Sheehy defeats Tester in U.S. Senate shift

Tester, the three-term senator from Big Sandy, conceded the race shortly after 6:30 a.m.

By Tom Lutey for Montana Free Press

Tim Sheehy speaking during the second day of the Republican National Convention, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / The Associated Press

GREAT FALLS — Republican Tim Sheehy won Montana’s U.S. Senate race early Wednesday, unseating incumbent Democrat Jon Tester.

Tester, a three-term senator from Big Sandy, conceded the race shortly after 6:30 a.m. Sheehy led by 43,000 votes, or a 53% vote share, with more than half of Montana’s precincts fully counted. 

“I called Tim Sheehy. I congratulated him on being the Senator-elect for the state of Montana. And I told him, ‘Work hard. Keep Montana the greatest state in the greatest country in the world,” Tester said.

“Look, I’m very blessed. I’ve had a great 18 years in the United States Senate. I’ve met some incredible people along the way, and had the opportunity to do some great things to help move this state forward, move the country forward. I wish Senator-elect Sheehy all the best, because, quite frankly, it’s really important that we have good leadership in Washington, DC. That’s about all I have to say for today, and maybe for a long time, other than the fact that I’m also blessed because I’ve got a great family. I’m gonna be able to go back to the farm and maybe enlarge it a little bit and really focus on production agriculture.”

The third-party candidates in the race, Libertarian Sid Daoud and Green candidate Robert Barb, each had about a 1% vote share.

Polls leading up to the election had shown Sheehy leading by 8% beyond the margin of error since mid-June.

Sheehy’s official social media account posted a brief thank-you around 4 a.m. His campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning. 

Shortly after polls closed, Tester implored voters waiting to vote to stay in line. Montana allows voters who are in line by 8 p.m. to vote after hours. In several counties, including Yellowstone and Gallatin, which have the top two shares of the Montana vote, voting was expected to continue past midnight.

“I would just tell you that this is a prediction that I made 20 months ago, when this campaign started. I said, ‘This is going to be a very, very close election. It is going to be a close election,’” Tester told an election-night watch party audience of about 60 people at the Holiday Inn in Great Falls. 

Sheehy hadn’t yet spoken at an election night party at the Armory Hotel in Bozeman. Several Republican candidates had made victory speeches there early in the evening. 

More than $3 million was spent after voting started by pro-Tester political committees on canvassing , a door-to-door effort to personally contact likely Tester voters who hadn’t returned a ballot. During the same period, political action committee spending on canvassing for Sheehy was less than $1 million.

The campaign messages of Tester and Sheehy were significantly different. Tester, a third-generation Montana farmer from Big Sandy, suggested that Montana’s way of life was being eroded by wealthy newcomers like Sheehy. Tester emphasized his accomplishments for veterans, including extending health coverage for millions of veterans exposed to cancerous toxins from burn pits. His support for a major upgrade in infrastructure spending was a selling point, as was Tester’s support for abortion access. 

To stand a chance, Tester needed to share voters with Donald Trump, who won the Montana vote easily in 2016, 2020, and 2024. He was quick to suggest that President Joe Biden needed to drop out of the presidential race,  following Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump, in which Biden seemed disoriented. 

But Tester never endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden’s replacement on the ballot, and he abstained from voting as a super delegate when Democrats formally made Harris their candidate. Republicans seized on Tester’s chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2015 when Harris first ran for Senate in California.

Sheehy, 37, a combat veteran from Minnesota who moved to Montana a decade ago,  messaged hard on completing the U.S.-Mexico border wall promised by Trump in 2016. He supported in vitro fertilization, while advocating that abortion be limited to pregnancies caused by rape or incest, or when a woman’s life was endangered. The Republican promised “cheap gas” if his election put the GOP in control of the Senate, where pollution regulations could be softened.

Days before the election, Sheehy suggested to Megyn Kelly, former Fox News host and current podcaster,  that his military service was the difference between him and Tester’s previous opponents. Sheehy defended his military record, which Democrats attacked with advertising during the election’s final weeks. Sheehy pushed back on the suggestion that a bullet wound in his arm occurred in Glacier National Park, not in combat.

All three winning Republican candidates for federal office this year in Montana are veterans. Republican U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, a former Marine, was the last veteran to run for U.S. Senate in Montana. Burns was unseated by Tester in 2006.

Montana’s Senate race unfolded under watchful national eyes — and within a flood of record-setting expenditures — because of its importance to the balance of partisan power in the U.S. Senate.

Republicans recaptured the majority in the Senate, prevailing in several races. Montana U.S. Senator Steve Daines was the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which recruits and supports party candidates for Senate. Unseating Tester was a key focus for Daines. 

It’s been six years since a Democrat — Tester, in 2018 — won a single statewide race in Montana. 

The 45% vote share won by Tester was identical to former Democratic Governor Steve Bullock’s vote share in 2020 when he unsuccessfully challenged Senator Daines.