MT-Sen 2024 Megathread: Unbeatable Titan Tester

[JMT]

Tester IN

https://twitter.com/jontester/status/1628372874879766528?s=46&t=wuEOJQ5C-H9z...

[JMT]

Sheehy officially in, endorsed by Dianes (and presumably the NRSC)

https://twitter.com/joshkraushaar/status/1673630932312502272?s=46&t=-r8JGlJn...

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/mattholt33/status/1674388082643042305?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4t...

[JMT]

I don't see Tim Sheehy as a strong recruit frankly. No one knows him really

I think he’s a high risk, high reward candidate. A little known candidate can potentially be a good thing; he has no voting record to attack and may have little baggage. That said, he’s untested, so he could totally flop. I guess we’ll have to see.

It’s pretty remarkable to me that Republicans don’t have any other solid candidates to recruit for this seat, given how Republican Montana is. You’d think Republicans would have a large bench of potential candidates here.

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1676589033227419650?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4tb...

[JMT]

I actually think Rosendale gets cold feet and decides to run for re-election to his House seat, where he’ll have no problem winning again. Rosendale has repeatedly tried to run for Congress (House and Senate). Now that he has a safe seat, why risk having a (potentially) competitive primary and a (certainly) competitive general election?

[JMT]

I’m still thinking Rosendale runs for re-election to the House. If he wanted to run for Senate, he could’ve announced already

[JMT]

I really don’t understand why Rosendale is waiting so late to announce, if he’s actually planning on running for Senate. If he had announced earlier, he would probably be the overwhelming frontrunner. But now, he’s allowed Sheehy to raise money and get his name out there. If Rosendale was always going to run, why wait??

I still feel like Rosendale may run for re-election to the House instead. But now, he may even have primary challengers for his seat, since some contenders have already announced.

https://twitter.com/reesejgorman/status/1748150599122661464?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

[JMT]

I really don’t understand why Rosendale is waiting so late to announce, if he’s actually planning on running for Senate. If he had announced earlier, he would probably be the overwhelming frontrunner. But now, he’s allowed Sheehy to raise money and get his name out there. If Rosendale was always going to run, why wait??

I still feel like Rosendale may run for re-election to the House instead. But now, he may even have primary challengers for his seat, since some contenders have already announced.

https://twitter.com/reesejgorman/status/1748150599122661464?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

Maybe he feels that he has sufficient money/name recognition to be able to afford to wait until late in the game to announce his entrance into the race - if that is indeed the case, it reminds me of how Steve Bullock also waited until the very last stage to officially enter the 2020 contest, which in his case worked out because none of the other announced candidates back then had anywhere near the same level of money/name recognition as he did (and he had been heavily promoted by political pundits in the mainstream media as the best possible Democratic candidate for that race).

I feel like it’s a bit different in Bullock’s case. There were no other credible Democratic candidates, and Bullock didn’t initially want to run for Senate. He had run for President first, and claimed to have no interest in the Senate. Bullock needed to be convinced to run for Senate by party leaders, and (perhaps reluctantly) decided to run at the last minute.

Rosendale, on the other hand, does have a strong primary opponent in Sheehy. Additionally, Rosendale has long shown an interest in the Senate (running in 2018, and toying with a 2024 run for well over a year) and Washington more generally (he ran unsuccessfully for the House in 2014 and was eventually elected in 2020).

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/andrewdesiderio/status/1755555306157789242?s=46&t=-r8JGl...

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1755582957035671954?t=59Am0D7L1mxFyUO_1w8dR...

lol

https://twitter.com/jakesherman/status/1755583692129382744?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4...

[JMT]

lol, Johnson is a joke

https://twitter.com/mzanona/status/1755635964217573452?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno4tbLk...

[JMT]

I still don’t understand why Rosendale waited this long to announce, and has barely fundraised. If Rosendale announced a year ago (or even six months ago), he could’ve denied Tim Sheehy the momentum he has now. Sheehy will raise way more money, already has endorsements, and may even get Trump’s support. Rosendale maybe could’ve prevented some of this by running earlier.

[JMT]

I don’t think it’ll happen, but it would be interesting if Ryan Zinke pulls a Lauren Boebert and switches to MT-02 (a much more safe R seat). And unlike Boebert, Zinke actually represented this entire “district” in the past (when Montana had an at-large seat).

[JMT]

This whole thing is just so odd. If Rosendale had announced a Senate bid a year ago, he’d probably be the frontrunner. Or if he decided to run for reelection much earlier, he would’ve easily won again. Now he’s jeopardized his house seat due to primary challengers. I just fail to see any logic here… what was Rosendale thinking?

I feel like politicians sometimes inexplicably do things that harm their own political careers. For instance:

-Matt Rosendale: see above
-Kyrsten Sinema: alienating her Democratic base and switching parties. If she had just voted like a generic Democrat, she probably would’ve been reelected this year.
-Victoria Spartz: announcing her retirement, alienating her colleagues, threatening to resign, then declaring to run again. What was that about??