The Senate Democrats are heading for a tough election in 2024. The Democrats make up 23 of the 33 seats up for re-election in 2024, and they’re defending some seats in competitive states like Ohio, Nevada, Arizona and West Virginia.
The Democrats will put up a fight to preserve their 51-49 majority in the chamber… and Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer just got a huge boost from one red-state Dem.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester has announced a run for re-election, giving the Democrats all the advantages afforded by incumbency.
“I know that people in Washington don’t understand what a hard day’s work looks like or the challenges working families are facing in Montana,” the Democrat said Wednesday in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. “Montanans need a fighter holding Washington accountable.”
Tester has leaned on a folksy speaking style and populist-themed messages to overcome his Republican opponents in each of the last three elections. He narrowly prevailed each time by drawing independents while distancing himself from party leaders in Washington.
Schumer might keep his job as Senate majority leader, after all.
It's official. I'm running for reelection.
Montanans need a fighter that will hold our government accountable and demand Washington stand up for veterans and lower costs for families. I will always fight to defend our Montana values. Let's get to work.
— Jon Tester (@jontester) February 22, 2023
The state’s political landscape has shifted sharply since Tester was first elected amid a blue wave in 2006. He has been the sole Democrat holding statewide office since 2020, and former President Donald Trump carried the state by 16 points in the last presidential election.
Before running for the Senate, Tester, who still works on his family farm, taught music at an elementary school in the small town of Big Sandy in central Montana and was later elected to the town’s school board. He served in the state Senate from 1999 to 2007, spending the last two years as the chamber’s president.
But that career might come to an end in 2024. The National Republican Senatorial Committee apparently sees Tester’s seat as a pickup opportunity, and they’re reportedly running ads calling for Tester to “retire or get fired.”
The next Senate race could draw a fierce GOP primary contest between U.S. Reps. Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale. Zinke, who served as interior secretary in the Trump administration, said he will consider a Senate campaign against the vulnerable Tester. Meanwhile, Rosendale has declined to say whether he will run.
Rosendale, a committed conservative, tried and failed to unseat Tester in 2018, with Trump making repeated appearances in Montana on the Republican’s behalf. Trump won Montana by 20 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election and 16 percentage points in the 2020 election, but Tester defeated Rosendale by 3.5 percentage points amid a blue wave nationwide.
Zinke has criticized Tester for not standing up to his party in the same manner as Manchin, who got fellow Democrats to scale back proposed restrictions on the energy industry.
“He could have slowed the progressive wave,” Zinke said, according to the Associated Press. “He chose not to.”
Tester said he was comfortable supporting last year’s infrastructure bill and the Biden administration’s climate change legislation, and a spokesperson said Tester supports an “all of the above” energy strategy. Tester serves as chair of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where he sponsored legislation signed into law in August that expanded federal health care services for millions of service members exposed to toxic smoke from “burn pits” at military bases.
“The default position for most people in Montana is they vote Republican unless you give them a reason to vote for you,” he said. “I can’t be anybody else but me.”
In 2018, Tester was the only Democratic senator from a Republican-leaning state to win his reelection bid after voting against Trump’s Supreme Court picks.
He’s advocated for campaign finance reform but has sometimes ranked as the top congressional recipient of campaign donations from lobbyists, including in 2012 and 2018, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His campaign has raised more than $4 million in cash since his 2018 reelection and had almost $3 million remaining as of Jan. 1, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Tester has raised $4 million in campaign cash since his 2018 re-election and has about $2.5 million remaining.
Those amounts are dwarfed by the sums spent during Republicans’ prior to attempts to unseat Tester.
The $47 million dumped into Montana’s 2012 Senate election set a record for campaign spending in the state. The 2018 Rosendale-Tester race set a new record, $73 million, broken two years later with $145 million spent in former Gov. Steve Bullock’s failed attempt to beat Republican Sen. Steve Daines.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.