Candidates are busy as 2024 rolls in, and so is the Campaign Beat crew

The incumbent seeking his 4th term faces a political newcomer — and maybe a previous foe — in Montana's U.S. Senate race. And lots of Republicans — and a couple of Democrats — are interested in Montana's eastern district congressional seat.

Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Lee Newspapers State Bureau Chief Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin.

Sally Mauk Holly and Rob, 2024 is not just a presidential election year, but every top office in Montana will also be on the ballot, including Jon Tester's U.S. Senate seat. Tester is seeking his fourth term, and the top Republican to challenge him so far is Bozeman aerospace executive and political neophyte Tim Sheehy. Just who is this guy, Holly?

Holly Michels That's a good question, Sally. So Sheehy is the candidate that's been hand-picked by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And that group is led by Montana Senator Steve Daines right now. So he's the handpicked candidate from Daines. And, even though if you've been watching TV over the last couple months, you've seen a lot of Sheehy and you've seen ads highlighting his military service, there still isn't a ton we know about his background because, like you said, Sally, he's a newcomer to politics.

The Montana Free Press put together a story with as much information as they could find about his background, starting with his childhood. He grew up in a lake house outside of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And that's where, according to his campaign, he learned to fly airplanes from a neighbor. And that's been a pretty big part of his life since then. He also went to a pretty expensive private high school, they reported. Then he joined the Navy. In his campaign he said he served on hundreds of missions. He was also injured several times. He left the Navy in 2014 and was later awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

When it comes to Montana, the campaign told the Montana Free Press that Sheehy visited Montana in his youth and then made a plan to move here with his wife around 2011.

By 2014, he had founded Bridger Aerospace, which is an aerial firefighting company. And a sister drone company to Bridger that he founded, later sold for $350 million in 2020. And he also owns a cattle company. So we know Sheehy has pretty substantial personal wealth.

Campaign finance records show he's worth anywhere between $74 million to $200 million. And he's spent a fair amount of that money on contributions to other Republican candidates in recent years. His campaign said he decided to run for office and enter the politics world after watching the withdrawal from Afghanistan unfold in 2021. So that's where he made his entrance.

I think we'll expect to learn a lot more about Sheehy as his campaign continues, as we have reporters around the state and the country digging into his past, we'll see opponents in the primary in general — If he makes it to that point — use some of that biography against him, like not being born in Montana. That's a common line of attack from Democrats against Republican candidates, not from here. So we'll learn more as we go along.

Sally Mauk I'm sure we will. And Rob, Sheehy has had campaign ads on the air for months now, touting his laudable military record and his conservative credentials, both of which play well with the Montana voters he wants to reach.

Rob Saldin Yeah, they sure do, Sally. You know, if Republican elites could produce their perfect candidate in the laboratory, it'd look an awful lot like Sheehy. He's young, he's handsome. Like Gianforte and Daines, he's got that Bozeman-area business entrepreneur thing going. Like Zinke, he's got the military background. So he's straight out of central casting, at least insofar as the Montana Republican elite sees it.

Now, that said, there are some drawbacks and points of vulnerability. Holly, you mentioned his his background, the Minnesota roots. He's relatively new to Montana. He's wealthy. And all of that, Holly, as you noted, that really opens him up to that carpetbagger attack, which Montana Democrats have a lot of practice deploying against Gianforte and Rosendale and Zinke and so on and so forth. It's worth noting that that line of attack has had varying success, I'd say, but it's certainly one that they have well honed.

But the biggest downside, Sally, with Sheehy may be that he's got zero political experience, which is just always risky. Now, that's not all bad. If you're running against a guy like Tester who has been in the Senate for a long time, it carries the upside of being able to draw a contrast with a supposedly corrupt D.C. swamp creature, this kind of thing. And there's always an audience for that line. But the big risk, of course, is that you're having to learn as you go, and it's easy to make rookie mistakes.

You also just don't have that track record of demonstrated success. Right? You know, sometimes candidates fall flat and don't connect. And it's not always obvious ahead of time which ones will and which ones won't. So there's a bit of a leap of faith here for Republicans.

And then finally, it also means that that your candidate hasn't been fully vetted. Right? They have not been subjected to a serious opposition research effort. So are there some skeletons in the closet here? Well, we're going to find out over the course of the next year.

Sally Mauk Here's one of the ads that the Sheehy campaign has been running on television.

 
Sheehy TV ad narration Chaos at our border. Fentanyl poisoning our kids. Hamas killing Israelis and Americans. Biden and Tester are too liberal to keep us safe.

 
Sheehy speaking in a TV ad Jon Tester and Joe Biden are more worried about saving their political careers than securing America's future. They've empowered our adversaries and put the lives of American troops in danger. I fought the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. As your senator, I'll fight back against the Liberal Democrats who are weakening America. I'm Tim Sheehy, and I approve this message.

 
Sally Mauk And, Rob, the themes in this ad, border security and the threat of terrorism are running in every Republican campaign ad in the country, is my guess. And so is President Biden's name, alongside the name of the Democratic candidate.

Rob Saldin Yeah, that's right, Sally. You know, the former House speaker, Tip O'Neill famously quipped that 'all politics is local.' Well, maybe that used to be true, but one of the most important dynamics in American politics over the last couple decades is the degree to which our politics have become nationalized. Local and statewide issues don't carry as much weight in the minds of voters as they once did. And, you know, there are lots of reasons we could cite for this: the decline of local newspapers, the rise of social media and so forth. But one of the ramifications is that the national brand of each of the two parties carries more weight. And for Democrats in Montana, this is bad — as it is, incidentally — for Republicans in blue states. It's harder now for any given Montana Democrat to cultivate his or her own personal brand that's distinct from that national party brand. A lot of them still try to do it, of course, it's just harder to get that to overshadow the national party label these days. And so Republicans are going to do everything they can to reinforce those national considerations in this Senate election, both here in Montana and elsewhere. It's kind of a national playbook. You can you you could use it everywhere, certainly against red state Democrats like Tester. So we're going to get what you see here. ' Tester is simply an extension of the weak, ineffectual, culturally extreme Democratic Party. You know, just another vote for Biden and the squad and those types of folks.' And they'll try to tie him to the the serious issues down on the southern border. And I'm sure there's plenty more in store around culture war issues over identity and so forth.

