(Bloomberg) -- Jon Tester is no stranger to a fierce political battle. As a three-term Democratic US senator from deep-red Montana, it comes with the territory.
But, for the first time in two decades, he’s locked in a fight where he’s the clear underdog.
For months, Wall Street money has been pouring in from both sides to the race that’s widely seen as most likely to determine Senate control. David Solomon of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Jon Gray of Blackstone Inc. and Stephen Mandel of Lone Pine Capital are among those who have flooded the zone for the groups supporting Tester. Backing his Republican challenger, 38-year-old ex-Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy: billionaires Steve Schwarzman, Ken Griffin, Paul Singer and Cliff Asness.
The cash influx has made the race the most expensive per vote in Senate history, with spending on advertising poised to exceed $250 million in a state of about 1 million people and twice as many cows.
Yet with less than six weeks until Election Day, there are signs the race has gotten away from Tester.
Democrats often outspend Republicans on ads — but in this race, the gap is close. The GOP, fueled by independent political-action committees, has had the weekly spending advantage two times since the start of July, according to data from ad monitor AdImpact.
The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, which has put in more than $3 million in advertising in Montana, says it is also going to start allocating millions for ads in Texas and Florida, where polls have shown Republican incumbents Ted Cruz and Rick Scott to be more at risk than expected. In Montana, by contrast, the Cook Political Report recently changed the race from tossup to lean Republican, the first time that’s happened since at least Tester’s first run in 2006.
“It’s going to be the hardest election he’ll ever have for sure,” said Chris Koski, a political science professor at Reed College and native Montanan. “Trump being on the ballot energizes voters who are not traditionally turning out, and it makes it difficult to predict.”
Tester “has a strong coalition of support across the state, including independent voters and Republicans, and he has a record of delivering for Montana,” Monica Robinson, a spokesperson for Montanans for Tester, said in a statement.
The Sheehy campaign didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. The two candidates are set to square off Monday night in their second debate, hosted by Montana PBS.
$12 Haircut
It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Tester, 68, a third-generation Montanan and dirt farmer with a $12 haircut who has used his powerful seat on the Appropriations Committee to direct billions in spending to the state. He has repeatedly championed issues that are of special importance to Montanans, even when he goes against his party, allowing him to win reelection in a state that Trump carried by more than 16 percentage points in 2020.
“Tester represents the Montana that it’s been for the majority of its existence,” said Chris La Tray, the state’s poet laureate. “Sheehy, his billboards don’t say anything about taking care of people — they say ‘American Warrior.’”
But much has changed since Tester was last elected in 2018. The Covid-19 pandemic spurred a number of Americans, including wealthy ones, to relocate to the Big Sky state — and elevated progressive wings of the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket has put him in a bind with the moderates and strategic split-ticket voters he has always relied on.
Sheehy, meanwhile, is a businessman with an outdoorsy finance bro look who moved to the state 10 years ago to start an aerial firefighting business and a family.
He’s faced a barrage of attack ads from Tester as well as scrutiny over the health of his business, how he suffered a gunshot wound and remarks at a 2023 campaign event that Native Americans on the Crow reservation are “drunk at 8 am.”
Poll Swing
None of that has stopped the polls from moving in Sheehy’s favor.
Each of four polls conducted in August and aggregated by RealClearPolling shows the Republican in the lead, and in only one does Tester fall within the margin of error. In limited surveys from earlier in the year, the Democrat still held an advantage.
By contrast, a recent Morning Consult poll of the Texas Senate race showed Cruz trailing Democratic US Representative Colin Allred by a percentage point. While that was within the margin of error, it’s a far smaller edge than Cruz had previously.
Of course, limited polling can misread the mood on the ground. And Tester has won by slim margins in the past. Lately he’s been working to meet voters where their day-to-day concerns are, instead of the national ones that play in the Republican-generated attacks ads against him.
After working his farm’s wheat harvest in late August and watching constituents reap potatoes in early September, Tester returned to Washington and introduced the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit Act, which would provide a tax credit to such buyers for 10% of a home’s purchase price, up to $15,000.
“I feel like if Tester doesn’t win, we’re drastically continuing the path to changing the nature of Montana’s values,” said Annelise Hedahl, a real estate broker and former alderwoman in Missoula. “I am probably more nervous than I have been in prior races.”
Montana First
For politicians across the country, it’s a crucial test of whether “all politics is local” still applies in an era of 24-7 news and social-media bubbles.
Tester is getting blamed for Biden’s economic agenda and immigrants committing crimes and receiving health care. One ad against him shows a map with a wave of blackness creeping into the US from Mexico. There’s another suggesting Tester lets boys play girls sports. One with jaunty music shows him leaping in front of the Capitol: “When Joe Biden says jump, Jon Tester says: ‘How high?’”
One of the most galvanizing issues on the national stage — women’s reproductive rights — is also on the ballot in Montana. Its citizens will vote on a constitutional amendment to leave choice to women through fetal viability.
Tester, for his part, remains committed to making the case that he’s capable of bringing Montana forward. He’s talked of expanding broadband and the developing tourist economy based on access to public lands. (Private land owners, like Sheehy, could obstruct or charge for access.)
“The ones who stand in the center and cut deals with both sides in a pragmatic way, specifically with an eye on what’s best for their states and the people they represent, that room is getting smaller and smaller,” said Sam Workman, who runs a public policy institute at West Virginia University. “The space is almost non-existent these days.”
--With assistance from Bill Allison.
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