Tim Sheehy Dominates in Debate. Is the Montana Senate Race Over Now?

I've never been able to understand how Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) got elected in the red state of Montana in the first place, or how he managed to get reelected twice. Despite breaking with his party on a few select issues, Tester is actually less conservative than the average Senate Democrat, according to Heritage Action for America's conservative scorecard.

For years, Jon Tester has tried to maintain the image of a “moderate,” distancing himself from the broader Democratic Party and pretending to represent the values of Montana. In reality, he’s been nothing more than a reliable rubber stamp for Chuck Schumer and the Biden administration — a far cry from the independent voice he portrays — but he has somehow gotten away with it every six years.

The average Senate Democrat has an 11% conservative ranking, while Tester's lifetime score is 8%. It should come as no surprise that Tester's score for the current session, while he's seeking reelection again, is 23%. Tester is currently defending one of the most vulnerable Democrat-held Senate seats of the 2024 election, and for the longest time, it looked like his Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy, was struggling to be competitive. The Democrat was leading in the polls earlier this year, but Sheehy has led in every poll tracked by RealClearPolitics since June and has an average lead of 5.2 points. Suddenly this potential pickup looks more like a true pick-up opportunity for the GOP, bringing them closer to taking back the Senate.

Sheehy might have landed the deathblow to Tester's campaign Monday night when the two faced off in a debate. During a heated exchange, Sheehy criticized Tester for being deeply involved in "backroom meetings" over his 20-year career. "He's been taking them for 20 years," Sheehy said, calling Tester "the number one recipient of lobbyist cash."

Tester immediately pushed back, calling the accusation "totally false" and claiming, "I'm the most transparent senator in the United States Senate."

Sheehy, however, doubled down. "The number one recipient of lobbyist cash in the whole country, of all countries, number one," he asserted. Taking a swipe at Tester's D.C. connections, Sheehy added, "While I was fighting in Afghanistan, he was eating lobbyist steak in D.C."

BOOM: @SheehyforMT: While I was fighting in Afghanistan Jon Tester was eating lobbyist steak in DC. pic.twitter.com/z7l1QH19Ib
— Mike Berg (@MikeKBerg) October 1, 2024

And Sheehy wasn’t exaggerating. According to campaign disclosures, by mid-2023, Tester had spent over a million dollars dining at Washington, D.C. steakhouses.

Sheehy didn’t just call out Tester for being beholden to lobbyists and the D.C. elite; he also delivered a strong blow on the border crisis. Sheehy blasted Senate Democrats and the Biden administration for creating the problem and hammered Tester for his complacency and failure to hold them accountable. “Senate Democrats and White House Democrats created this border crisis. We had a secure border four years ago,” he said. He pointed out that Donald Trump left office with the border secure, only for it to be dismantled by the current administration. “Donald Trump handed a sealed border to the Biden-Harris administration, and Kamala Harris, the border czar, with support from her friends on the Hill like Sen. Tester and Chuck Schumer, opened the border wide open for three years.”