Sen. Tester delivers pep talk in Polson

U.S. Senator Jon Tester, the lone Democrat representing Montana at the national level, dropped by campaign headquarters in Polson Sunday to pose for pictures and chat with supporters and volunteers who were heading out to knock doors on his behalf.

The Democrat is running in a very close and closely watched race against Republican Tim Sheehy that could decide control of the U.S. Senate in 2025.

“We go back a long time,” he said, recounting how he first won a seat in the Montana Legislature in 1998 by knocking on doors in a rural, largely Republican county.

The same strategy will work this time around, he told the crowd of supporters. “Spread the word of Tester, okay? If you can do that, I win.”

His visit was brief because, he said, he was headed to an event in Whitefish supporting reproductive rights.

“As you guys all know, we don't want the federal government, the state government, any government to tell us how to live our lives, especially with something as intimate as making your own health care decisions,” Tester said to cheers from the crowd.

One man, posing for a picture, teased the senator, “You look better on TV.”

A woman told him she had recently been to Red Lodge. “And by the way, I got two votes for you there.”

“I got you pegged for being involved in building 14 bridges in the state of Montana,” another voter told him. “Can you tell me if a Republican has ever built a bridge anywhere, whether it’s infrastructure or relationships?”

Tester briefly touched upon world affairs on the day before the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. “I tell people this is as dangerous a time as the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said. “China, Russia, North Korea, Iran – they're all connected and they're not our friends. And if we don't treat all those incidences seriously – and I don't like war any more than anybody else – but we have to have our deterrence ready to keep these people

from doing bad things.”

Asked about the issues that are flying under the radar this campaign season, Tester said Artificial Intelligence is at the top of his list.

“It's something that can do a lot of good, but it can do a lot of harm too,” he said. “That's something I'm going to focus on when I get re-elected. We've got to figure out how people can honestly see whether it's AI generated or the real thing, because right now with a lot of them, you can't tell the difference.”

Tester was first elected to the Senate in 2006, after serving in the Montana Legislature. He also taught music at the local elementary school. Now, between stints in Washington, D.C., he continues to work on the family grain farm in Chouteau County.

His opponent, is a multi-millionaire businessman and a former aerial firefighter and ex-Navy SEAL who moved to Montana in 2014. According to the Montana Free Press, he owns Bridger Aerospace in Bozeman, is a partner in the Little Belt Cattle Company near Martinsdale and owns two “luxury properties,” including a home at Bird Point, east of Polson, and another in Big Sky.

As to why voters should return Tester to the Senate, he said his history as a third-generation dirt farmer from Big Sandy helps him understand the challenges faced by residents of one of the nation’s largest and most rural states.

“You can have somebody that thinks they know Montana but really doesn't understand the challenges out there in health care, in our public lands, in a woman's right to choose, in the issues of distance,” he said.

“Or Montanans can rehire a guy who's basically lived 100 miles from the town he was born in his entire life – who has lived in rural America, who understands all those things about the value of public lands, why we need to have health care in these small communities – otherwise people can’t live there – and why Montana is a state that believes people ought to be able to make their own health care decisions.”