The fate of the Senate could depend on the Sheehy-Tester result in Montana

HELENA, Mont. — One of the most influential U.S. Senate races comes to a close Tuesday night as the polls close in Montana and incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester looks to mount what could be his toughest challenge yet.

Tester, a three-term senator, will seek a victory against Republican challenger Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and founder of Bridger Aerospace. The hard-fought election campaign is a battle of perception – Tester and allies portray Sheehy as a “shady” and dishonest rich outsider, while Sheehy's side portrays Tester as a “crooked career politician” and DC liberal who is heavily connected to the Biden administration -Harris government.

Sheehy, a political newcomer, attributes his arrival on the political stage to the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

“Biden and Harris left Afghanistan and dishonored the sacrifice of thousands of Americans, 20 years of war and trillions of dollars in treasure, gave it back to the Taliban and walked away,” Sheehy said in a debate in September. “And to date no one has been held accountable.”

Tester came to the Senate in 2007 after defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Conrad Burns in a nail-biting matchup. The now senior senator outlasted the last two Republican challengers in 2012 and 2018 by fewer than 20,000 votes.

A Tester defeat would be the first time since 1911 that the state is without at least one Democratic senator.

The last contest with Tester led then-President Donald Trump to campaign for Matt Rosendale, then Montana's comptroller. The Trump effect wasn't enough for a GOP victory in 2018, but the former president returned to a rally in Bozeman in August, campaigning for Sheehy and calling Tester a “radical.”

Trump also attacked Tester over his weight during the event, similar to how his son Donald Trump Jr. attacked the senator's appearance at an April rally in Missoula.

Sheehy ran a campaign based on what he calls “common sense.” The former Navy Seal's well-known refrain is: “Secure border, safe streets.” Cheap gasoline. Cops are good, criminals are bad. Boys are boys, girls are girls,” Sheehy reiterated to Fox News in October.

Sheehy repeatedly brought up the issues of immigration and the economy. The border has also been a point of attack for Tester, particularly his support for a bipartisan border bill.

The bill was killed earlier this year after former President Trump lobbied against it. Sheehy said he did not support the bill.

“It was a good bill, it was a bipartisan bill, negotiated by a conservative Republican, a liberal Democrat and an independent — the best possible legislation,” Tester said in the pair’s final debate. “Tim Sheehy said he would not vote for this bill even before it was put to the reading. We need solutions, not politics in Washington, DC.”

Embrace vs. avoid

Hopes of Republicans flipping the U.S. Senate could hinge on taking Tester's long-sought seat, especially if attempts to unseat Democrats in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are largely unsuccessful.

The money followed the effort. More than $315 million is expected to be spent on Montana's Senate race alone, a record for spending per voter, according to the Associated Press.

Sheehy consistently addressed the national implications of the race, including conservative figures at campaign stops from across the country. The likes of Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro have joined Sheehy in recent weeks. Previously, people like Tulsi Gabbard and South Dakota Governor Kirsti Noem have sided with the Republican challenger.

Republican senators who could gain the majority with a Sheehy victory also flocked to the state, including Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and even Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.

Tester, however, abstained as a delegate from voting for Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate this summer. He even went so far as to not support her.

The Democratic senator has run away from national Democrats, as Sheehy's campaign would show, with whom he has largely voted during his time in office.

Tester is battling nationwide headwinds as Montana's fortunes shift further to the right. Currently, Montana is controlled by two Republican supermajorities in the House of Representatives and the state Senate. Statewide offices such as governor, secretary of state and attorney general will also be filled by Republicans before Election Day.

At the federal level, Tester is the only Democratic member of the state's congressional delegation. At the presidential level, Democrats have not won the state since 1992. In the 2020 and 2016 elections, former President Trump won the state by just under 100,000 votes and respectfully by more than 100,00 votes.

One area Tester hasn't shied away from at the national level is abortion. Tester will appear on the same ballot this November as Constitutional Initiative 128, which seeks to explicitly protect abortion in the state constitution.

Abortion is also an issue on which Tester aggressively attacked Sheehy in the pair's last debate.

“If we want situations like what just happened in Georgia, where a woman died because doctors were afraid to treat her, because she was afraid to get help, to not happen, then he is your man.” said Tester. “If you're looking for someone to help empower women to make their own health decisions, I'm the person for you. Because I think it's fundamental to us as Montanans. We don’t want the federal government dictating the medical decisions we can make.”

Sheehy dismissed it with a reference to COVID.

“I think the exception to this is COVID, when we kicked people out of the military for not getting vaccinated, forced them to pay their training costs back to the military, and kicked people out of the military.”

the workforce because they wouldn’t get the vaccine,” Sheehy said. “Suddenly medical freedom is at the top of libertarian Jon Tester’s list. The truth is that we have to protect women in very vulnerable days of life, but at some point we have a duty to protect the other lives affected.”

Controversies

Sheehy struggled with ongoing controversy in the final months of his attempt to unseat Tester. Audio recordings released by Char-Koosta News show Sheehy making derogatory comments about indigenous people.

“A great way to connect with all Indians, to be out there while they're drunk at 8 a.m.,” Sheehy said in part of a recording.

Separately, the company Sheehy founded, Bridger Aerospace, came under fire this summer when an NBC News investigation found that the company used bonds for which Gallatin County acted as a broker to repay most of them to state investors, and although with only a fraction of the money being used locally.

Perhaps the most bizarre story in the race is the dispute over whether Sheehy has a bullet in his right arm from his deployment to Afghanistan or from shooting himself in Glacier National Park in October 2015.

A parking attendant who gave Sheehy the ticket for the 2015 incident, which Sheehy paid, spoke out publicly last month after the news broke earlier this year. Sheehy continues to claim he lied about shooting himself in 2015 after injuring himself while hiking with his family to hide a war injury.

Sheehy told NBC Montana Today in April that it was against military policy not to report wounds and that he did not want to involve former teammates in an investigation.

Sheehy's campaign also attacked Ranger Kim Peach as a “partisan.” Peach acknowledged that he is a Democrat who has supported Tester and will likely continue to do so. Peach claimed he came forward publicly after Sheehy failed to apologize after The Washington Post reported the story earlier this year.

The now-retired park ranger said Sheehy's story of being shot in the war was “disrespectful to battle-wounded veterans,” adding he “couldn't allow it to continue.”

Sheehy's campaign declined to explain why medical records from the Kalispell emergency room visit for the incident were never released. However, late last week, in an episode of The Megyn Kelly Show posted to YouTube, Sheehy claimed that the recordings didn't exist. This is a claim that NBC Montana was unable to verify.

Tester also had to endure some controversy on the home stretch of the race.

Most recently, last week, 10 Montana sheriff's departments spoke out against some of the ads, claiming that Tester secured funding for local law enforcement.

Roosevelt County Sheriff Jason Frederick disputed claims that the Democratic senator had committed over $1.8 million to law enforcement in the county. A campaign document shows the $1.8 million was from 2019 and was received from multiple entities, including the sheriff's office.

Earlier this fall, a group called Montana Together offered University of Montana student-athletes money to support Tester. NBC Montana was unable to determine any connection between Tester and the group.

After a long election campaign, it is now time for voters to decide what is important to them.