A billboard promoting Democrat Jon Tester for Senate re-election in November, in Great Falls, Mont., on Oct. 2. If Tester loses to political newcomer Tim Sheehy, Republicans will be poised to take command of the Senate, whose authority over key appointments gives it considerable power to shape the country’s courts and the federal Cabinet.TAILYR IRVINE/The New York Times News Service
A pickup pulled a trailer with hay-bale seating through the streets of Poplar, Mont., this week, picking up dozens of people and delivering them to the Medicine Bear Complex, where the Fort Peck Tribes have their headquarters.
Inside, many of those who rode in on the hay bales registered to vote, and then cast ballots.
If past experience is a guide, the overwhelming majority will be marked for Jon Tester, the three-time Montana Democratic Senator whose seat may determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. If he wins re-election in the country’s general election on Nov. 5, Democrats stand a better chance of maintaining control over the upper chamber. If he loses to political newcomer Tim Sheehy, Republicans will be poised to take command of the Senate, whose authority over key appointments gives it considerable power to shape the country’s courts and the federal Cabinet.
The size of the stakes is reflected in the scale of money pouring in. More than US$225-million has already been spent on the race, in a state with fewer than a million voters.
The hay ride circling through Poplar represents what might be Mr. Tester’s best chance of holding on to the seat against Mr. Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy Seal endorsed by Donald Trump who is campaigning on a platform of ending illegal immigration, restricting abortion and upholding gun rights.
Native Americans make up about 6.5 per cent of Montana’s population. In the past election, some Indigenous precincts voted for Mr. Tester by a margin of 27 to one. Democrats have devoted some of their spending in the state to securing as many of those votes as they can. In some places, activists are holding community feeds where people can eat Indian tacos and cast absentee ballots. Lawyers are fighting for additional voting locations on reservations.
And political strategists crunching numbers are calculating scenarios where the outcome of a pivotal race comes down to the ballots cast by the Assiniboine, Sioux, Blackfeet and other Indigenous peoples of the state.
“I don’t think there’s ever been an effort like this in Montana for the Native vote,” said Tom Rodgers, a Blackfeet lawyer who has fought for voting rights protection in Montana.
Polls suggest a Democratic victory is a faint hope. Mr. Sheehy has a lead of seven to eight points. Even a historic turnout of Indigenous voters, if current numbers hold, would struggle to overcome the margin of support for the Republican candidate.
But pollsters have traditionally had difficulty assessing the views of people who live on reservations, Mr. Rodgers said. He believes public opinion surveys have under-sampled Indigenous support for Mr. Tester.
Could Native Americans determine Montana’s Senate seat?
“You’re damn right,” he said.
Such an outcome, he said, would hold a special kind of poetic resonance, since Mr. Sheehy has made controversial remarks about Indigenous Montanans. The candidate has said they were “drunk at 8 a.m.” and would pelt him with cans of Coors Light to show disfavour. Mr. Sheehy has since said those remarks were “insensitive,” but has declined to apologize.
“We don’t have to go to Birmingham, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi to experience overt racism,” Mr. Rodgers said. “You can go right to the great state of Montana.”
Mr. Sheehy’s comments have already produced a surge in Indigenous voter registrations, said Patrick Yawakie, whose company, Red Medicine LLC, does work under contract for the Democratic Party to boost Indigenous voter turnout.
Montana can still feel like “it is a cowboy-versus-Indian environment,” he said – only now the battles are at the ballot box.
But Montana is also in the midst of a change that has altered the makeup of the state’s population, part of a broader redrawing of the U.S. demographic map that was accelerated by COVID-19.
From 2009 to 2023, Montana ranked among the 15 fastest-growing states in the country. In the western areas that make up Montana’s first Congressional district – including Bozeman and other mountain cities that have seen considerable growth – nearly a quarter of all eligible voters this year have lived in the state for less than 10 years.
An analysis by L2, a company based in Washington State specializing in election data, found that in the past 15 years more than three Republicans moved to Montana for every two Democrats. The state’s age profile has also grown older.
Montana has always been a conservative state. Mr. Tester has by dint of his work and his unique background – unusually among high-ranking U.S. politicians, he still farms on weekends – carved out a place for himself. But his wins have been narrow. Demographic changes are tilting the balance away from him.
“We’re being marketed by real estate agents as one of the last states with freedom. ‘You should move to Montana if you want to avoid the restrictions of the woke bureaucracy,’ ” said David Hunter, a prominent Democrat in Montana who has managed several gubernatorial campaigns.
At the same time, the vast sums of money coursing through the American political system have narrowed the scope of discussion. Voters are bombarded by messages from national political action groups. Local concerns no longer hold the sway they once did.
In the past, successful politicians in Montana “had to be almost an independent first and a member of their party second. That’s changing quite a bit,” said Eric Stern, a Democratic political strategist who was campaign manager for Brian Schweitzer, governor of Montana from 2005 to 2013.
“All politics is now national to me – unless you have some reason for there to be a large exception.”
What that means, he said, is that Mr. Tester is an underdog.
Still, if the election proves closer than the polls currently show, the Indigenous vote could, he said, “be a game changer.”
For a small group of lawyers and activists seeking to increase Indigenous voting, that possibility has added motivation to push back against what they see as unfair impediments.
The hay ride, for example, delivered voters to a satellite registration and voting office that was only opened in Poplar after the filing of a lawsuit demanding that Indigenous communities be provided equal rights to vote.
But ensuring access is provided continues to be difficult even as the potential electoral importance of Indigenous votes continues to grow, said Bret Healy, a lawyer who is a consultant with Four Directions, a Native American voting rights advocacy group
“In most of these reservations in Montana, you have to plan your vote a whole lot more than the white people do,” he said.