Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is undoubtedly a top-tier 2024 target for defeat by Republicans. But political baggage attached to the two most likely GOP Senate nominees has some Republican political professionals concerned.
On Feb. 22, Tester said he is running for reelection next year. Coming from a red state, Tester is considered among the three most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbents, along with Sens. Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Joe Manchin in West Virginia. Tester, Brown, and Manchin top Republican target lists in the party's quest to overturn the current 51-49 Senate Democratic majority.
Yet the Montana race is dredging up bad memories for Republicans of the 2022 cycle, when poor general election candidate quality contributed to a disappointing election, with Democrats expanding their majority by a seat. Republican voters nominated candidates beloved by a base loyal to former President Donald Trump but who had limited appeal to more centrist and independent voters in November. They included losing GOP Senate candidates Adam Laxalt in Nevada, Blake Masters in Arizona, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, and Herschel Walker in Georgia.
Much of the 2024 political buzz has centered on Montana's two House members, Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale, and the negatives they might bring to a Senate race.
Zinke was interior secretary in the Trump administration and resigned from that position amid ethics investigations. Having returned to the House, Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, said he will consider a Senate campaign.
Rosendale, meanwhile, is one of the most conservative House members and was a leader in the ultimately unsuccessful effort to deny House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) the chamber's top job. Rosendale failed to unseat Tester in 2018 when he was state auditor. Rosendale has declined to say if he will run for Senate in 2024, but Montana political figures widely expect him to jump in.
Republicans are eager for another opportunity to unseat Tester in a state that Trump carried by more than 16 points in 2020. But Tester has proven an elusive target. Tester, as a state lawmaker in 2006, first won the Senate seat by beating an incumbent Republican senator. Tester then swatted away highly touted GOP challengers in 2012 and 2018.
The Montana Senate race could ultimately involve all four members of Montana’s congressional delegation, with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) in the driver’s seat at the National Republican Senatorial Committee working to flip Tester’s seat red. Recently, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm made it clear the committee is more willing to take sides in Republican primaries, with the quasi-endorsement of Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) in the Indiana Senate race, as soon as former Gov. Mitch Daniels decided not to run.
Montana is a top target for the committee, but it’s unclear what the strategy will be moving forward.
Tester, the Senate’s only working farmer, has been successful in depicting his opponents as not true Montanans. In 2018, Tester’s campaign aggressively tried to brand the Baltimore-accented Rosendale as an outsider, blasting his Maryland roots and calling him “Maryland Matt.” In 2012, the Montana senator attacked the character of his GOP opponent, then-Rep. Denny Rehberg, by highlighting his lobbyist ties and zeroing in on his 2010 lawsuit against the Billings Fire Department for the way it handled a wildfire on his land. Tester cast the lawsuit as a rebuke to firefighters in Montana's most populous city and across the state.
“Tester has been successful in winning elections against less-than-stellar candidates. I think the key here will be candidate quality on the Republican side and nominating a candidate who can’t just win the primary but can actually beat him in a general election,” said Republican strategist Brian Walsh. “He has been able to exploit the weakness on the Republican side in his last three elections. And so this will be a case for candidate quality for Republicans. It’s critical.”
Several GOP strategists contacted by the Washington Examiner expressed similar perspectives, with some even sounding the alarm about the prospect of Rosendale or Zinke running against the Montana Democrat. A recent poll from the Political Company showed Tester up by 5 points in a hypothetical matchup against Rosendale, and 6 points against Zinke.
“There is a concern among many Republicans that Rosendale, if he were to run, could blow it again like he did last time in 2018, and those concerns were amplified by that recent public poll that came out,” said a GOP strategist speaking on the condition of anonymity in an effort to reflect candidly on the situation.
“Some people think Zinke would be well served to build a little seniority in Congress and put some of those issues from the previous administration in the rearview mirror,” the strategist added.
A separate Republican operative made a similar assessment, saying Zinke has too many personal issues that can be exploited.
“You need someone like a Steve Daines or a businessman that doesn’t give Tester as much to shoot at,” the person said. “We need someone with a clean slate because if it’s a straight Republican versus Democrat race, Republicans are in a much better place.”
Not everyone is discounting Zinke's or Rosendale’s potential to beat Tester, with some Republicans pointing to the fact that both have courted voters in a large swath of the state in their most recent elections to the House of Representatives.
“Each of them represents half of the state. So, I think either one of them will be formidable,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “When you have a history of races that are this close and a state that is definitely red, Democrats need to be realistic, even privately, that this is going to be a difficult race.”
Senate Democrats, holding that slim 51-49 Senate majority, will be defending 23 seats in 2024. In addition to the red states of Ohio and West Virginia, which Democrats are trying to retain, the difficult terrain for them also includes seats in battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Many Democrats were relieved after Tester announced his intention to run again.
“For the folks who are rumored to be taking him on, it’s a tough road to hoe to beat Jon Tester. Many have tried and failed,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist. “Every cycle, he has beaten the odds and has a deep connection to his state. I would not bet against Jon Tester.”