In one of the nation’s top Senate races, the top candidate may be a non-contestant.
The race to challenge Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana — already a heated battle with deep national implications and the acute intensity of a family drama — has increasingly focused on Rep. Matt Rosendale, an anti-abortion Republican who denies the elections.
Both parties are using him as a pawn in their electoral chess match: Establishment Republicans, who have rallied behind Tim Sheehy, a wealthy businessman, are trying to keep Mr. Rosendale out of the race, while Democrats appear to be helping him open up the road to its arrival.
Mr. Rosendale’s entry seems imminent. On Thursday, he said in a podcast that he had told Senator Steve Daines, a fellow Montanan overseeing the Republican Senate campaign, that he was going to run for Mr. Tester’s seat.
Such a move would complicate the plans of Mr. Daines, who is trying to avoid divisive primaries and the emergence of polarizing far-right candidates. Often endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, such candidates have won Republican primaries in recent cycles, only to fall short in general elections decided by moderate voters.
This year, Republicans have an advantageous map as they try to regain control of the Senate, where the races seen as most competitive are in two states — Montana and Ohio — that Mr. Trump won handily in 2016 and 2020. But the The Democrats who hold those seats, Mr. Tester and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, are both popular and experienced in navigating bumpy political terrain.
Mr. Tester has already beaten Mr. Rosendale once, in 2018. Since then, Mr. Rosendale has voted to overturn the 2020 election and, last year, helped cause chaos in the House when he and a small group of Republicans joined to to overturn their party’s speaker, Kevin McCarthy. He has also expressed his support for a ban on abortion with no exceptions.
The historic difficulty of defeating an incumbent like Mr. Tester, even in a deep red state, only adds to the urgency for Mr. Daines to avoid a contested primary that would force Republicans to launch political attacks on each other instead of the opposing party. .
It hasn’t gone well.
A super PAC that has supported Mr. Daines in Montana, known as More Jobs, Less Government, is preparing for Mr. Rosendale’s entry into the race by testing a series of previously unreported attack ads aimed at sowing doubt. for his conservative credentials.
As part of the tests, the super PAC sent Montanans a lengthy online survey that asks questions about issues and political candidates and also seeks information about respondents.
One question, reported earlier by The 19th, asks respondents for their gender and gives three eyebrow-raising options: male; wife, housewife; and woman, working woman.
The band has already spent nearly $1 million on Sheehy-promoting spots in Montana, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. In a previously unreported poll for the super PAC, conducted by Tony Fabrizio, Mr. Trump’s longtime pollster, Mr. Sheehy led Mr. Rosendale in a hypothetical primary, 48 percent to 24 percent.
In an interview Thursday on Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Mr. Rosendale said Mr. Daines had repeatedly pressured him to stay out of the race. He recounted that on one occasion, an ally of Mr. Daines — whom Mr. Rosendale described as a “political soldier” — asked a Rosendale confidant, “What is it going to take to keep you out of this tribe?”
Mr Rosendale said he had received a direct warning from Mr Daines in November 2022 to “tone down” and stop “making trouble” in the House.
Mr Rosendale said Mr Daines had told him the billionaires were “going to spend a lot of money against you”, adding, “What do you want me to tell them?”
On Mr. Rosendale’s replay of the debate, he responded that he would win the primary and those donors had “better saved their money for the general election.”
Asked to respond to Mr. Rosendale’s accusations, Mike Berg, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “It is unfortunate that Congressman Rosendale is blaming others for his fundraising challenges and the problem staff retention”.
This week, the NRSC ordered six-figure TV ads aimed at promoting Mr. Sheehy.
Last summer, more than three dozen Republicans in the Montana Legislature — including Jason Ellsworth, the Senate president, and Matt Regier, the House speaker — signed a letter urging Mr. Rosendale to run.
And in November, a Republican former state representative, Roger Koopman, accused Mr. Sheehy and his allies of trying to force party unity with “a variety of intimidating messages and veiled threats of retaliation.”
Montana Democrats, meanwhile, are quietly running a series of online ads that appear to promote Mr. Rosendale in the expected Republican primary, drawing attention to his conservative credentials — though the state Democratic Party disputes that the ads on Facebook intended to help him.
The social media spots are subtle and cheap, but they look like a controversial strategy used by Democrats in the 2022 cycle to help right-wing candidates they thought would be easier to defeat in a general election. Those bets worked in places like Michigan, where Democrats won a House seat by defeating John Gibbs, a Trump-backed candidate, and Pennsylvania, where Doug Mastriano’s marginal gubernatorial campaign lost by double digits.
Montana Democrats have spent about $27,000 promoting the spots on Facebook since last month, according to disclosures maintained by Facebook. The ads are produced by a group, Treasure State Truths, which has ties to a Democratic consulting firm.
Some of the Democrat’s Facebook ads focus on Mr. Rosendale, while others focus on Mr. Sheehy.
The Sheehy-specific ads directly judge the candidate or urge viewers to take action against him. “We can’t trust what Tim Sheehy says,” several spots say. “Tell Tim Sheehy and the out-of-state millionaires to stop hurting Montana,” says another.
But ads focusing on Mr. Rosendale are more apt.
One spot, for example, reinforces his support for banning abortion without exceptions by showing an opinion column praising the Montana Republican for his support.
The only line of text in the ad quotes from the column, saying that Mr. Rosendale “has always been an outspoken and dispassionate supporter” of abortion restrictions.
All points are marked with a disclosure identifying the Montana Democratic Party as the sponsor. Democrats said the Facebook ads were consistent with the messaging the party used against both Republicans.
On television, a super PAC that appears to have ties to Democrats has spent more than $5 million on ads attacking Mr. Sheehy. The group, known as Last Best Place, has not disclosed its donors. Politico reported in September that the group’s airtime had been bought by a company called Mountain Media Agency, which shares an address with Old Town Media, a Democratic campaign firm.
“Democrats are clearly repeating their cynical strategy of meddling in the Republican primary,” Mr. Berg said.
Hannah Rehm, spokeswoman for the Montana Democratic Party, said the Facebook spots were not intended to promote Mr. Rosendale. Republicans, he said, were overreacting to the ads because of the battle between Sheehy allies and Rosendale supporters.
“Maybe the call is coming from inside the house,” he said.
