Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is trailing his Republican challenger, Bozeman businessman and political newcomer Tim Sheehy, by five-plus points (50 percent to 44.8 percent), according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Even a poll earlier this month from the Montana branch of the leftist AARP shows Sheehy ahead of the three-term Democrat by six percentage points (51 percent to 45 percent) in a head-to-head matchup. Older Montana voters, according to the poll, favor the former Navy Seal by a whopping 57 percent to 40 percent.
Despite outraising and outspending the upstart 3 to 1, Tester and his nervous Senate Democrats have seen the critical — and costly — Montana race slide from a “toss up” to “lean Republican,” according to Cook Political Report’s recent pronouncement.
No wonder Tester, the lone surviving Democrat to hold statewide office in the Big Sky State, is eschewing anything to do with leftist Vice President Kamala Harris and her presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The Democrat Party’s manufactured dream team is running nearly 18 points behind former president Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, in a state expected to play a critical role in helping Republicans take back control of the Senate.
Tester has not only refused to endorse the far-left Dem ticket, he skipped last month’s Democratic National Convention altogether. Instead, he spent Wednesday evening of the convention, when Walz accepted the VP nomination, at a fundraiser with Pearl Jam’s bassist, Jeff Ament, who grew up in
