Jon Tester and Tim Sheehy land the punches they want to land in their debate. And U.S. House candidate Monica Tranel turns to the time-honored Montana campaign tradition of shooting something out of the sky.
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.
Sally Mauk: Rob, the two candidates for the Senate, Jon Tester and Tim Sheehy, had their last debate this past week, and they both stuck to the themes they've been articulating for months now. Senator Tester paints his opponent as just another wealthy out-of-stater, trying to turn Montana into a playground for the rich. And Tim Sheehy uses the classic attack against an incumbent that Tester has become corrupted and is now part of the D.C. swamp.
Rob Saldin: Yeah, that's right, Sally. Both candidates probably feel good about how they did in the debate. They both got their message out and generally, I thought, sounded crisp and articulate. And you're right, they both hit on what are now familiar themes, though I'd maybe just add to your list, Sheehy's just constant emphasis on the immigration issue.
But Sally, even while both of them may have done well, I suspect Sheehy is happier than Tester for a couple of reasons. First, Sheehy went into this as the untested rookie, so there was more of a question mark about how he'd hold up under the spotlight. Could he really go toe to toe with a three-term senator who has been doing this kind of thing for a long time? Well, at least stylistically, I think Sheehy did manage to look like a plausible candidate. His command of the issues did at times seem more shallow than Tester. I thought, for instance, Tester definitely got the better of Sheehy when they were discussing the Lankford immigration bill in the Senate. And Sheehy's discussion of foreign affairs was rather incoherent. But still, Sheehy certainly didn't crash and burn out there. And then second, at this point in the campaign, it appears as though Sheehy is ahead. And that may be a tenuous thing. And in fact, it does seem to me that some national observers are a little ahead of the data. But still, given the public polling that's out there, you'd rather be in Sheehy's position right now. And given that situation, a draw or something close to it in this debate is an entirely acceptable result for Sheehy.
Sally Mauk: Holly, one of the testiest exchanges in the debate, came in response to a question about who can best manage public lands. Here's Sheehy.
Tim Sheehy: Public lands belong to the public. That's you, the people of Montana. Public lands belong to the people, especially those who live amongst them. And I believe that if you're in Montana, you share a fence line with national forest property, if you're a rancher who has a BLM grazing lease, if you live next to State Trust land, you should have more input into what happens on that land than bureaucrats 3,000 miles away.
Jon Tester: Tim has made an incredible transformation on this issue, because when he first started running, he said that public lands should be turned over to either his rich buddies or the counties — remove protection. Bad idea. And it would change Montana in a way that has never made the state the Last Best Place. And in fact, Tim even served on a think tank, on their board of directors — its job was to privatize our public lands.
Sally Mauk: And the organization Tester is referring to here, Holly is PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, based in Bozeman.
Holly Michels: Yeah. Sally. Sheehy was on the board of that organization and reporting by the Huffington Post actually found he failed to disclose that position in some forms that he was required to file as a Senate candidate. He was put on that board in 2022 and left when he announced his bid for Senate.
The work that PERC does has become a major point of contention in this election. Looking at the history of the organization, back in 1999, its executive director wrote that he wanted to auction off all public lands over the next 20 to 40 years. And a PolitiFact fact check of the debate also noted as recently as 2016, the group said that national parks should be run as standalone businesses. But a spokesperson for the group is now saying the people who wrote those documents are no longer at PERC and that those stances are no longer representative of what the organization does. The group says it now explores innovative ways to better fund public lands, like user fees, but this is something that Tester's campaign and Democrats are going after Sheehy for pretty heavily.
And Sheehy's having to walk a pretty tough line with public lands this election cycle. Public lands are wildly popular in Montana and have long been an issue that Democrats have found success rallying around. And as we heard Sheehy say in the clip from that debate, he says public lands belong to the public, but then adds that he feels like locals should have more input into managing federal lands. That line might be popular in certain parts of the state, but the issue there is that federal lands, unlike state owned lands, are managed in trust for everyone in the country, not just locals or Montanans.
If you look at the state Republican Party's platform, which is something that's set every other year — and of course, isn't something Sheehy has to agree with — but that says that the party supports the granting of federally managed public lands to the state. So it does give an idea of where Republicans in Montana stand. And again, like we said, Democrats have really seized on, Sheehy's comments. Tester also makes a reference in his debate comments to reporting, again, from the Huffington Post that highlights when Sheehy told the Working Ranch radio show last year that local control has to be returned. Sheehy went on in those radio remarks to say that can mean public lands are turned over to the state or counties or decisions be made more locally.
In public lands, it also was a huge deal in Tester's 2018 race, where Matt Rosendale advocated for control of federal lands to fall to Montanans and not the federal government. And that was Tester's largest margin of victory. So clearly this is something Democrats are hoping are a winning issue for them again. We should point out, since then, Sheehy's clarified he'd work to preserve and expand access to public lands and oppose the federal transfer or sale of public lands. But Democrats are saying that's just a change of tune to get elected.
