Is Tester’s Time Up?
Montana’s senior senator has made a career out of staying one step ahead of the state’s rising red tide
By Tom Lutey for Montana Free Press
Like a clockwork Evel Knievel, Jon Tester winds up every six years to jump what always looks like it might be one bus too many.
His first two Senate victories, including the unseating of powerful Republican Senator Conrad Burns in 2006, were won with less than half the popular vote. His third victory, with a 50.3% vote share over Matt Rosendale in 2018, was the fourth-smallest winning margin of the 33 U.S. Senate races that year.
The NRA dings Tester for his support for 2021’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a post-Uvalde-school-shooting bill pushed by Senate Republicans, including Texan John Cornyn, that increased funding for school security and requires that background checks for buyers 21 and younger include 7 days for FBI review of any disqualifying juvenile records. The bill also gave judges more leeway to forbid gun purchases by people with records of domestic abuse. Tester was the only member of Montana’s delegation to support the bill, which became law in 2022.
In this year’s election, however, polls suggest the farmer and former music teacher turned state legislator might finally fall to the political gravity of an increasingly Republican electorate. In the past 12 years, Democrats have gone from holding six of Montana’s eight statewide offices to just one.
It’s been six years since a Democrat won a single statewide race in Montana. That winner was Tester.
Nine out of 10 polls tracked by 538 ABC News since July favor Republican Tim Sheehy, first-time candidate, combat veteran, wealthy business owner and relative Montana newcomer.
The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, which publishes Sabato’s Crystal Ball, changed its assessment of the Montana race on Sept. 6 from “toss-up” to “leans Republican” based on the streak of polls showing Sheehy in the lead. Election oddsmakers at the Cook Political Report moved the race to “leans Republican” in mid-September.
To have a chance, Tester needs to share tens of thousands of voters with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as he did with Mitt Romney in 2012, the last presidential election year in which Tester was on the ballot. Split tickets, meaning ballots with votes for candidates from more than one party, are increasingly rare.
“Perhaps ticket-splitting returns in force this year — if it did, Tester could still survive. But the longer-term trend is clearly toward less ticket-splitting,” wrote Center For Politics analyst Kyle Kondik.
Later, in an email exchange with Montana Free Press, Kondik explained that the general trend is toward less ticket-splitting between presidential and down-ballot results specifically. “So, in a state like Montana, that just means that the big victories Democrats could win in Senate or gubernatorial races even as the state voted Republican for president are increasingly a thing of the past.”
Democrats were elected governor in Montana in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 while Republican nominees for president won the state handily. That trend stopped abruptly in 2020 when Trump won 56.9% of the Montana vote and Republican Greg Gianforte won 54.4% to become governor. In the four prior races, Republican candidates for governor had finished no higher than 47.3%.
Currently sandwiched between “Jeopardy” and the local nightly news are ads suggesting that “Tester’s changed,” but while that assessment is open to interpretation, Montana’s electorate has demonstrably popped the buttons of its ticket-splitting purple-state reputation during Tester’s time in office.
Read Tester’s latest financial report
Financial reports required of each senator indicate that Tester still, like many farmers, has more land than cash. The core of his wealth is a 900-acre ancestral farm valued at $1 million to $5 million, according to Tester’s 2023 financial report, in which assets are categorized in broad ranges.
As disclosed August 13, Tester’s reported assets, including the farmland, have an estimated value of $1.7 million to $6.5 million and generated income of at most $14,158. Property records for the District of Columbia show that Tester and his wife, Sharla, also own a D.C. townhouse purchased in 2013 for $756,000, with a 2025 tax assessment of $1,108,640.
Tester’s annual income reports run five pages, and include a state pension, teacher retirement plans, and money market accounts. The annual salary for a U.S. senator is $174,000 per year. (In comparison, Sheehy’s annual finance report to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics contains 31 pages of assets.)
For 18 years Tester has crafted a record as a centrist capable of occasionally smashing legislation deep into right field. He sought to overturn President Joe Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit. He voted to overturn Biden’s Waters of the United States rule, which would have expanded federal authority to enforce the Clean Water Act. He sided with Republicans to reject a Biden mandate for workplace COVID-19 vaccines. Along with Idaho Republican Senator Mike Simpson, he led the charge to delist wolves in Idaho and Montana, the only time Congress has ever removed an animal from the endangered species list.
That removal, which came as the Montana Farm Bureau sued to do the same, tabled the heated wolf discussion in Tester’s reelection campaign the following year. His opponent at the time, then U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg, had tried and failed to do the same thing. That same cycle, President Barack Obama’s administration dispelled election-year rhetoric about national monuments being carved into the Montana map.
In both cases, Tester’s rightward maneuvers left voters to his left behind. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies contemplated suing over the delisting on the grounds that Congress had violated the separation of powers clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Tester told MTFP in September, “Sure, there were some people who had some heartburn over it, but I explained to them that the Endangered Species Act was not supposed to be used forever, it was supposed to be used until the species got recovered. And wolves have been recovered.”
