
“In recent years, more and more tourism dollars are not turning over multiple times inside the community and changing hands as they circulate,” he said.
“[Tourists] are increasingly going to exclusive resorts and to properties and businesses owned by out-of-state corporations. So the profits are extracted directly back out of the state, without going through the local economy whatsoever.”
Adams is realistic about his chances: Lincoln county voted for Trump over Biden by 74% to 24% in 2020. But his reception gives him hope.
“I am in a long-shot race here. I’m in maybe the second-most-conservative voting area in the state, running as a weirdo progressive,” he said.
“And if I’m getting shockingly positive feedback going door to door in the poorest parts of town and in the trailer parks, then I feel like the Republican supermajority in the state is in serious trouble.”
