Democrats are growing more optimistic about Sen. Jon Tester’s reelection chances in Montana in the campaign’s final days, according to party strategists, hopeful that a late surge of support for the senator has at least put him within striking distance of Republican nominee Tim Sheehy.
After bottoming out at the end of summer, Tester’s poll numbers have bounced back in recent weeks, according to one Democratic strategist familiar with the race, who, like others interviewed for this story, emphasized that the three-term senator’s hold on the Senate seat remains precarious. But his support has grown enough that allies think the incumbent — long considered the Democratic senator most likely to lose his reelection — has at least now moved within a poll’s margin of error.
“I would say flip a coin, and then call it heads or tails before it hits your hand,” said former Democratic Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. “And that’s how this thing is going to end.”
Tester’s supposed comeback, Schweitzer and other party operatives say, is in part because of continued criticism over the origin of a bullet wound Sheehy suffered in his arm, which has gained renewed attention and been the focal point of vociferous Democratic attacks in TV ads.
The Montana race is widely seen as the key for either party to claim a majority in the Senate next year. Unseat Tester and Republicans would be on their way to a majority in the chamber even if Democrats win the White House.
But a surprise Tester win, coupled with a Kamala Harris victory in the presidential race, would mean Democrats have a strong chance of protecting their majority.
Tester, first elected in 2006, hasn’t led a publicly released poll of the race since the winter, according to RealClearPolling, and the political handicapping site Cook Political Report has rated the race as “lean Republican.”
In a statement, an official with the National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized Schweitzer’s declaration that the race was a toss-up — the adviser said the former governor “has been grasping for relevancy” for more than a decade — while maintaining that the party remains on track to win the race.
“Tim Sheehy has been leading outside the margin of error and is only strengthening as Democrats’ fake, scummy attacks on his military service backfire,” said Brock Lowrance, an NRSC senior adviser.
But there are at least some signs, apart from the Democrats’ professed confidence, that the Montana Senate race has remained competitive, even in the eyes of national Republicans. A joint victory committee from Sheehy and the NRSC late last week placed a new ad reservation in the state for nearly $270,000, according to AdImpact data shared with NOTUS. This year, the NRSC has used joint victory committees as one of its primary vehicles to fund campaign ads.
And Sheehy last week also breathed new life into a lingering controversy over the circumstances of a bullet wound in his arm. Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, has said the injury occurred during a tour of duty in Afghanistan; others, including a National Park Service ranger, have said the injury happened when Sheehy visited a national park in 2015.
In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Sheehy struggled to explain the incident, saying that medical records proving he didn’t suffer the gunshot wound during his visit to a national park — and instead suffered an accident while hiking — didn’t exist.
Tester still faces an uphill climb in a state that Donald Trump is expected to win easily. But Democrats hope that their voter canvassing program, which they describe as the largest the state has ever seen, can put them over the top in a close race.
A Tester official said the campaign has now knocked on a half-million doors and made 2.6 million phone calls since the start of the race.
“Sheehy has had the worst closing weeks of any Senate candidate, the hallmark of Tester’s campaign is their tremendous ground game, and we continue to feel this race is competitive in the final days,” said a national Democrat working on Senate races.
Other Democrats have also been encouraged by signs of high engagement from Native American and young voters in the state, seeing both voter blocs as key to a Tester victory.
Recent public polling of the Montana Senate race has been sparse. But a late October survey from The Hill/Emerson College found Sheehy winning by 4 percentage points, 50% to 46%, within the poll’s margin of error.
Schweitzer predicted that the national GOP’s emphasis on immigration and the role of transgender boys and girls in scholastic sports is backfiring. Republicans have heavily focused on the two issues, both in Montana and other Senate battlegrounds.
“There were people who were listening to the national Republican messaging, ‘Oh, it’s all about immigration. It’s all about boys playing on your girls’ team,’” the former governor said. “And at some point, in Montana they were looking at each and saying, ‘No, what’s important is that Montana stays Montana.’”
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Alex Roarty is a reporter at NOTUS.