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They call it ‘Big Sky Country’ for its idyllic landscapes and untamed countryside, a serene US state famous for its national parks and wilderness preserves. But Montana is also a deeply Republican state, with President Trump winning it by 16 points in 2020 and having not voted for the Democratic nominee since President Clinton’s victory in 1992. In the Senate, it is not so simple. Montana’s Senate delegation is only half-representative of the state’s status as a Republican stronghold. Steve Daines, one of these two Senators, is as you’d expect: a fiscally conservative, pro-life Republican who in January 2021 had supported President Trump’s attempts to overturn the presidential election results in key swing states.
On the other hand, Montana is also represented by Jon Tester. A political scientist would label him as "the ideal Republican". The 67-year-old, who lost three fingers to a meat-grinder in a childhood accident, says he is spending a lot of this election season at his farm near Big Sandy, Montana. It's harvest time and the Senator is proudly the only working farmer within the U.S. Senate. And yet this archetype of rural America, sporting a flat-top haircut reminiscent of the 1980s, is not your bog-standard Republican Senator. He is in fact the only Democrat currently elected to state-wide office in all of Montana.
His position is a relic of a Congress that was once ideologically diverse. In decades past, it was not unusual to find Congresspeople and Senators that were in opposition to the general political trend of their state - especially when you consider how both the Republican and Democratic Party ideological tents used to be much broader. The Blue Dog Democrats, for example, were a major caucus within the House of Representative Democratic Party that represented the more moderate members of the party - reaching a peak of 54 members in 2009. Yet they now only claim 10 members. Tester maintains his seat in Montana in part due to more moderate views than much of the Democratic Party, much in line with what the Blue Dog Coalition represents. He has, for example, voted against background check legislation for gun ownership, and supported some of President Trump’s easing of financial regulation. Despite this, he maintains the party line on many issues, even crossing over to the progressive wing of the party on some policy proposals - during the Trump administration, he had floated ideas about universal healthcare, similar to plans proposed by left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders. Indeed, Tester’s working-class character allows him to push for economically populist policies whilst maintaining support in his home state.
Regardless, political polarisation and the death of the Blue Dog Democrats threatens Tester’s re-election in November. Polls have put Tester neck-and-neck with his Republican opponent, Mike Sheehy, who is 38 years old and the founder of an aerial firefighting company in the state. Sheehy’s strategy for this election speaks to the fear within the Democratic Party, as this seat will be key to the Republicans retaking the Senate. Whilst Tester is focusing his campaign on local issues, Sheehy is fixated on labelling Tester as a “rubber stamp” for Biden’s record and Harris’ campaign. These diametric approaches make perfect sense. Tester knows that he will have to significantly outperform Vice President Harris in order to win, and so cannot rely on her, an unpopular figure in Montana, in order to claim victory. On the other hand, Sheehy, knowing that Montana is a safe state for Trump, is hoping that he can sufficiently tie his image to the former president so that he can ride his coattails into the Senate.
Tester is not the only Democrat in this precarious position. Sherrod Brown, Senator from Ohio, is also seeking re-election in a state that Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, this time by 8 points. Likewise, Brown is running a campaign that has increasingly distanced itself from the top of the ticket, and maintains a policy agenda that is tailored to Ohio voters - a state that’s shift towards the Republicans can be attributed to its position in the ‘Rust Belt’ amidst a manufacturing decline. Brown is therefore keen to emphasise the importance of American workers resulting in support for some of President Trump’s proposed tariffs, and clear opposition to many potential free trade agreements.
Both Tester and Brown are vital to the Democrats maintaining control of the Senate. If one or both do in fact win, they will be in a significantly powerful position to dictate policy in the chamber. If Harris is elected as the 47th President, any moderate Democrat that holds the Democratic Senate majority together may be the defining players in how Harris carries out her policy proposals. Likewise, a second Trump presidency would almost certainly set their sights on convincing Tester or Brown to support the more moderate aspects of their agenda. Indeed, this is the role that the now retiring Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia had played for years. Manchin, however, realised that his time in West Virginia was up and decided against running for re-election. West Virginia can no longer be won by a Democrat. The question is whether or not Tester and Brown will face this same fate.
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