Democrats have a new pep in their step for one of their most at-risk Senate seats this cycle, but it's not because of Vice President Kamala Harris .
Enshrining abortion rights into Montana’s constitution will come before voters in Big Sky Country this November after receiving enough signatures to appear on the ballot, buoying Democrats' hopes that it will help Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who is running for a fourth term in a state former President Donald Trump won by 16 points in 2020.
“It's going to allow us to not only bring people to the polls to vote on an issue that they care very deeply about, but at the same time, when they're voting for the Senate, they're going to see exactly where those folks are on that issue,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), chairman of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, told reporters at the party’s convention in Chicago.
Montana is just one of several states where protecting abortion access will also be on the ballot, joining Senate battlegrounds such as Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.
Peters pointed to 2022, when voters in battleground Michigan turned out in an off-year election to add abortion protection to the state’s constitution as evidence that the ballot measures can aid Democratic candidates.
In a post-Roe v. Wade era, voters in Ohio and Kansas in off-year elections have also approved constitutional measures for abortion access.
“People are going to turn out, and those young people are going to turn out just like we saw in Michigan, just like we saw in places like Ohio, when they had it on the ballot,” Peters said. “Like we saw in Kansas, of all places.”
Republicans are scoffing at such a notion, particularly in ruby-red Montana. Polling suggests former Navy SEAL and Republican Senate nominee Tim Sheehy has, in recent months, overcome Tester’s once-marginal lead and is now an average of roughly 2 points ahead, though still within the margin of error.
Republican operatives hope support will also be siphoned from Tester thanks to Green Party candidate Robert Barb, who joined the race this week despite state Democrats reportedly pressuring him to stay out.
Democrats face an unfavorable Senate map in November that requires them to keep all of their seats to have a shot at keeping their majority. They maintain the advantage in Arizona, Nevada, and a third state, Maryland, but Tester’s “toss-up” race in Montana is the most at-risk.
Like some other vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection, Tester skipped the Democratic National Convention this week as he continues a delicate dance with the top of his party’s ticket.
He distanced himself when Biden was the presumptive nominee and has subsequently tried to avoid discussing Harris entirely after initially proposing an open convention.
The third-generation dirt farmer and third-term senator, who has not endorsed Harris, stayed in Montana this week to host a “ Rock on with Jon ” fundraiser in Missoula with the band Pearl Jam.
“Mine isn’t the important one, it’s the one at the top,” Tester told the Missoulian , marking the warmest, though indirect, comments he's made about Harris. “There’s a lot at stake here. There’s democracy at stake, there’s rural America at stake, there’s how we treat one another at stake.”
Republicans were quick to brand his comments as a tacit endorsement.
“Jon Tester’s numbers are spiraling because he admitted his top priority is electing far-left radical Kamala Harris, not helping Montanans,” Maggie Abboud, a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, told the Washington Examiner. “Tester’s lockstep support for the Harris-Biden agenda of open borders, high prices, and high crime is quickly coming back to haunt him.”
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Peters downplayed Tester’s absence from the DNC as unsurprising given the campaigning he must do before November.
“Quite frankly, if you’re in a big campaign, you probably should be in your state campaigning,” Peters told the Washington Examiner. “I'm pretty sure that all the delegates that are here are already voting for our candidates.”
Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.
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