Now, Tester, Sally, because he has been on the scene for so long, he is one of these people who does have his own personal brand, and that has allowed him to distance himself from some of the issues that have hurt Democrats in the eyes of right-of-center voters. But these forces of nationalization, they've only grown stronger since Tester was last on the ballot in 2018. So this is just going to be a really fascinating campaign to watch.

Sally Mauk Holly, another focus of this U.S. Senate race is on a man who's not yet a candidate in the race, and that's Eastern District Congressman Matt Rosendale. He keeps hinting at and behaving as if he's going to jump into the Republican primary to challenge Sheehy, but so far, he hasn't announced. What's he waiting on?

Holly Michels That is a great question, Sally, and one that a lot of reporters like me are asking. Like you said, Rosendale has seriously, seriously hinted he'll make a run for Senate like he did in 2018, which, if he came out of the Republican primary, would be that rematch between him and Tester. But we have yet to see him make it official.

In early December, he posted a video to X, which is the website formerly known as Twitter, saying he was "heavily" considering running. I think a lot of us, when we saw that tweet thought it was the official announcement, but we're not there yet.

Rosendale is saying he's been urged to run by Montanans and that he's got concerns about what he calls the 'Mitch McConnell establishment of the Republican Party' and their handpicked candidate, which is a comment targeted at Sheehy.

Days before Rosendale's video, the NRSC released a statement actually going after Rosendale, saying people are questioning if he is somehow a Democratic plant, saying he's benefiting from ads paid for by a group aligned with Democrat Chuck Schumer, saying that Rosendale has been a great ally to Democrats trying to take back the House. So clearly, they're expecting something from Rosendale and starting the attack against him. And like I said earlier, if he does run and comes out of that primary, it's a rematch of 2018, which Tester won by nearly 18,000 votes. Aside from that video, we haven't really seen a ton of Rosendale, other than, you know, early hints he dropped, and then we haven't seen him like we've seen Sheehy all over the airwaves because he's not official candidate yet. You know, I think a lot of us are looking to campaign filing opens next week. That could maybe bring something from Rosendale. It closes in March, so we'll know by then for sure.

Sally Mauk Well, Rob, if and when Rosendale does get in the Senate race, who's the favorite to win that Republican primary?

Rob Saldin Yeah, I'm not sure, Sally, I think it could be really competitive. Sheehy's of course, got all the establishment support. He's got a ton of money. He's been on the air for a long time, which does clearly seem to have boosted his name recognition. But, of course, Rosendale has been around for a long time. Everybody knows who he is. One possible reason why he might be waiting to announce is to try to shorten the campaign a little bit, and hope that his established name recognition can kind of carry him across the finish line. Right? To try to prevent Sheehy from getting out there and getting even more well known. Not sure that that's working the way Rosendale would hope if that is his goal here, but that's one possible explanation for why he's waited so long.

Sally Mauk Well, who do you think Tester would rather face, Tim Sheehy or Matt Rosendale?

Rob Saldin Rosendale. And we've been seeing Montana Democrats attacking Sheehy for months now. So I think that tells you all you need to know. Tester's already beat Rosendale once before, and that was in a really tough cycle with Trump all but taking up residence in Montana to campaign for Rosendale. But the biggest reason they'd rather face Rosendale, I think, is that Rosendale is an extremist, and he makes no effort to hide that. Quite the opposite, in fact. So while Montana may be a Trumpy red state, Democrats at least think Rosendale is a bridge too far. And that's also, of course, precisely why Daines and McConnell desperately want Sheehy.

Sally Mauk Holly, if and when Rosendale does run for the Senate, who has their eye on his congressional seat, which would then be up for grabs?

Holly Michels Yeah, there's a couple Republicans who have expressed interest. The two with the most name recognition are probably Elsie Arntzen, the termed-out superintendent of public instruction, and Troy Downing, the state auditor. Downing is officially running. Arntzen said she'll move from an exploratory bid to full on candidate if Rosendale jumps in the Senate race.

We've also got Joel Krautter, Billings attorney and former state legislator, said he's running. He was in the 'Solutions Caucus' when he was in the Legislature and lost a primary bid for reelection to the Legislature in 2020.

We've got Ric Holden, another former state legislator from Dawson County, and a rancher, who said he's running.

Along with another former legislator, Ed Walker from Billings.

And then Stacy Zinn, then, who is a former special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also running.

And then we've heard from Republican Public Service Commissioner Randy Pinocci that he'll jump in if Rosendale runs for the Senate.

So, fair to say a lot of Republicans interested.

There's also two Democrats who've announced: Helena resident Kevin Hamm, who runs a telecommunications company, and Ming Cabrera, who's a former pharmaceutical rep from Billings.

Sally Mauk Well, that's a big crowd. Well, we'll keep an eye on the Senate race, of course, but we have lots of other races to talk about in the coming weeks. Rob and, Holly, thank you. I look forward to talking to you next week.

Holly Michels Thanks, Sally.

Rob Saldin Sounds good. Sally. Thank you.

Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Lee Newspapers State Bureau Chief Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin. Tune in on-air Saturdays at 9:45 a.m. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.