Big Sky showdown

MONTANA IS ONE of three states this year—along with Ohio and West Virginia—where Republicans hope to flip vulnerable Democratic U.S. Senate seats. Montana has not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, and the voting electorate has shifted sharply Republican since 2008.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has tapped former U.S. Navy SEAL and business owner Tim Sheehy to challenge Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term incumbent. Can a political newcomer beat Montana’s only Democrat holding statewide office?

Tester, 67, is a third-generation Montana farmer and a centrist Democrat: He campaigns on reducing inflation and helping the cattle industry. He supports abortion but balks at some gun control proposals and voted against providing a path to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.

Sheehy, 38, says he wants to battle “woke” policies and oust radical liberals. But for the most part, his message on the campaign trail sticks to job creation, privatizing healthcare, and transferring control of federal land to the state.

Yet Sheehy is not a lifelong Montanan. With Democrats deriding him as a millionaire “wannabe cowboy” who owns a ranch but runs an aerial firefighting company with government contracts, Sheehy will need to fight the perception that he is an outsider.

Another Montanan in Congress, two-term Rep. Matt Rosendale, had hoped to challenge Tester for the Senate seat. But after Rosendale launched his campaign Feb. 9, former President Donald Trump endorsed Sheehy instead. Rosendale canceled his campaign a week later.

No senior politicians allowed?

This June, a new ballot measure could make North Dakota the first state to implement an age limit for federal congressional seats.

The proposal would bar any North Dakotan from being elected or appointed to Congress if the candidate would reach 81 before the end of his or her term. Roughly 42,000 people signed petitions to place the referendum on the ballot.

American voters have expressed concerns about aging politicians. A recent special counsel report called President Joe Biden, 81, an “elderly man with a poor memory,” and former President Donald Trump, 77, has had memory lapses on the campaign trail. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 81, froze twice at public appearances last year.

But it’s unclear whether age restrictions not already named in the U.S. Constitution are legal. Any challenges to North Dakota’s measure could go to the U.S. Supreme Court. —C.L.