Jon Tester is calling for ticket splitting in a Montana Senate race that appears to be slipping away

Jon Tester is calling for ticket splitting in a Montana Senate race that appears to be slipping away

Sheehy has avoided interviews with local and national reporters, and there is little evidence of a significant grassroots campaign. The Montana Republican Party’s website lists only three events for the entire month of October, and none of them include Sheehy’s event. Sheehy’s events are by invitation only and are not open to the media. His campaign did not accept repeated requests to interview him or to cover an event in which he would speak with voters.

An invitation obtained by NBC News showed Sheehy was raising money in Texas this week.

However, Daines said Sheehy is connecting with voters and that his isolated strategy is working.

He’s been to every Montana county, and he’s gone out to the grassroots. The handshake is working well for Tim Sheehy now, Daines said. “When he organizes events, I see a turnout unlike anything I saw when I ran and unlike any other candidate I’ve seen.”

Tim Sheehy in Bozeman on January 18. Louise Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images File “If they lose it, it will be gone.”

Montana is one of only five states with cross-party senators, and that number is sure to decline in this election. The question is how much. The possibility of Tester losing in November has raised questions about Democrats’ ability to win elections in Montana in today’s increasingly polarized political landscape, especially with changing voters.

“Montana has definitely moved to the right in terms of how they vote,” Daines said.

“When I first ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, there was one Republican elected statewide and seven Democrats elected statewide,” he said. “Today, eight of Montana’s nine primary officeholders are Republicans.”

Pepper Peterson, a longtime Montana political activist and strategist, described the Senate race as “a race for the political science books,” likening the transformation he sees in Montana to what he saw working with Democrats in Tennessee in the early 2000s. If Republicans win, “Democrats will probably be dead for 16 years in Montana or so, maybe longer,” Peterson said.

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