“If we don’t manage them, they’re going to become a problem,” Tester said. “And they need to be managed. The science said they were recovered. There were a lot of people in my caucus that didn’t have the same view I had, but we flipped a lot of them.”
Tester again leaned afoul of the left, and to the right of Donald Trump, when he opposed banning bump stocks, an aftermarket device that allows semi-automatic weapons to be fired almost as quickly as automatic weapons. A domestic terrorist in Las Vegas in late 2017 had used bump stocks to fire more than 1,000 rounds in 11 minutes into an outdoor concert crowd, killing 58 people and wounding 850, according to the Associated Press. Trump signed an executive order banning the devices in 2018 after three separate bills attempting to ban bump stocks in the 12 months following the Vegas shootings died in committee.
“To be clear, I’m not really big on banning stuff,” Tester said recently. “I don’t think it works very well. And that was the deal on bump stocks.”
In 2022, Montana’s Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen joined attorneys general from 18 other states to argue for overturning the bump stock ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court did in June of this year.
The National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund gives Tester an “F” on its candidate scorecard this year. The NRA told MTFP that “all the camo in the world” can’t hide Tester’s gun record. The NRA’s political arm continues to face an ongoing lawsuit for allegedly coordinating $400,000 worth of ad buys with then-Tester challenger and current U.S. Representative Matt Rosendale in 2018. The lawsuit was brought by Giffords, a nonprofit gun-control group created by former Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head during a meet and greet at a Tucson supermarket in 2011.
The NRA dings Tester for his support for 2021’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a post-Uvalde-school-shooting bill pushed by Senate Republicans, including Texan John Cornyn, that increased funding for school security and requires that background checks for buyers 21 and younger include 7 days for FBI review of any disqualifying juvenile records. The bill also gave judges more leeway to forbid gun purchases by people with records of domestic abuse. Tester was the only member of Montana’s delegation to support the bill, which became law in 2022.
The nuances of voting records are easily overlooked in a public conversation that’s increasingly driven by national issues and attempts to characterize candidates as rubber stamps for party leadership. PolitiFact has rated “false” attacks suggesting that Tester supports abortion up to and including live birth and ads alleging that he voted to give taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants — positions that Republican messaging demonizes up and down the ballot.
While Tester’s appeals to split-ticket voters on the right appear, according to polls, to be generating diminishing returns, it’s creating problems on the left as well. He’s been dogged by supporters of Palestine, who argue that he could oppose U.S. support of Israel’s war in Gaza, which is killing noncombatant Palestinians. Tester deals directly with U.S. military spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.
Tester has repeatedly said during the past year that he stands with Israel. Debating Sheehy September 30, Tester said he doesn’t agree with everything Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done, but supports Israel’s right to defend itself. He suggested that the United States is working with other countries to find a solution to the war.
There will be voters on the left willing to vote “none of the above” rather than vote for Tester, said Brendan Work, a founder of Montanans for Palestine.
“I personally can name over 100 people I know in the community, both from my family, friends of family, and the workplace, who are solidly for Palestine and say, ‘absolutely not, I will not vote for Tester this year,’” Work said.
Work said support for Palestine has only increased after Israel’s deadly response to the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250, about 100 of whom have yet to be returned. The Palestinian health ministry estimates that more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing war.
Montana is one of three states with a “no preference” option on election ballots. Another 16 states let voters choose “uncommitted” over an actual candidate. Two states allow voters to choose “none of these candidates.” Supporters of Palestine point to the number of voters who selected a choice other than a named candidate in the June primary as evidence of dissatisfaction with continuing U.S. support of Israel. In the 2024 primary for president, 9,285 Montana Democrats voted “no preference,” as did 16,570 Republicans.
Work, an instructor of Arabic at Hellgate High School in Missoula, said it would be worth a short-term loss like Tester losing a Senate race to get the attention of Congress.
Tester told MTFP in September, “We don’t take any voter for granted. And we’re talking to folks moving forward about the kind of work that’s being done to get those hostages released and achieve peace in that region,” Tester said. “By the same token, we don’t want the U.S. prosecuting the war in the Middle East on Israel’s behalf. That doesn’t work.
“I believe in the next generation, the generation is going to do great things for this country, and they’ve got every right to protest and make sure their voices are being heard,” Tester said. “I applaud their effort, quite frankly, even though oftentimes I disagree with the way they’re doing it. But in the end, I think that they will make a choice based on who best represents their views and I think that’s going to help me this election.”
One asset that’s helped Tester win over some skeptics is his tenure.
Gordon Stoner, like Tester, is a Montana farmer. The two disagree on plenty. Tester raises organic crops on 900 acres near Big Sandy. Organics are a niche product that is hardly dependent on the international trade that drives Montana’s conventional grain commodities economy. Roughly 80% of the state’s wheat is sold in Asia-Pacific markets.
Stoner has become a trade expert over decades of business, at various times advising members of Congress as a director of the National Association of Wheat Growers, the Montana Grain Growers Association, and the Northern Pulse Growers Association. He can explain the politics of trading grain with China faster than a grocer can point to the bread aisle.
