More than $225 million has been spent in Montana’s U.S. Senate race, with political action committees accounting for more than half, finance records show.
Through mid-October, political action committees have spent $137.3 million supporting or opposing incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy.
Total spending reported in the race surpassed $200 million when the candidates reported financials through the third quarter, completed in September. Tester’s disbursements totaled $69.6 million to Sheehy’s $19.3 million for the cycle through the end of last month.
Outside spending on advertising and voter outreach in the race has nearly tripled since the end of August, when total PAC spending was $44 million.
In the past week, as Montanans registered to vote absentee began receiving ballots, political action committees spent an estimated $3.8 million to send canvassers to speak directly to voters at their homes. Groups supporting Tester accounted for $3 million of canvass spending.
Tester, a three-term senator and farmer from the north-central Montana community of Big Sandy, is the Democratic Party’s last statewide elected officeholder. He has been underwater in polling since mid-July. Sheehy is a wealthy Minnesota native who relocated to Montana 10 years ago and started an aerial firefighting business, Bridger Aerospace, in Belgrade.
The big spenders on canvassing are Americans for Prosperity Action, and Your Community PAC.
Americans for Prosperity Action accounts for all reported PAC canvassing supporting Sheehy. The PAC is affiliated with billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, longtime financiers of conservative causes.
The retail push for Tester is led by Your Community PAC, whose largest donor is Sixteen Thirty Fund, a large nonprofit social welfare group that funds local and state groups focused on civic engagement, including voting.
There are 58 political action committees spending money in Montana’s U.S. Senate race. Just 14 groups account for more than $118 million of the total outside spending. Opposition ads account for most of the outside spending, with $50.1 million spent opposing Tester and $48 million opposing Sheehy. Ads supporting Sheehy totaled $17.6 million, to $13.1 million for ads supporting Tester.
Montana Free Press has summarized the identity and agenda of every PAC that has so far spent at least $1 million on Montana’s Senate race, sorted by descending amount.
LAST BEST PLACE PAC
Last Best Place PAC launched its Sheehy opposition campaign in September 2023, months ahead of its first finance disclosure deadline. Prior to that, the sources of its money were undisclosed.
The origins of the group’s finances remain murky. Last Best Place PAC has spent more than $25.6 million since September 2023 opposing Sheehy and about $1 million supporting Tester.
In September, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan election watchdog, filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission for declining to investigate Last Best Place PAC for running ads attacking Sheehy without filing a legally required independent expenditure report. The FEC had concluded that the PAC’s ads didn’t advocate voting against Sheehy.
The only person identified on Last Best Place PAC’s statement of organization is its treasurer, Dave Lewis, of Helena. It isn’t uncommon for treasurers to be the only person named in statements of organization.
Montanans may recognize Lewis as a former Republican state senator and the state budget director of former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. Lewis’ giving has not been constrained to party lines. He donated $1,400 to Independent Gary Buchanan’s unsuccessful eastern district U.S. House campaign in 2022. The PAC’s only contributor is Majority Forward, a “dark money” nonprofit that’s contributed $27.2 million without identifying its funders.
However, tax filings for Majority Forward show that the nonprofit’s president in 2019, the most recent filing available, was J.B. Poersch, and its board was populated by former staffers for Harry Reid, the Nevada senator who led a Democratic Senate majority for eight years ending in 2015.
Tax records show Majority Forward has also supported other players in Montana elections, including VoteVets, which also has a Sheehy opposition campaign, and Montana Native Vote, an Indigenous voter participation group.
Poersch is also president of Senate Majority PAC, an independently operated political action committee founded “to win Senate races.” There is no “Senate Majority PAC” registered with the Federal Election Commission. Officially, the PAC is registered as SMP, but its treasurer, Rebecca Lambe, signs off its SMP communications with the FEC as “Senate Majority PAC.”
Lambe is also Majority Forward’s treasurer and a former Reid staffer. Majority Forward has donated millions exclusively to Senate Majority PAC and Last Best Place PAC this election cycle.
