Montanans vote in Senate primaries as competitive general election looms

Washington – Montanans are voting Tuesday in the primary for a key Senate seat that Democrats are fighting to hold in November, setting off a general election fight for control of the Senate.

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is expected to face businessman Tim Sheehy, with both men almost certain to win their party’s nomination in Tuesday’s primary.

Tester, 67, was first elected to the upper house in 2006. The Democratic incumbent is known as a rural farmer with deep ties to the Big Sky State — and two fingers on one hand from a grinder accident. meat. He calls himself a moderate, sometimes breaking with his party’s slim majority in the Senate. And his seat is among the few that Democrats are fighting fiercely to defend in the Upper House.

On the other side of the aisle is Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and firefighting airline founder who has become the favorite among a handful of Republicans seeking the nomination. The 38-year-old Minnesota native has the support of most of his party, with support from Sen. Steve Daines, Montana’s other senator, a Republican, who is not running for re-election this cycle, along with former President Donald Trump.

Trump endorsed Sheehy in February, when a surprise entry into the Republican race threatened to complicate Sheehy’s path to the nomination. Rep. Matt Rosendale, who launched an unsuccessful bid against Tester in 2018, entered the race, threatening to split the party. But within a week, he withdrew, as Trump said Sheehy “is the candidate who is currently in the best position to DEFEAT Lazy Jon Tester and regain the Republican majority in the United States Senate.”

The race in red Montana, a state where Trump beat President Biden by more than 16 points in 2020, is expected to be among the most competitive and expensive this cycle. The state has elected Tester to the Senate three times, although he is the only Democrat currently serving in statewide office in Montana. And Montana’s changing political profile poses a major obstacle to Tester’s re-election.

Eric Raile, a political science professor at Montana State University, says political demographics in the state have been changing, noting that trends suggest an influx of new residents into the state are largely made up of Republicans. The change contributes to the Republican Party’s dominant performance in the state in the last two elections, as Raile noted that its “trajectory has been very strong.”

Tester has managed to overcome his party affiliation in the past, winning three relatively close elections in the state and bucking trends in the process. But with the state’s changing demographics, the math for Democrats this year looks different.

“He had some tough races, won them all,” says Raile. “But he’s running as a moderate. I think this campaign seems to be a little different in that sense, because he’s more to the right than he has been in the past, and he probably needs to do that.”

For Tester, this change can be seen in the way he broke with some of his parties on issues such as border security, talking about the economy and opposing the purchase of Chinese land in the US, among other things. And he distanced himself from President Biden in the process. Raile says the effect has been that what Tester is saying isn’t all that different from his opponent.

“If Tester is going to take this ground, his campaign seems to be saying, ‘People like Jon Tester, and if he says Republican-type things, Republicans and some independents won’t have much reason to disagree with him.’ and vote against him,'” Raile said, noting that the dynamic could push Sheehy further to the right.

That may have been evident this week when Sheehy became one of the first Republican candidates to release an ad about Trump’s conviction in the New York “hush money” trial, alleging that Tester supported “state-sponsored political persecution” by ex-president. .

Adding to the dynamic is the possibility that Montana Republicans want to secure GOP control of the Senate despite Tester’s popularity. According to Raile, exit polls from Daines’ 2020 election victory over a popular Democrat who served as governor suggested that Montanans supported his candidacy in part because they did not want Democratic control of the Senate. And with Tester’s seat being one of the GOP’s top targets this year, that same dynamic could be a motivator at the polls.

Democrats face long odds of holding the majority this time. Tester is among two Democrats running for re-election in states that Trump won in 2020. And in five other states considered swing states, Democrats’ re-election is not guaranteed.

Things haven’t been completely smooth sailing for Sheehy. The veteran was criticized earlier this year for discrepancies in his story of how he suffered a gunshot wound. And although he and his Republican colleagues have tried to paint Tester as the establishment candidate with deep ties to Washington, Sheehy’s own connection to Montana has been called into question.

The dynamic has been especially relevant when it comes to public lands, a key issue for Montanans. Although Sheehy has expressed support for public land rights, he has faced some attacks from Democrats for being a wealthy out-of-state man who came in and purchased expensive homes and land.

“Across the political spectrum, people support public lands, and that’s a political winner, and every candidate talks about it,” Raile said. “Some of them have backgrounds that make this more difficult. But if you’re running in Montana and you don’t support public lands, that’s problematic for your campaign.”