Republican Tim Sheehy has defeated Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana, NBC News projects, deepening the GOP’s projected Senate majority after the party’s wins in West Virginia and Ohio.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, defeated the three-term senator by consolidating Republican voters in a state that has turned a deeper shade of red in recent years. Sheehy and his allies cast Tester as a liberal Democrat who votes with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, undercutting the incumbent’s reputation as a centrist.
Tester tried to defy the partisanship of his state by leaning into his deep roots as a third-generation dirt farmer and touted his bipartisan bona fides, including his clashes with Biden’s administration on issues like immigration. Tester and his allies also cast Sheehy as the embodiment of the state’s wealthy new residents, arguing they have driven up costs and threatened Montanans’ access to public lands.
But Sheehy was ultimately able to withstand those attacks. Republicans touted him as a top recruit with a military background who built an aerial firefighting business in the state, though his business record and the state of his cattle ranch faced scrutiny in the campaign.
The campaigns and outside groups blanketed the Montana airwaves with more than $250 million in ads.
Republicans had been increasingly confident they could defeat Tester ahead of Election Day, arguing that the state had shifted too far to the right for Tester to overcome, and that many of the state’s new residents leaned toward the GOP.
But Democrats were cautiously optimistic that Montana voters would look at the presidential race and the Senate race through different lenses. They also noted that the Tester campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation, his appeal to independent voters and his support among Native Americans could propel him to victory.
Democrats were also hopeful Tester would be buoyed by a ballot initiative in the state, where voters weighed codifying the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution.
While Sheehy had said he would respect Montana voters’ decision on the issue, he appeared open to supporting federal action on abortion, which Democrats exploited on the campaign trail and on the airwaves.
Tester argued that Montanans do not want the federal government involved in health care decisions.
Still, it wasn’t enough to help Tester overcome the state’s rightward lean.