Sally Mauk: Well, the other sharpest exchange in the debate, Rob, came when Tester asked Sheehy to apologize for his racist comments about 'drunk Indians'. And here's that exchange:
Jon Tester: Tim, if you really feel this way about Native Americans, you ought to apologize for the statement you made about them that were totally inaccurate. But yet, you won't. And you're going to say they were cut up or taken out of form. Look, that's on tape, once again. And you didn't think anybody was listening, but believe people when they say stuff in the backroom.
Moderator John Twiggs: Mr. Sheehy.
Tim Sheehy: Well, the back room was a gathering with about five dozen people there. But the reality is, yeah, insensitive. I come from the military, as many of our tribal members do. You know, we make insensitive jokes and probably off color sometimes. And and, you know, I'm an adult. I'll take accountability for that.
Sally Mauk: And what I hear Mr. Sheehy implying here, Rob, is that he and his buddies in the military all make racist comments, is just part of the culture. So what's the big deal?
Rob Saldin: Right, Sally. One wonders whether other members of the military feel very comfortable about being dragged into this one. It struck me as an embarrassing moment for Sheehy. Just as a matter of basic decency. He should obviously do the honorable thing and apologize. We would insist on as much from a small child. And then Sheehy, of course, is not only an adult, as he does acknowledge there, but someone who wants to be a U.S. senator. We should expect more. But it's also, of course, entirely unsurprising. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when the incident first came to light and the clear marching orders from Trump are that you never apologize because that's a sign of weakness. And so even in clear cut cases like this, that call for some compassion — some grace, we still get this kind of 'screw you' attitude. You know, Sally, maybe voters in Montana don't care. Maybe they even want that.
Sally Mauk: Holly, the race for the Western District congressional seat between Ryan Zinke and Monica Tranel may be tightening and now has a new ad out that may look familiar to Montana voters. Here's the ad.
[Monica Tranel speaking] China's buying up our land. Cheating our ranchers. They're even flying spy balloons over Montana. They get away with it by buying off politicians like Ryan Zinke. He's bankrolled by a Chinese ag conglomerate that's buying up American farmland, and voted to help China rip off our ranchers. I'm Monica Tranel, and I approve this ad to send a message to China. (Tranel shoots small balloon with shotgun) Montana is not for sale.
Sally Mauk: This ad, Holly, shows Tranel with a big ol' shotgun, shooting a balloon out of the sky. I have to say, ads with candidates firing a gun at something have become so ubiquitous in Montana campaigns, they're almost parody by now.
Holly Michels: Yeah Sally. It feels like it would not be election season in Montana if we didn't have a shotgun show up somewhere. I think a lot of people will remember Matt Rosedale in 2014. He used a rifle to shoot down a what he called a 'government drone'. Back in 2008, we had Brian Schweitzer blasting the federal Real I.D. law. So, it's something that we see, I think, quite a lot this time of the election cycle in this state.
In this ad we've got Tranel. She's walking through this beautiful valley. She's got the shotgun. We hear her talking about China. She loads, she takes aim at this little balloon — decidedly not a spy balloon, but this little red balloon standing in for it — and blasts it away.
What she's referencing there is the Chinese spy balloon that flew over Montana in 2023, which received a ton of attention. And she's also working to tie Zinke to China. You remember back at the start of this election cycle; China was a major issue. It feels like we've heard less about it recently as candidates have focused on immigration, the southern border, the economy and inflation and abortion. But it was a major talking point early on. And this ad references a story from the American Journal News, which is funded by a major Democratic aligned dark money group. That story points out Zinke took $2,500 in campaign contributions from a Chinese-owned company that owns about 1,500 acres of farmland in the U.S. There's not a citation that clarifies what she's referencing when she says that Zinke voted to help China rip off ranchers, but it’s Montana election season and it wouldn't feel complete without some sort of firearm appearance. So here we are with this ad.
Sally Mauk: Rob, how do you think this ad is playing with voters, both her base and the independents and crossovers she's trying to reach?
Rob Saldin: Well, Sally, among other things, perhaps, I think she's trying here to show that she's not just a conventional progressive Democrat. She's trying to push back on the caricature that's out there of Democrats in our nationalized political environment that works to the disadvantage of her party in places like Montana, at least. The extent to which this particular attempt is effective or not, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder. It has attracted some comments about the way she's handling the gun and so forth. But look, big picture, if you're going to win as a Democrat in Montana, at least outside of a few well-known enclaves, you need to do something like this to try to reach beyond the Democratic base and put together a winning coalition. You need independents and even some crossover voters from Republicans. There might be some Democrats out there on Twitter and elsewhere who may not love this stuff, but the reality is, the vast majority of those people, they are not going to abandon Monica Tranel. They aren't going to vote for Zinke. And I very much doubt that very many of them are going to just refuse to vote in that contest because of this kind of an ad.
Sally Mauk: Well, it's been another busy week in politics. Holly and Rob, thank you and I'll talk to you soon.
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.
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