Poersch is a confidante of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, of New York, according to The Hill. In 2010, Poersch directed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
MORE JOBS, LESS GOVERNMENT
More Jobs, Less Government is a PAC that’s spent $22.1 million in Montana’s Senate race, including $15.6 million opposing Tester. Among More Jobs, Less Government’s biggest donors is Stephen Allen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm which until July held a 22% share in Bridger Aerospace, the Belgrade-based aerial firefighting business founded by Tim Sheehy and his brother Matt Sheehy.
Schwarzman has contributed $5 million to More Jobs, Less Government.
Blackstone also owns the Wyoming oil and gas pipeline company Tallgrass Energy, of which Matt Sheehy is president. The PAC’s donors include Henry True, who lists Bridger Pipeline as his employer. Bridger Pipeline and Tallgrass jointly operate the Pony Express pipeline, which moves Bakken crude from Wyoming to Oklahoma.
Bridger is probably best known for its ownership of a pipeline that burst under the bed of the Yellowstone River upstream from Glendive in 2015. Bridger’s corporate parent is True Companies, a family oil and gas business. True family members have individually donated to Montana statewide Republican campaigns for years.
Other major donors include Kenneth C. Griffin. Griffin, who has chipped in $5 million, is the billionaire founder of Citadel, a Miami-based multinational hedge fund. Griffin made news in January for spending $5 million on a Super PAC backing Nikki Haley against Donald Trump.
Both Blackstone Group and Citadel are affected by the actions of the Senate Banking Committee, on which Tester is the No. 2 Democrat.
Another mega donor, Paul Elliott Singer, has given More Jobs, Less Government at least $1 million. Singer is a hedge fund executive who was profiled in ProPublica’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into a group of powerful billionaires who bankrolled lavish vacations and gifts for conservative Supreme Court justices. Justice Samuel Alito accepted an Alaskan fishing lodge trip paid for by Singer that ProPublica found would have cost the judge $100,000 if purchased out of pocket.
Later, when Singer’s hedge fund brought cases before the Supreme Court, Alito didn’t recuse himself. The judge also didn’t report the fishing trip to the Judicial Conference of the United States.
Craig Duchossois, whose family once had a controlling interest in Churchill Downs, is a $250,000 contributor. The Duchossois Group, a private investment firm, is the family business. Duchossois also serves on the board of the American Business Immigration Council, a group that advocates for labor-driven “common sense” immigration policy allowing “the integration of immigrants into our economy as consumers, workers, entrepreneurs and citizens.”
Marlene Ricketts of Nebraska is a $100,000 donor to the More Jobs, Less Government PAC. The Ricketts family, which owns the Chicago Cubs, became a target of Donald Trump for opposing his 2016 candidacy. Ricketts was featured in a 2016 USA Today article titled “Meet the woman funding the effort to stop Trump.”
WINSENATE PAC
WinSenate is entirely funded by the Senate Majority PAC. It has a $52.8 million war chest.
Recall that SMP is also the sole funder of Majority Forward.
However, WinSenate and Majority Forward share more than a funding source. The two PACs also share a treasurer with SMP, Rebecca Lambe, a former Harry Reid staffer who signs off on communications with the FEC for all three.
So far WinSenate has spent $15.3 million opposing Sheehy. Monthly fundraising reports for WinSenate show amounts of $5 million to $8 million being transferred to the PAC by Senate Majority PAC every week or so.
Reported expenditures show WinSenate spending $2.5 million every two to six days on ad buys opposing Sheehy.
SENATE LEADERSHIP FUND
The “white farmer” ads featuring a Big Timber area ranch family fretting about losing out on subsidies are paid for by the Senate Leadership Fund.
The political action committee is affiliated with Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky. Senate Leadership Fund spent just $430,000 through August but has now spent more than $17.8 million. The president of SLF is Steven Law, McConnell’s former chief of staff.
The $131 million fund’s top donor is One Nation, at more than $27 million. One Nation, whose CEO is Steven Law, is a tax-exempt 501(c)4 social welfare group that isn’t required to disclose its donors. The group’s treasurer is Patrick Krason, who was also treasurer of recording artist Kanye West’s presidential campaign in 2020.
