If candidate Tim Sheehy succeeds in unseating a longtime Democrat, his win could help advance Republican policies through Congress.
In a testament to the importance of the Montana race for U.S. Senate, former President Donald Trump held a rally in Big Sky Country for the first time in six years. At the Aug. 9 event in Bozeman, Trump drummed up support for Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, who is seeking to unseat longtime Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).
That Senate matchup has drawn national attention for its potential to help flip the Senate into Republican control. Republicans hold a majority of the House seats but GOP proposals have often died when they reach the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Tester remains the sole Democrat holding a high office in Montana, a formerly “purple” state—a mix of Republican red and Democrat blue—that has become reliably red during the Trump era.
Speaking to a crowd that overflowed the 8,455-seat Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University, Trump said the state and the nation need Sheehy to win.
“For years, Tester has been telling Montana that he’s a moderate,” Trump said, but Tester voted in line with policies that Trump blames for border crisis. In 2019, Tester opposed constructing the U.S.–Mexico border wall. At the time, he denounced “a phony ‘emergency declaration’” as an “end-run around Congress” to divert military funds for use to build the wall.
Sheehy said: “You have a very important job to do, because if Donald Trump gets to the White House and doesn’t have a Senate, he’s not going to get things done.”
The crowd roared its approval when Sheehy committed to delivering on a theme that emerged during his 56-county tour speaking to Montanans: “They want common sense back. They want common-sense government. And what does ‘common sense’ mean to Montanans? They want a secure border, safe streets, cheap gas. Cops are good, criminals are bad. Boys are boys, girls are girls.”
To get to the Montana rally, Trump contended with a mechanical problem on his private aircraft, dubbed “Trump Force One.” Because it was leaking hydraulic fluid, the plane was diverted to Billings, Montana; Trump took another private plane to Bozeman.
Meanwhile, his Democrat opponents, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, campaigned in Arizona. That’s a battleground state in the presidential race, whereas Montana is considered solidly in Trump’s column.
Taking the stage almost 90 minutes later than scheduled, Trump said he had traveled many places across Montana that day and added, “I’ve gotta like Tim Sheehy a lot to be here.”
He told Sheehy, “You’d better win.”
Tester has raked in $39 million versus Sheehy’s $14 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In polling, Sheehy holds a lead of 2 percentage points over Tester, Emerson College reported in its poll taken Aug. 5–6. Among five previous polls, Sheehy led Tester in three of them. Sheehy’s margins ranged from 3 percent to 6 percent; two polls in early June showed the race was tied, FiveThirtyEight shows.
Those early polls came right after Tester and Sheehy won their respective primary elections.
Sheehy won a three-way Republican primary with nearly 140,000 votes, 74 percent of the ballots cast; Tester drew just over 104,000 votes, trouncing his opponent who only earned 3 percent of the vote.
Although Trump has attended fundraisers in Montana recently, his last rallies in the state occurred in 2018, while he was in office. Then, he visited Belgrade, Missoula, Billings, and Great Falls.