GOP infighting and Democratic mischief are fueling Montana's Senate race
In one of the nation's biggest Senate races, the leading candidate could be someone who didn't actually participate in the contest.
The battle to challenge Sen. Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana — already a heated battle with profound national implications and the acute intensity of a family tragedy — has increasingly focused on Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican agitator who opposes abortion and elections denies.
Both parties are using him as a pawn in their electoral chess game: establishment Republicans, who have aligned themselves with Tim Sheehy, a wealthy businessman, are trying to keep Mr. Rosendale out of the race, while Democrats appear to be helping to clear a path to make before his arrival.
Mr. Rosendale's arrival seems imminent. On Thursday, he said on a podcast that he had told Senator Steve Daines, a fellow Montanan who oversees the Republican Senate campaign arm, that he would run for Mr. Tester's seat.
Such a move would complicate the plans of Mr. Daines, who has sought to avoid divisive primaries and the elevation of polarizing far-right candidates. Such candidates, often endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, have won Republican primaries in recent cycles but fell short in a general election decided by moderate voters.
This year, Republicans have an advantageous ticket if they want to regain control of the Senate, where the races considered most competitive are in two states — Montana and Ohio — that Trump won easily in 2016 and 2020. those seats, Mr. Tester and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, are both popular and have experience navigating rough political terrain.
Mr. Tester has already defeated Mr. Rosendale once, in 2018. Since then, Mr. Rosendale has voted to overturn the 2020 election and last year helped cause chaos in the House of Representatives when he and a small group of Republicans worked together to overturn the election. their party's speaker, Kevin McCarthy. He has also expressed support for banning abortion without exception.
The historic difficulty of defeating an incumbent like Mr. Tester, even in a deep-red state, only adds to the urgency for Mr. Daines to avoid a contentious primary that would force Republicans to mount political attacks to target each other instead of the rival party. .
It didn't go well.
A super PAC that has backed Mr. Daines in Montana, known as More Jobs, Less Government, has been preparing for Mr. Rosendale's entry into the race by testing a series of attack ads, previously unreported, designed to to cast doubt on his conservative credentials.
According to AdImpact, a media tracking company, the group has already spent nearly $1 million on pro-Sheehy spots in Montana. In a previously unreported poll for the super PAC conducted by longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, Mr. Sheehy led Mr. Rosendale in a hypothetical primary, 48 percent to 24 percent.
In an interview on Thursday with Stephen K. Bannon's “War Room” podcast, Mr. Rosendale said that Mr. Daines had repeatedly pressured him to stay out of the race. He said that in one case, an ally of Mr. Daines — who described Mr. Rosendale as a “political soldier” — asked a Rosendale confidante, “What is it going to take to keep you out of this race?”
Mr Rosendale said he received a direct warning from Mr Daines in November 2022 to “tone it down” and stop “making trouble” in the House of Representatives.
Mr. Rosendale said that Mr. Daines told him that billionaires are “going to spend a lot of money on you,” adding: “What do you want me to tell them?”
In Mr. Rosendale's retelling of the conversation, he responded that he would win the primary, and that such donors “had better save their money for the general election.”
Asked to respond to Mr. Rosendale's accusations, Mike Berg, the communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “It is unfortunate that Congressman Rosendale is blaming others for his fundraising challenges and his difficulties in retaining staff.”
This week, the NRSC ordered six-figure television advertisements intended to promote Mr. Sheehy.
Last summer, more than three dozen Republicans in the Montana Legislature — including Jason Ellsworth, the Senate president, and Matt Regier, the speaker of the House of Representatives — signed a letter and urged Mr. Rosendale to flee.
And in November, a Republican former state representative, Roger Koopman, accused Mr. Sheehy and his allies of trying impose party unity with “a variety of harassing messages and veiled threats of retaliation.”
Montana Democrats, meanwhile, have quietly released a series of online ads that appear to promote Mr. Rosendale in the expected Republican primary by drawing attention to his conservative credentials — though the state Democratic Party disputes that the Facebook ads are intended to benefit him .
The social media spots are subtle but resemble a controversial strategy Democrats used in the 2022 cycle to help right-wing candidates they thought would be easier to defeat in a general election. Those bets worked in places like Michigan, where Democrats flipped a House seat by defeating John Gibbs, a Trump-backed candidate, and in Pennsylvania, where Doug Mastriano's marginal campaign for governor lost by double digits.
Montana Democrats have spent $2.7 million to $3.3 million promoting the spots on Facebook since last month. revelations maintained by Facebook. The ads were produced by a group, Treasure State Truths, with ties to a Democratic consulting firm.
Some Democratic Facebook ads target Mr. Rosendale, while others target Mr. Sheehy.
The Sheehy-specific ads cast direct judgment on the candidate or urge viewers to take action against him. “We just can't trust what Tim Sheehy says,” several spots say. “Tell Tim Sheehy and out-of-state millionaires to stop hurting Montana,” says another.
But the ads aimed at Mr. Rosendale are more hands-off.
For example, one spot reinforces its support for banning abortion without exception by referencing an opinion column praising the Montana Republican for his support.
The only line of text in the ad quotes from the column, which states that Mr. Rosendale “has always been an outspoken and unapologetic supporter” of abortion restrictions.
All spots are marked with a disclosure identifying the Montana Democratic Party as the sponsor. Democrats said the Facebook ads were consistent with the message the party has used against both Republicans.
On television, a super PAC that appears to be tied to Democrats has spent more than $5 million running ads attacking Mr. Sheehy. The group, known as Last Best Place, has not disclosed its donors. Politics September reported that the group's airtime had been purchased by a company called Mountain Media Agency, which shares an address with Old Town Media, a Democratic campaign firm.
“The Democrats are clearly repeating their cynical strategy to interfere in Republican primaries,” Berg said.
Hannah Rehm, a spokeswoman for the Montana Democratic Party, said the Facebook spots were not intended to promote Mr. Rosendale. Republicans, she said, overreacted to the ads because of the battle between Sheehy allies and Rosendale supporters.
“It could be that the call is coming from within,” she said.