Senate Leadership Fund’s other top donors are also major contributors to other PACs spending on the Montana Senate race. Kenneth C. Griffin, donor to More Jobs, Less Government, has donated $10 million to Senate Leadership Fund. Paul Elliott Singer, another More Jobs, Less Government donor, has chipped in more than $10 million to Senate Leadership Fund.
More Jobs, Less Government donor Craig Duchossois is a $3.5 million donor to Senate Leadership Fund, which also reports several million in donations from the petroleum industry.
AMERICAN CROSSROADS
Before “MAGA” became the Republican battle cry, there was the “Permanent Majority” associated with Karl Rove, the political strategist former president George W. Bush nicknamed “turd blossom.”
When the Republican majority of the 2000s was toppled in 2008, Rove began working on a PAC, American Crossroads, to retake Congress and the presidency. In 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled that money is free speech and couldn’t be constrained, American Crossroads was born. Open Secrets noted in 2010 that American Crossroads was referred to by some as the “shadow Republican National Committee.”
American Crossroads has spent $14.5 million on ads opposing Tester, nearly 44% of the $33 million it raised through September Receipts for American Crossroads through June show donations of only $345,000. The biggest donor was real estate developer Steve Wynn, with $250,000, and the Senate Leadership Fund chipped in $20,000.
There is connective tissue between American Crossroads and Senate Leadership Fund. The PACs share a street address in Washington, DC. Steven Law, former chief of staff for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, oversees both PACs, as well as One Nation.
AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY ACTION
Americans for Prosperity Action is the political action committee of Americans for Prosperity, affiliated with the Koch brothers. In one form or another, the group has been involved in Tester election runs since 2012, when, as a tax-exempt nonprofit with no obligation to disclose its donors, AFP launched the “Tester Truth Tour.”
The tour featured a school bus that Americans for Prosperity turned into a rolling campaign call center. The bus stopped at parking lot rallies where conservatives were presented with Tester’s voting record and then invited to hop aboard to inform other voters.
But the tour’s message was confusing because AFP, as a tax-exempt “social welfare group” under IRS rules, could only share facts about Tester’s record, not tell anyone to vote against him, or for his challenger at the time, Denny Rehberg, then Montana’s at-large Republican U.S. representative.
The tour’s merchandise table featured placards promoting Americans for Prosperity with no mention of Tester or Rehberg. Doing so would have cost the group’s donors their anonymity and required the group to pay taxes.
Americans for Prosperity Action, as a PAC, can make its candidate preferences known, and has at least $145 million in donations to do so. Its spending against Tester is $3.2 million so far, the third-most of any outside group. It has spent $5.8 million supporting Sheehy.
Top donors include Koch Industries, which contributed $25 million through June, and three members of the Walton family, heirs to the Walmart family fortune, who contributed $15 million in the same period. Members of Wyoming’s True family, some of whom also contributed to More Jobs, Less Government, chipped in $605,000 here.
Interest income totaling $2.5 million earned on AFP Action Inc. funds at Truist Bank ranks as the group’s ninth-largest revenue source.
MONTANA OUTDOOR VALUES ACTION FUND
No independent expenditures were reported by Montana Outdoor Values Action Fund until October, when the PAC reported expenditures of $4.6 million supporting Tester. The PACs biggest expenditure is on door-knockers to get out the vote for Tester.
The primary contributor to the PAC is the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, at $3.2 million. Our Children Our Future, a philanthropic nonprofit that contributes to several civic engagement organizations, including the Billings-based Western Organization of Resource Councils, contributed $25,000. Political consultant Jim Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and was chief of staff to longtime Democratic Montana Sen. Max Baucus, is a $10,000 contributor.
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
The DSCC is the campaign spending tool of Senate Democrats and is focused only on getting Democrats elected to the Senate. The committee identifies Tester’s reelection as a priority. At the end of August, the DSCC had $46.9 million cash on hand and had raised $173 million for the cycle. The DSCC didn’t show up in Montana’s Senate race until August, when it spent $561,308 on a media buy opposing Sheehy. By mid-October the group had spent $3.6 million opposing Sheehy.
NRA OF AMERICA POLITICAL VICTORY FUND
There’s a questionable expense by the National Rifle Association of America Political Victory Fund, which reports spending $442,651 in support of Tester, though in advertisements the PAC says the Political Victory Fund has given the incumbent a failing grade.
