The novice versus the old pro.
Photo: Ben Allan Smith/AP Photo
Republicans in Washington went to a lot of trouble to recruit Tim Sheehy to run for the U.S. Senate in Montana against veteran Democrat Jon Tester. They were reportedly dazzled by the young and photogenic politician’s biography, which included serving in Afghanistan as a decorated Navy SEAL and launching a very successful aerial firefighting business after moving from Minnesota to Montana ten years ago. He was close to congressman and former Interior secretary Ryan Zinke, but the real motive for Sheehy’s recruitment was to sideline Zinke’s U.S. House colleague Matt Rosendale, a cranky arch-conservative who had lost to Tester in 2018. It was a personal priority for Montana’s other senator, Steve Daines, who chairs the GOP’s Senate campaign committee.
It all came together, and when it looked like Rosendale would ignore all the invitations to go away and run for the Senate anyway, Donald Trump himself big-footed him out of the race with a quick endorsement of Sheehy. The young challenger has been given almost unlimited financial support; an estimated $50 million has been ponied up by pro-Sheehy super-PACs in what is easily going to be the most expensive per-vote Senate race ever.
The focus on Montana isn’t surprising; it’s the most likely tipping-point state for Republicans to flip control of the Senate. Right now Democrats control the chamber by a 51-49 margin, but the seat of retiring West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin is universally expected to go to a Republican in November. And while there are other potentially vulnerable Democratic senators running this year, only Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown are from states Trump is almost certain to win handily. Since Montana went for Trump by 16 points in 2020 and by 20 points in 2016, it’s Tester who has the biggest bull’s-eye painted on his back. With ticket splitting steadily declining in this era of partisan polarization, that’s a big deficit for the Democrat to overcome.
Sure enough, the FiveThirtyEight polling averages show Trump leading Kamala Harris in Montana by nearly 17 points. And so it’s unsurprising that the same averages show Tim Sheehy with a four-point lead over Tester. The trend lines are pretty unmistakable. RMG Research released a poll in mid-August showing Tester leading 49 to 44 percent; the same firm’s September poll showed Sheehy leading 50 to 43 percent.
So is Sheehy fulfilling his wonder-boy promise? That’s debatable. His rags-to-riches story took a bit of a hit when it was disclosed he had grown up in a multimillion-dollar lakeside home in Minnesota, and that his Montana business had received some big subsidies from his family’s wealth. More importantly, recordings recently emerged of the candidate making derogatory comments about Native Americans — in a state where Native Americans make up 6 percent of the population.
Sheehy has allowed that these remarks were “insensitive,” but when challenged by Tester during a debate to apologize, he responded: “Will you apologize for opening the border?”
As Election Day approaches, there are growing signs that Sheehy is limiting his exposure to any uncontrolled environment where he might make a mistake, as CNN reports:
Sheehy rarely grants interviews to local or national press, while his campaign doesn’t discuss his schedule or provide information about his events, which tend to be closed affairs … [He’s] running in a state that has seen a surge of new residents, which political observers here believe benefits the GOP. Having an “R” next to his name could be enough to unseat Tester and flip the Senate — absent any major missteps.
So the prize GOP recruit of the 2024 Senate class is winding up his campaign hiding out and basically running as a generic Republican. The party might as well have let Matt Rosendale have the nomination, given him a large fortune for campaign ads, and told him to paint by the numbers until voters voted.
It would serve Republican wire-pullers right if Tester defied the odds as he has done before (in 2012, he won by running seven points ahead of Barack Obama). He’s done what he can to distance himself from the national ticket and is a well-known commodity in his state, unlike Sheehy, the shiny new toy that has developed a bit of tarnish.
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