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February 22, 2024
For months, Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale had teased a run for U.S. Senate. Montana Republicans, he contended, wanted a true conservative who would govern like they campaigned, someone who would not just beat incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and stand up to Joe Biden but also take on fellow Republicans who hew too close to the “uniparty.”
As he neared his announcement earlier this month, his rhetoric intensified. He said the establishment in Washington D.C. — people like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, both of whom had long backed Rosendale’s primary opponent Tim Sheehy — would not dictate how Montanans should vote. He openly accused Daines and allies of attempting to strongarm him out of the race.
“The leadership is trying to select, instead of allowing the people of Montana to select, who is going to be their next U.S. senator,” Rosendale said when he formalized his bid on Feb. 9. “So when you see Mitch McConnell entering into, participating in this election process, and the Senate committee getting so heavily involved, I think it’s offensive to the people across the state. I really do.”
Six days later, Rosendale was out of the race.
Officially, the campaign cited former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Sheehy, and Rosendale said he was “forced to calculate what my chances of success would be with Trump supporting my opponent.”
The campaign was apparently caught flat-footed by the announcement, which came the day Rosendale declared his candidacy. And there was a confluence of other factors: The campaign’s early fundraising numbers were anemic compared to those of the financial juggernaut that Sheehy was assembling; the Club for Growth, a billionaire-backed political group that was once one of Rosendale’s biggest financial supporters, had mended a fractured relationship with Trump and indicated it would not spend money for Rosendale; Sheehy had already reserved ad space touting Trump’s endorsement.
That Trump’s endorsement of Sheehy in particular was a surprise to Rosendale stretches credulity. For reasons both personal and political, Rosendale and Trump’s relationship had long been in question. Sheehy, meanwhile, was well ahead of Rosendale in endorsing Trump and had appeared as a surrogate for the former president at the Iowa caucuses in January.
But there was still hope that Trump would at the least remain neutral, perhaps persuaded by inner-circle congressional allies like Matt Gaetz, a Florida firebrand who campaigned for Rosendale in Montana.
“Personally, I would think that it would have taken a lot of pressure on Trump for him to step in the middle of the primary like this,” state Rep. Ed Butcher, a Republican hardliner from Winifred and a Rosendale backer, told Capitolized earlier this month.
But Butcher added that “it’s obvious from following the politics at the national level that McConnell has done everything he can to block Rosendale from running … and he obviously has had a little influence on Trump.” And Trump may well have to work with McConnell if Republicans take the Senate and send Trump back to the White House, he said.
Rosendale, meanwhile, was openly discussing the possibility of a change of leadership in the Senate for similar reasons that he supported ousting former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
Some politicos and members of the largely anonymized online political commentariat have speculated that there are hidden, more sinister reasons for Rosendale’s about-face, something more out of “House of Cards” than real life. But for now, the only evidence-based explanation of Rosendale’s decision to drop out that anyone is willing to acknowledge on the record is that without Trump’s endorsement and a dependable source of campaign resources, there was no path to the Senate for Rosendale.
What’s next for Rosendale is unclear. He can still register to run for re-election to his current district, but several other Republicans have already filed to take his place on the assumption that he would run for Senate. While his incumbency advantage and name recognition in eastern Montana mean that he would be a formidable opponent of any Republican challenger, the slate of his would-be replacements have shown little interest in changing course now that they’ve begun campaigning.
As of Wednesday, when former Congressman Denny Rehberg entered the House race, emboldened by favorable polling, Rosendale’s campaign said the incumbent has yet to make up his mind as to his future. At the moment, Rosendale’s congressional fundraising account on WinRed — an online clearinghouse for GOP campaign donations, the counterpart of Democrats’ ActBlue — is suspended.
The fate of the movement that Rosendale represented, and how that movement will treat Sheehy and his prominent backers in the state — Daines, Gov. Greg Gianforte, Congressman Ryan Zinke — is another open question, though the party’s winter kickoff event earlier this month gives some indication.
