Donald Trump Jr. made a return to Montana on Sunday to rally Republicans in advance of this fall’s election and join GOP candidates in sharpening their attacks against the lone remaining statewide elected Democrat.
Ranging from the front lines of the culture wars with comments on transgender women and sports to repeated digs at U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s political track record, speakers addressed a room of roughly 300 ticket-buying attendees at the University Center Ballroom on the University of Montana campus.
“Montana … is going to be a critical juncture. The Senate, there's never been a better pathway for us to regain some control there, have some power there,” Trump Jr. said. “If we don't do it now, it’s a decade 'til we even have a chance, of getting a chance, where there's a red state with a blue-state senator in it that's up for election, a place that we can actually make gains.”
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Tester, a three-term incumbent Democrat, is running against Republican Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and owner of a Belgrade aerial firefighting company. It's one of the nation’s most closely watched races as Republicans see Montana, a state former President Donald Trump won by 16 points in 2020, as key to taking back control of Washington, D.C. The campaigns and outside groups have already spent millions in the state trying to sway voters, with the election still 190 days away.
Trump Jr. came to Montana during the 2018 U.S. Senate race several times, along with four massive rallies held by his father, in an attempt to unseat Tester. The Democrat defeated Matt Rosendale in that race by about 4 points. Rosendale, who now represents Montana's eastern congressional district, was briefly a primary challenger to Sheehy in what was expected to be a bruising battle before dropping out just a week after filing for the seat and eventually saying he's done with politics at the end of his term.
On Sunday Trump Jr. was joined by Sheehy, along with Gov. Greg Gianforte and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, who are both seeking re-election this year, at an event, put on by MAC-PAC (Montana Association of Conservatives). The group says on its website “we were formed to be a conduit for and supporter of conservative candidates and causes in Montana through building a network of like-minded, politically active Montanans.”
“I don't have to tell you guys about Jon Tester. He's part of the lucky calendar club, '06, '12 and '18," Sheehy said, referencing Tester's past victories in midterm elections compared to this year's presidential race. "He is not undefeatable. … That's a lot of luck and a lot of meddling from Chuck Schumer in our state. (Tester's) been doing it for a long time. It's about time we unify, stand up and send him home because what he's doing right now is he is rubber-stamping Joe Biden's agenda.”
Sheehy started his remarks by referencing the "lunacy that we are living in in this country right now.”
“We are literally telling our children that their gender is a societal construct, that genders don't exist anymore,” Sheehy said, hitting on a theme others who spoke echoed. “ … That's insane, there's no other way to describe it. There have been two genders since the dinosaurs walked the earth. And there's still two genders today.”
He framed the election as a critical time in the nation’s history.
“America is at a crossroads. There's no other way to say it. We are at a crossroads as a nation,” Sheehy said. “ … If you want a secure border, if you think cops are good, and criminals are bad, if you think we should have a secure border, if you think we shouldn't be invading a new country every six months, you're a conspiracy theorist. You're a bigot. You're racist. You're not tolerant. And we have to put an end to it. We have to stop it today and this year is a choosing time for us. We have to make a decision.”
While saying he wasn't "running against Jon Tester, I'm running for America," Sheehy told the crowd Tester was too liberal, another theme hammered on by others who spoke.
“Bottom line — he has to go, we have to retire him. It's up to Montana to determine control of the Senate,” Sheehy said. “If you don't understand that this seat will determine whether we control the Senate for the next decade or not, that's how important this is.”
Still, Sheehy closed by seeking to move across party divisions.
“I believe almost all Americans want the same thing, believe it or not. In this polarized time, almost all of us want the same thing and it's time for us to bring common sense back. We want secure borders, safe streets, good schools, cheap gas, boys are boys and girls are girls, let's make it happen.”
In a statement Sunday, Tester's campaign said the senator has parted from the Biden administration multiple times, including over the southern border, on the Second Amendment and over energy regulation.
“Outsiders trying to buy this seat will always try to turn Jon Tester into something he's not, because they can't beat the third-generation dirt farmer from Big Sandy. Instead, they should be explaining to Montanans why multimillionaire out-of-stater Tim Sheehy has repeatedly lied to Montanans about who he is, from claiming he had a ‘rural’ upbringing in the suburbs 15 minutes from Minneapolis to pretending he’s a rancher," said spokesperson Monica Robinson.
In the western U.S. House race, Zinke is facing a rematch of his 2022 race against Democrat Monica Tranel, who lost by 4 percentage points.
Zinke told the crowd his district is “super competitive” and vital if Republicans want control in D.C.
Zinke also offered an explanation for his split votes on the recent $95 million in foreign aid that cleared Congress recently, where he voted against sending aid to Israel and Ukraine.
“We’re $130 million into this, and yet we have no plan and no objectives. And look, I've done a lot of missions in my life, and I have never been in an operation without a plan and an objective. And we're gonna go toe to toe with a nuclear power, Russia, without a plan," Zinke said.
Saying he agreed with the assessment the U.S House is dysfunctional, Zinke told the crowd it would be worse if there wasn’t a GOP majority in the chamber.
“The House blocks. Yeah, we block the Democratic agenda. We did. We also blocked our agenda in many cases. Hell, to give a football analogy, we blocked the referees. We’re a blocking machine. But we need to maintain the House. Because if we don't, the first thing that's going to happen is they're going to impeach Donald J. Trump,” Zinke said.
Gianforte, who won by about 13% in 2020, will likely face off against Democrat Ryan Busse. The governor's remarks focused mostly on his record, while telling those in attendance it was important to support Sheehy and Zinke as well.
“The report card is pretty simple,” Gianforte said of his first term. “I just did what I told you I was gonna do. I got to Helena, I replaced the leadership at every state agency. I then got rid of these backlogs on permits.”
The incumbent governor does have a challenger in his party’s primary in Kalispell legislator Tanner Smith, who runs a construction company. Before the event, Smith posted to the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the ticket he’d purchased for the event had been revoked.
“Montana Association of ‘Conservatives’ uninvited a true Montana conservative with a proven voting record. This was after purchasing a ticket and was offered a candidate table… the UNI Party swamp is at it again. I’m getting the full Rosendale treatment,” Smith posted.
That reference was to the disinvitation of Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump loyalist who was uninvited from the state GOP’s convention this February after the Legislature’s Freedom Caucus raised concerns about statements he made critical of Rosendale.
Bruesewitz also spoke Sunday and called for unity in the Republican Party in the name of defeating Tester.
“He pretends to be a moderate every six years,” Bruesewitz said. “In 2018 he ran TV ads talking about how he loves President Trump and how he is a strong ally of President Trump, and then once he secured that seat again, the very first act he did back in Washington, D.C., was he voted to impeach President Trump,” Bruesewitz said.
Trump Jr. also worked to paint Tester as extreme.
“He got enveloped by the swamp. He became what happens so much in D.C., I mean, there's a saying in D.C., that the swamp is undefeated,” Trump Jr. said. “That's because it does do a good job turning good people into bad people, corrupting them entirely.”
“We can't afford to allow a fraud to represent the values of Montana, one of the most conservative states in the country and yet have a liberal senator,” Trump Jr. said. “And yet you'll have people spending a lot of money to make sure that others think they're moderates.”
Holly Michels is the head of the Montana State News Bureau. You can reach her at holly.michels@lee.net