Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) told Montanans during a recent debate with his Republican opponent that “this is a very important election coming up because Montana values are on the line.”
Tester is facing high-tech entrepreneur and former Navy SEAL combat veteran Tim Sheehy in November.
The two-term Democratic lawmaker from Montana then extolled his home state as a place for traditional American values “where your word is your bond and a handshake means something because the truth matters.”
Tester said Montanans should be able to raise families, develop a work ethic, and send their kids to college, and that those kids should be able and eager to return to their home state.
Another Senate candidate running in a state that is deeply controlled by the opposite party is former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. The Republican is challenging Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, county executive in Prince George’s County in suburban Washington, who is making her first run for statewide elected office. The winner of their general election contest will succeed the retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).
Tester in Montana and Hogan in Maryland are running in two of the most watched Senate races that could reshape Congress in 2025.
That’s because with the Senate currently controlled by a coalition of 47 Democrats and four independents, Democrats could lose their majority in the upper chamber of Congress if the GOP manages to flip two more seats.
Tester is seeking his fourth six-year term in the Senate, having first been elected in 2006. His 17 years in office make him the 25th most senior member of the upper chamber.
He is Montana’s lone Democrat elected to a statewide position, as Republicans hold the governorship, the state’s other Senate seat, both U.S. House seats, and state legislative majorities.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) arrives for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security hearing at the U.S. Capitol on April 10, 2024. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
In short, Montana is not the same state that, in the recent past, returned Democrat Sen. Max Baucus to Congress six times and former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield 12 times, from 1953 to 1977.
Competitor and Republican candidate Sheehy, who grew up in Minnesota, is making a centerpiece of his campaign what he sees as the huge gulf between Montana values and the Biden–Harris policies that Tester has supported with his votes in the Senate.
“Montanans want the common sense our country needs, but Jon Tester actively stands against, including safe streets, secure borders, cheap gas, cops are good and criminals are bad, boys are boys and girls are girls,” Sheehy told The Epoch Times.
U.S. Senate candidate for Montana Tim Sheehy speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Tester’s success in attracting campaign donors does have some downsides, however.
The July 25 national fundraising appeal from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), for example, featured incumbent senators Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, plus Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who is seeking to succeed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).
There was no mention of Tester in the appeal that described the four Democrats as being in “neck-to-neck” races. His supporters say that absence indicates that Washington Democratic strategists aren’t worried, while Sheehy’s advocates suggest those strategists see Tester heading for big trouble on election day.
In any case, the next DSCC email fundraising appeal on July 28 added Tester to the group of incumbent Democrats facing tough reelection contests. Prominently featured in the appeal was former President Barack Obama, the party’s most prolific fundraiser.
A Republican in Deep Blue Maryland
As strongly Republican as Montana is, Hogan faces in Maryland one of the nation’s most deeply entrenched Democratic machines. There are no Republicans elected statewide and only one, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), representing a congressional district. Both chambers of the state assembly in Annapolis have veto-proof Democratic majorities.
Larry Hogan, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Maryland, arrives at the polling station to cast his ballot in the state primary election in Davidsonville, Md., on May 14, 2024. Hogan served as the governor of Maryland from 2015 to 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The last time Maryland sent a Republican to the Senate was in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter was in office and Sen. Charles Mathias won his third and final term.
Hogan, however, won election as Maryland’s chief executive twice, in 2014 and 2018. He was first elected largely on a promise to cut Maryland’s heavy tax load, and he managed to persuade the heavily Democratic state Legislature to accept his reductions. A serious bout with a life-threatening cancer in 2015 hobbled his agenda. He has fully recovered from the cancer.
Hogan has remained popular among Maryland voters and even considered making a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination as a moderate alternative to former President Donald Trump. After opting out of that contest, Hogan easily won the GOP Senate nomination.
Hogan’s opponent, Alsobrooks, is a new Democrat face on the national political scene.
Alsobrooks is a progressive liberal who is currently the county executive of Prince George’s County and is making her first statewide campaign for office. She won her party’s nomination despite being outspent 10 to one by Rep. David Trone (D-Md.). Polling conducted just before Alsobrooks defeated Trone in the Democratic primary saw Hogan leading both of his then-prospective opponents.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Maryland Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate, Angela Alsobrooks, stand together on stage at a campaign event at the Kentland Community Center in Landover, Md., on June 7, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Biden led Trump by 26 points in Maryland in the same PPP survey released a few weeks before the political upheaval that prompted the incumbent’s decision to withdraw from his reelection effort. But Trump has significant support in the Eastern Shore counties that make up the state’s lone Republican-held congressional district.
Mr. Hogan dismissed the PPP results and pointed to a more recent internal survey conducted for the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee that put him 6 points up on his Democratic opponent.
Hogan said he “expects a very tough race because [Maryland is] arguably the bluest state in the country,” noting that Trump lost Maryland by more than 30 points in both 2016 and 2020. He said he has not spoken with the GOP presidential nominee but he acknowledged being “surprised” by the former president’s unsolicited endorsement.
“In order to win Maryland, usually if you are a Republican you have to win nearly all of the independents and a third of the Democrats and that’s what I’ve done twice,” Hogan said.
The Epoch Times repeatedly requested comment from Alsobrooks’s campaign media office but received none.