Tester has voted in favor of only one free trade agreement, Donald Trump’s United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, sometimes disparagingly referred to as NAFTA 2.0. Stoner has supported multilateral trade agreements that normalize trade terms between several nations, most notably the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which both Trump and Tester opposed.
“We probably disagree more than we agree,” Stoner said of Tester. “But now’s not the time for a new senator.”
Stoner, of Outlook, has seen how seniority works in the Senate. Getting a senator to listen to agriculture issues is half the battle, he said. Getting other senators to listen to your senator takes seniority.
In 2006, when voters elected Tester over Conrad Burns, the incumbent had 18 years of seniority, exactly what Tester now has. The transition left Montana’s Senate delegation with a green newcomer in Tester and a 29-year veteran in Democrat Max Baucus, who two years later was the longest serving Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, a position of unmatched influence in setting international trade policy, tax policy, and the core entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Which is why Baucus, as chairman of Senate Finance, brokered Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Baucus was also the Democratic Party’s leading fundraiser.
Tester’s departure would make U.S. Senator Steve Daines, a Republican now in his 10th year in office, Montana’s senior senator. The numbers aren’t appealing to Stoner.
A decade ago, as president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, Stoner decided it was beneficial in most cases to support incumbents. NAWG donated to Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Personally, Stoner donated to Greg Gianforte’s campaign when the governor’s seat was open in 2020.
Similarly, Hans McPherson, former president of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, said he has disagreed with Tester on many issues over the years. But Tester acted favorably on work visas for agriculture businesses. McPherson employs visa workers in his irrigation business.
For McPherson, who farms in the Bitterroot Valley, migrant workers and border security are completely different issues. The time and expense it takes to get someone into the United States on an agricultural work visa is needlessly excessive, McPherson said.
Bipartisan immigration reform that Tester supported in February 2024 would have increased the number of employment visas by 13% while also providing money for border wall construction, more security agents and deportation flights. It would allow the Homeland Security secretary to close the border down when encounters with migrants — the metric for attempted border crossings — average 4,000 daily for seven days. The bill collapsed when Trump asked Republicans to hold off on addressing border security until 2025.
The reform bill “put 10,000 more border agents on the border, and that, by the way, would also help the northern border with more agents, because we need more up here, too,” Tester recently told MTFP. “We would have put X-ray equipment technology on our ports to be able to X-ray cars and trucks that are bringing in fentanyl, those that are, and stop it right there, which would help law enforcement all across the country, including in Montana.
“I will tell you this, there are some places where a wall makes perfect sense. I think if you look at that southern border and look at some of the geographical issues that are out there, there are places where it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”
Despite being famously the only working farmer in the U.S. Senate, Tester has never been a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. The last Montana lawmaker to serve on the committee was Daines, who served for two years in 2017 and 2018.
Tester has proposed several agriculture bills, including Country of Origin Labeling, which was scuttled for trade violations by the World Trade Organization in 2015, but has been quietly making a comeback as WTO appellate board positions go unfilled. He also succeeded in overturning a Biden plan to allow Peruvian beef imports. He succeeded in creating a special investigator in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate monopoly meatpackers, which process most American beef and control prices paid to ranchers and by shoppers. Tester was the only member of the Montana delegation to support a 2021 program to create more local meat processors. Other efforts, like a Tester bill granting farmers the right to repair their machinery, haven’t made it beyond committee.
Tester’s biggest influence has been on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, on which he is the senior Democrat and chairman when Democrats control the Senate. In 2023, on his second try, he succeeded in extending military health care coverage to veterans exposed on duty to toxic substances and hazardous materials, specifically toxins stemming from burn pits and Agent Orange.
Montana is home to the fifth-highest population of veterans per capita, about 8.9%, according to the U.S. Census. As voters, veterans are the subjects of political ads supporting both Tester and Sheehy, the former Navy SEAL.
But Tester’s biggest challenge in 2024 isn’t his record — it’s finding Republican voters willing to support an incumbent Democrat. Acknowledging that task, Tester has promoted 100 Republican supporters of his campaign, including former Montana Governor Marc Racicot and former Secretary of State Bob Brown, the 2004 Republican nominee for governor. The group is co-chaired by Wade I. Jones, chairman of the Milk River Joint Board of Control, which is drawing heavily on Tester-supported infrastructure funding to repair a 300-mile public water and irrigation system that will be out of commission until fall 2025.
Montana has become a tricky place for Democratic candidates. Population increases since 2008 have brought more new Republican voters to the state than Democratic voters, according to the data service L2. As pointed out by pollster Bob Ward in early September, “The largest group of Montana voters identifies as Republican, and the second largest group, 38% of 1,064 people polled in late August, identified with neither major party.” Voters who identify as Democrats were a distant third, at 24%.
“I mean, only one out of five voters in Montana are Democrats, and Jon Tester is doing a great job of consolidating the Democratic vote. He is winning 95% of it,” Ward said.