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April 18, 2024
Candidates for federal office in Montana have reported their fundraising numbers for the first quarter of 2024, providing a picture of the state of several campaigns ahead of closely watched elections in Montana this year.
By far the highest-profile race in the state is the U.S. Senate contest between Republican businessman Tim Sheehy and incumbent Democrat Jon Tester, who is running for his fourth term. Tester represents one of the two seats nationally that Republicans need to win to flip control of the U.S. Senate, and Tester, as a Democrat in a red state, is seen by political observers as potentially vulnerable.
But Tester is also a famously capable fundraiser, a trait that will only be augmented as national political forces marshal their resources in the state. Tester, a farmer from Big Sandy, outraised Sheehy by more than two-to-one in the first quarter of 2024.
Tester’s campaign reported raising $7,268,385 in the first three months of 2024, bringing his total haul for the election cycle to $31,105,696. His campaign also continues to spend less than it’s bringing in, leaving him with $12,653,948 on hand.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and owner of an aerial firefighting company who was recruited from relative obscurity by national Republicans last year to take on Tester, reported raising $2,166,600 in the first quarter of 2024. He has raised $5,826,881 in the election to date. His campaign spent slightly more than it raised in the first quarter, leaving him with $1,925,866 on hand.
Sheehy’s fundraising numbers are bolstered by $500,000 in personal loans he made to his campaign this period. Sheehy, a multimillionaire who was recruited in part because of his ability to self-finance his campaign, has loaned $1.45 million to his campaign committee so far this election. Tester has made no loans to his committee.
This post was updated April 24, 2024, to remove an erroneous description of outside spending in Montana’s U.S. Senate election.
—Arren Kimbel-Sannit
Verbatim
“The result of this committee’s vote — how and when will that be attached to the initiative?”
“Sen. Regier, it won’t be.”
—Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, and legislative attorney Julianne Burkhardt discussing how the Law and Justice Interim Committee’s Thursday vote on CI-128, the constitutional abortion rights amendment, will affect the signature-gathering campaign currently underway to put the proposal on the November ballot.
The Legislature opted to hold a hearing on the initiative, as typically directed by state law, despite an April Montana Supreme Court ruling that found an interim committee’s review was not called for in this specific case.
Neither Democratic lawmakers nor CI-128’s sponsor group, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, participated in the Thursday hearing, respectively calling it a “sham” and “political theater.”
Without supporters present, the more than two dozen members of the public who testified against the proposal dominated Thursday’s proceedings, leading Republican leadership to declare a moral victory.
—Mara Silvers
Another Wrinkle in Sheehy’s Shooting Story
New reporting from the Washington Post has raised more questions about the genesis of the bullet wound in Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s arm.
The Post obtained documents showing that Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who is vying to defeat Democratic incumbent Jon Tester this fall, apologized to the National Park Service after he said a gun in his possession at Glacier National Park fell and discharged in 2015.
“As a highly trained and combat experienced wounded veteran, I can assure you this was an unfortunate accident and we are grateful no other persons or property were damaged,” Sheehy said in a statement that the Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. “Due to my ongoing security clearance and involvement with national defense related contracts, I request leniency with any charges related to this unfortunate accident.”
The Post also obtained an incident summary from the National Park Service that said an unidentified park visitor had reported an accidental discharge at Logan Pass, which differs from the version of events Sheehy had previously given the Post. In Sheehy’s telling, law enforcement had first contacted Sheehy while he was at a hospital receiving treatment for wounds he said he received in a fall. The distinction adds a wrinkle to a statement Sheehy previously provided to the Post claiming that he received the gun wound during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2012, but didn’t report it to superiors because he feared it would trigger an investigation into his platoonmates, and that he mentioned the wound to hospital staff because he feared his fall had dislodged the bullet.
In a new statement to the Post, an attorney for Sheehy questioned the existence of the visitor mentioned in the park summary and argued that hospital staff notified the park of the discharge.
The Post first reported these elements of Sheehy’s record earlier this month, when it revealed that Sheehy had been cited by the park service in 2015 for discharging a weapon in a national park. The story documented that Sheehy has shared multiple inconsistent accounts of his gun wound, which he now often touts on the campaign trail as having been acquired during his military service. Sheehy has a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, both from unrelated incidents.
Sheehy told the ranger at the time that he accidentally shot himself when the gun fell and discharged while he was loading his vehicle, but later told the Post he fabricated that story to protect his platoonmates.
Sheehy is appearing at a Lincoln Reagan Dinner hosted by the Yellowstone County Republican Party on Friday.
—Arren Kimbel-Sannit
SB 442 Veto Override Deadline is Here
The deadline for lawmakers to provide responses to a veto override poll that determines the fate of a 2023 marijuana tax revenue allocation measure was 5 p.m. Thursday evening.
Senate Bill 442, sponsored by Sen. Mike Lang, R-Malta, passed the Legislature last year with near unanimous support. The bill would allocate tax revenues from the state’s legal marijuana program to conservation programs, veteran services and local infrastructure.
But Gov. Greg Gianforte vetoed the bill on the last day of the legislative session. The timing of the veto made it effectively impossible for lawmakers to override his veto during the session, kicking off complex litigation that eventually resulted in a court order compelling the state to allow lawmakers the opportunity to override the veto via mail poll. Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, who is responsible for administering the by-mail override process, issued the poll on March 19.
At least 100 lawmakers — two-thirds of the Legislature — must reply to the poll in the affirmative to override Gianforte’s veto of the bill. Non-responses are counted as “no” votes.
Whether lawmakers will reach that margin is an open question at the time of publication, despite the urging of Lang and interest groups that supported the bill.
Several Republican senators, many of whom voted for the bill during the session, have now said they will not support the override effort because they disagree with the judge’s ruling in the case.
“We are at a crossroads,” Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, wrote last month in a letter co-signed by 27 other GOP senators. “We believe the judicial branch has issued an order which not only violates the principles of the separation of powers, but our own legislative rules as well. We do not believe the Executive Branch has the authority to conduct an action on a bill that is in the Legislature’s possession … The legislature will not participate in an unconstitutional poll.”
—Arren Kimbel-Sannit
On Background
Sheehy apologized and asked for leniency after alleged 2015 gun incident: The Washington Post has published more details in the saga of Tim Sheehy’s 2015 trip to Glacier National Park.
Secretary of State issues veto override poll on long-in-limbo marijuana revenue measure: Montana Free Press was first to report that Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen issued a veto override poll for SB 442 last month. Now, the deadline for lawmakers to respond to the poll has arrived.
Republicans vote to oppose constitutional abortion rights measure: Republican lawmakers touted the lack of involvement by supporters of an abortion rights ballot initiative in a Thursday legislative hearing as a moral victory.