“Gianforte was up there giving a speech,” state Sen. Jeremy Trebas, R-Great Falls, a member of the coalition of 37 state lawmakers who issued a letter encouraging Rosendale to run for Senate back in August, related to Capitolized. “Toward the end, he said, ‘We’re going to send Tim Sheehy to the U.S. Senate.’ And that’s about the time I started to boo.”
— Arren Kimbel-Sannit
PSC Update
There are now no fewer than five candidates interested in the three open seats on the Public Service Commission, the utility board that balances the financial health of monopoly utilities like NorthWestern Energy with their customers’ interests.
Included on that list is Jennifer Fielder, a former Republican lawmaker from Thompson Falls who’s helped the PSC find steadiness following years of lawsuits and scandals, and, like her colleagues, voted to approve an unpopular NorthWestern energy rate increase; Jeff Welborn, a termed-out Republican state senator from Dillon who said he aims to protect utility customers from “unfair rate increases” and represent the interests of agricultural and rural customers; and Kirk Bushman, a Billings Republican who served on the commission from 2013-2016 when NorthWestern acquired the hydroelectric dams along the Madison and Missouri rivers.
Fielder is the only incumbent running. She currently has no challengers in District 4, per secretary of state filings.
Tony O’Donnell, a Billings Republican who represents District 2 (south-central Montana) on the PSC, is termed out. Bushman ran against O’Donnell in 2020, losing in a tight three-way primary that also included Sen. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings. In a Wednesday conversation with Capitolized, Bushman said he hopes to put his technical skills to use — he’s a mechanical engineer who’s worked at the Sibanye-Stillwater mine and for Kestrel Engineering Group — and ensure there’s a “fair playing field” between renewable power generators and the utilities buying power from them. He’s worried, he said, that customers will be required to foot the bill for solar and wind projects that aren’t always able to generate electricity when demand spikes.
Also in the mix are Rob Elwood, an independent who ran against current PSC President James Brown (who’s passing on a second term to pursue the state auditor post), and Suzzann Nordwick, a Butte Republican who prioritizes “Montana’s energy independence” and “traditional jobs,” per her campaign website. Like Welborn, they’re running for the District 3 seat that stretches from central Montana to southwest Montana.
— Amanda Eggert
Happenings
Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Tim Sheehy will be at the Bozeman Public Library on Thursday, Feb. 29, to discuss his book, “Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting,” a history of the industry Sheehy is part of. Sheehy has promoted his book on the campaign trail and on social media, noting that all proceeds from sales of the book, which was released last December, would go to organizations that “help fallen aerial firefighters and their families.”
HuffPost reported in January that one of those organizations, the United Aerial Firefighters Association, is a lobbying group co-founded by Sheehy, the founder of Belgrade’s Bridger Aerospace.
Federal Elections Commission rules, HuffPost noted, generally prohibit candidates from using campaign resources to promote their book unless the proceeds go to charitable organizations.
United Aerial Firefighters Association later clarified to the outlet that it was not sure how much of the proceeds from book sales it would receive but that the money would go to a trust fund for families of aerial firefighters killed in the line of duty.
— Arren Kimbel-Sannit
Verbatim
“Assuming we win, I would hand off the representation to someone competent to finish the cases.”
— Attorney Raph Graybill, recently named as the running mate of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse, responding to a question from Capitolized about how he will handle the numerous ongoing lawsuits against the state Graybill is involved in if he becomes lieutenant governor. Graybill, who previously served as Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock’s chief legal counsel and mounted an unsuccessful run for attorney general in 2020, has spent the past three years representing groups like Planned Parenthood in constitutional challenges to laws passed by the Republican-dominated Montana Legislature.
— Mara Silvers
On Background
What Rosendale’s failed Senate run says about the GOP’s 2024 strategy: The Washington Examiner, a conservative D.C. outlet, unpacked Rosendale’s decision and sudden reversal in the context of the modern GOP.
Who’s running for office in Montana in 2024? Here’s a running list: Now that the races for open seats on the Public Service Commission are taking shape, it’s worth recirculating our running list of candidates for state and federal office this year.
Busse taps Graybill as running mate in bid for governor’s office: Raph Graybill, a Helena attorney, has spent years litigating against abortion restrictions and other Republican-backed laws, as Montana Free Press reported.