Regardless of dealing with a mountain of controversy on the marketing campaign path, Tim Sheehy managed to drag off what Republicans have been hoping to for greater than a decade: oust incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
Sheehy’s victory doubtless cements Montana, as soon as a purple state, as blood pink. Tester was the one statewide-elected Democrat left within the Treasure State and his seat was amongst a handful that Republicans noticed as key to wresting management of the Senate from Democrats.
Tester, a average and the one working farmer within the Senate, will exit his seat after 18 years.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and millionaire businessman, is a newcomer to politics, having by no means run for elected workplace. Republicans like Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who chairs the highly effective Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee, courted Sheehy to run in opposition to Tester, little doubt due to his enterprise and navy acumen and his means to self-finance a marketing campaign.
Sheehy acquired an early endorsement from former President Donald Trump and ran a MAGA-style marketing campaign, promising to revive “common sense” to Washington and sticking intently to Republican speaking factors on border safety, vitality and abortion. He repeatedly attacked Tester as a “rubber stamp” for the Biden administration’s border and financial insurance policies.
“Montanans want common sense back. They want a secure border, safe streets, cheap gas, cops are good, criminals are bad, boys are boys, girls are girls,” he instructed Fox Business a number of days earlier than Tuesday’s election. “It’s a very clear referendum on the fact that Montanans want an administration that’ll put America first, and they need a Senate to approve that agenda. We’re going to give it to them.”
Michael Ciaglo by way of Getty Photos
Alongside the best way, Sheehy grew to become embroiled in scandal — from his personal conflicting accounts about how he acquired a gunshot wound and the purported “success” of his aerial firefighting enterprise to fierce backlash over earlier feedback, together with calling for federal lands to be “turned over” to states and peddling a racist trope about Native People and alcohol.
Amid mounting adverse media consideration, Sheehy more and more resorted to attacking the press whereas shielding himself from any hard-hitting interviews.
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Sally Mauk, a longtime former journalist and present host of a weekly political evaluation present on Montana Public Radio, just lately known as Sheehy “the least accessible politician” she’s seen in her 4 many years overlaying Montana politics.
Ultimately, voters in Montana — a state the place many longtime residents have grown annoyed with a gentle inflow of rich, out-of-state transplants — elected Sheehy, a multi-millionaire Minnesota native, to switch Tester, a three-term incumbent and fourth-generation Montana farmer.
The race was the costliest in Montana’s historical past, with a whopping $243 million spent as of final month.
See full outcomes from the Montana Senate election right here.