Nonetheless, the National Rifle Association of America Political Victory Fund has spent more than $2.5 million on the Montana Senate race, including $1.3 million on messaging supporting Sheehy. The more than 16,000 reported individual donations to the PAC don’t exceed $11,000.
The National Rifle Association of America Political Victory Fund has been on the opposing side of Tester campaigns for years. The gun safety group Giffords sued the NRA political organization for allegedly coordinating ad spending with U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale in 2018 when the Republican attempted to unseat Tester.
SENTINEL ACTION FUND
Sentinel Action Fund is a conservative PAC with $15.6 million that’s focused on three candidates this election: Sheehy, Tester, and Bernie Moreno, a Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio running against incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Sentinel has spent $1.8 million supporting Sheehy and $290,053 opposing Tester.
Sens. Brown and Tester are the two highest-ranked Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee. Sentinel’s biggest donor, at $4 million, is Timothy Mellon, a billionaire former owner of the Pan Am Systems rail company and heir to the Mellon banking fortune. The second-largest donor, at $1.5 million, is Jimmy John’s fast food restaurant founder James John Liautaud. And Sentinel Action has three million-dollar donors: Interactive Brokers founder Thomas Peterffy, investor Thomas D. Klingenstein (who is also chairman of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank), and Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire founder of Citadel, who is also the largest donor to More Jobs, Less Government.
JEFFERSON RISING
Jefferson Rising PAC popped up Aug. 9, the day Donald Trump held a rally at Montana State University in Bozeman. It spent just under $19,000 on a media buy opposing Tester. The group’s $2 million in receipts are sourced to Timothy Dunn, CEO of Texas-based CrownQuest Operating, an oil and gas company.
By mid-October the PAC had spent $1.3 million in Montana’s Senate race opposing Tester.
MONTANA RURAL VOTERS (WORC)
Montana Rural Voters (WORC) is a Billings-based PAC that has spent $1.1 million on media supporting Tester and $192,054 opposing Sheehy. The PAC’s donors are exclusively dark money nonprofit groups that do not disclose donors.
The biggest of those dark money donors is Sixteen Thirty Fund, which reported $191.5 million in revenue in 2022 and has donated to multiple organizations and causes, including A Better Big Sky, Big Sky Voters PAC, Big Sky 55+, Clean Water Action, Forward Montana, Montana Budget and Policy Center and Montana State AFL-CIO.
A Better Big Sky, based in Missoula, is also the second-largest donor to Montana Rural Voters at $75,000. Tax filings for the group show donations to Montana Conservation Voters, the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana.
TRUTH AND JUSTICE FUND COMPANY
Truth in Justice Fund Company, is funded by 21 lawyers from across the country and another PAC, the American Association For Justice PAC. The group has spent $888,852 opposing Sheehy. Truth and Justice has spent $413,103 supporting Tester. The Montana spending is more than double the donations reported by the PAC because donations, reported quarterly, lag behind independent expenditures, which are reported within 48 hours.
The top individual donor is Michael Thornton of Thornton Law Firm, known for its work associated with mesothelioma, a deadly health condition caused by asbestos. There’s a history between Tester and Thornton. In 2016, a Boston Globe Spotlight Team investigation revealed that attorneys practicing for the Massachusetts firm were receiving “bonuses” prior to making donations of the same amount to federal candidates, Tester included. Such “straw man” donations, in which an actual donor passes money through another individual to skirt donation limits, are illegal. Thornton’s donation to Truth and Justice is $25,000. There’s no indication Truth and Justice is currently using a straw man donor scheme.
CFFE PAC
CFFE started spending money in the Montana race at the end of August, when it reported having raised $5.7 million. The PAC’s top donor is Pivotal Ventures, at $3 million. Pivotal Ventures is a philanthropic organization founded by Melinda French Gates to “advance social progress and expand women’s power and influence in the U.S. and around the world.”
America Votes is the second-largest donor at $1.3 million. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a key donor to WORC and several other Montana causes, is the third-largest contributor.
CFFE has spent $1 million supporting Tester.
