Montana Senate hopeful Matt Rosendale bizarrely touts 'heartfelt' support from Democrats pouring millions to try and knock out Trump-backed candidate Tim Sheehy in hotly-contested GOP primary race

• Rep. Rosendale launched his GOP bid for the Montana Senate seat last week
• Trump endorsed Rosendale’s opponent as the ‘best-positioned’ candidate to defeat incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Tester despite close ties to Rosendale
• Rosendale’s campaign argued he would bring people over because he ‘delivers results’ in the purple state
• But Rosendale lost to Tester by 3.5 points in 2018 and Democrats think they have a better shot at keeping their seat against him in a rematch 

A conservative candidate running for Senate in Montana is bizarrely touting support from Democrats as he faces an uphill bid for the Republican nomination.

Rosendale jumped in the Senate race on Friday kicking off what could be a bruising GOP primary as he faces off with Trump and Republican establishment-backed candidate Tim Sheehy, a retired Navy SEAL.

Democrats currently have a one seat majority in the Senate and are facing an extremely tough challenge to maintain their grasp on power.

They are squaring off in one the biggest battlegrounds on the 2024 Senate map – the fight over Democratic Senator Jon Tester’s seat in Montana –  where former President Trump won by more than 16 points in 2020.

However, the long shot candidate doesn’t seem to mind adversity, and he is even publicly praising Democrats who have funneled money into ads to boost him over Sheehy. Because Rosendale lost to Tester by 3.5 points in 2018, Democrats think they have a better shot at keeping their seat against him in a rematch.

Rosendale said on the Voices of Montana radio program on Monday that he is stunned by the ‘heartfelt’ support he is getting from a ‘number’ of Democrats.

‘I have been really stunned at the people that have called me and contacted me that are known Democrats across the state of Montana that say ‘Matt, we’re supporting you. We are supporting you,” Rosendale said.

Rep. Matt Rosendale speaking to reporters in Montana on February 9 after filing to run for US Senate

Entrepreneur Tim Sheehy is the NRSC and Trump-backed candidate in the race to unseat Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester

His comments come as the Wall Street Journal editorial board called Rosendale’s Senate bid a ‘gift’ to top Democrat Chuck Schumer.

The board said Schumer’s ‘best hope’ of keeping the Democratic majority is to ‘divide and conquer the GOP, and Mr. Rosendale is enlisting to help.’

They suggested that Democrats believe they have a better chance of winning against Rosendale in the fall than against Sheehy.

At the same time, the New York Times reported that Montana Democrats have been ‘quietly’ running online ads to promote Rosendale by touting his conservative credentials – before he even jumped in the race.  The ads by the group Treasure State Truths.

It is a controversial move reminiscent to what was seen during the 2022 election cycle where Democrats boosted support for some farther right candidates in the primaries who their candidate would then go on to defeat in November.

The Montana Senate race is expected to be one of if not the most expensive this year. Montana has already seen more than $83 million in ad spending and reservations, according to tracking by AdImpact.

Included in that spending has been ads placed by the Last Best Place PAC, which has ties to Democrats. It registered with the Federal Election Commission last fall and has spent more than $5 million in ads attacking Sheehy and propping up Rosendale.

After his comments on Democrat support on Monday, Rosendale’s campaign doubled down, saying he is already looking at the big picture.

Campaign Manager David Herbst argued that Montana is an independent state, and Rosendale will be the candidate to bring people over because he delivers results.

Rosendale’s entrance into the race already has some Republicans raising alarms about the damage a combative GOP primary could do as Republicans looks to flip the Senate from blue to red.

Republican party leaders have already begun rallying behind Republican businessman and veteran Tim Sheehy.

National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chair and fellow Montanan Senator Steve Daines called Rosendale’s entry into the Senate race ‘unfortunate’ and accused him of choosing to ‘create a divisive primary.’

President Trump was quick to endorse Sheehy the same day Rosendale jumped in the race despite Rosendale’s close alliance with the former president.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote he had endorsed Rosendale in the past and would again if he ran for Congress, but the former president called Sheehy the ‘best-positioned’ candidate to defeat Tester and gave him his ‘Complete and Total Endorsement!’

In his launch video, Rosendale took aim only at President Joe Biden but also Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and ‘Washington insiders.’

Trump standing behind Rosendale at a rally in Montana in September 2018. The then-president endorsed the then-state auditor in his previous failed bid for the Senate against Tester

Democrat Senator Jon Tester is up for reelection in Montana in 2024. It’s a state President Trump won in 2020 by 16 points.

Tester, a Democrat and Montana farmer, has served in the Senate since 2007. In 2018 he was reelected beating then-Montana auditor Matt Rosendale by more than three points

Rosendale’s campaign also argued that conservative Republicans holding establishment Republicans accountable to their failures is not unpopular among Republicans but the opposite.

Herbst argued having a primary is ‘heathy for the party’ and there needs to be a debate about what it means to be a Republican.

But some Republicans have disagreed. They point to the last election cycle as proof.

In 2022, Democrats saw victories in multiple battleground states after Republicans held a series of nasty and expensive primaries where establishment-backed candidates were pitted against Trump-backed opponents and self-proclaimed outsiders for the nominations.

This is also not the first time Rosendale has run for the Senate in Montana. In 2018, he lost against Tester by more than three points in the general election.

His campaign believes there is a very different landscape in Montana for Rosendale this go round, such as him being better established statewide, Trump being on the ballot and new voters in the state, than when he ran for Senate in 2018.

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