Joseph Simonson of the Washington Free Beacon highlights one Democratic U.S. Senate candidate who’s not thrilled about the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris on the party’s presidential ticket.
One would believe from media reports that Vice President Kamala Harris’s rise sparks nothing but “joy” among Democrats. In one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races, the new presidential ticket is nothing but a headache.
Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), who many believed cracked the code of how to win elections as a Democrat in a deep-red state, is on his back feet. Since President Joe Biden ducked out of his reelection race, the self-fashioned “straight talker” is largely absent from the campaign trail and hasn’t offered any thoughts on his party’s presidential nominee.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s rise has forced an electoral recalibration for Republicans and vulnerable incumbents such as Tester, who has tried to convince Montana voters that he routinely stood up to Biden. The timing for Tester could hardly be worse, as an Emerson College poll released Thursday found Montana Republican businessman Tim Sheehy pulling ahead of Tester. Private focus groups, according to Republicans in the state who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon on the condition of anonymity, show Harris is more unpopular in the state than Biden.
If joy was anywhere to be found in Montana on Friday, it was at a rally in Bozeman. National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) brought former president Donald Trump to town for a show of unity. Trump, who won the Treasure State by 16 points in 2020, was introduced by a series of Montana Republicans who could not be less delighted about Harris. Their message was consistent: Tester has betrayed Montana voters and would rubber-stamp a President Harris agenda.
“When we heard that Kamala was going to be the replacement, we said, ‘That’s good for Tim Sheehy,'” Daines told the Free Beacon.
