Republican Tim Sheehy defeated Democratic Sen. John 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 unifying Republican voters in a state that has turned deeper red in recent years. Sheehy and his allies cast Tester as a liberal Democrat who voted with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, undermining the incumbent’s reputation as a centrist.
Tester has tried to push back against his state’s partisanship by drawing on his deep roots as a third-generation farmer and voiced his bipartisan bona fides, including clashes with the Biden administration on issues like immigration. Tester and his allies portrayed Sheehy as the personification of the state’s wealthy new residents, arguing that they were driving up costs and threatening Montanans’ access to public lands.
However, Şehi was able to withstand these attacks in the end. Republicans portrayed him as a high-ranking employee with a military background who built an aerial firefighting business in the state. his business record and condition of his cattle faced scrutiny in his campaign.
Campaigns and outside groups flooded the Montana airwaves with more than $250 million in advertising.
Republicans were increasingly confident that they could defeat Tester in the run-up to Election Day, arguing that the state had drifted too far to the right for Tester to handle and that many of the state’s new residents were leaning toward the GOP.
But Democrats were cautiously optimistic that Montana voters would view the presidential race and the Senate race through different lenses. They also noted that the Tester campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation, appeal to independent voters and support among Native Americans could propel him to victory.
Democrats also hoped to support Tester with a statewide ballot initiative in which voters codified the right to abortion in the state Constitution.
While Sheehy said he would respect the decision of Montana voters on the issue, he seemed open to supporting the federal action on abortion, which Democrats have used on the campaign trail and on the airwaves.
Tester argued that Montanans don’t want the federal government interfering in health care decisions.
Still, it wasn’t enough to help Tester reverse the state’s rightward tilt.