BOZEMAN, Mont. — After 18 years of trying to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, Republicans in Big Sky Country see potential victory and control of the Senate majority in their grasp in an increasingly bitter contest that is breaking campaign spending records.

Meanwhile, Montana voters are wearing out; They are influenced by negative advertising on their televisions, radios, phones and mailboxes.

Tester won by a narrow margin of 3,500 votes in 2006 and remained in office for three terms despite dramatic political realignment in the U.S. Northern Plains. Republican Tim Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and wealthy aviation executive aligned with former President Donald Trump, is facing what analysts say is his most serious challenge yet.

At the weekend Tester rally in Bozeman, Montana, where Sheehy held an event with Trump in August that drew thousands of people, the incumbent lawmaker’s crowd numbered in the dozens.

Outdoor guide and Tester voter Josh Olsen worries that as Montana’s population grows, his voters will become too partisan to support the grain farmer from the small town of Big Sandy, who is relying on a cross-party appeal to give him another term.

“I’m 100 percent worried about it,” Olsen said. “More partisan people are coming here… If they’re coming here and they’re Republicans, they’re voting for Sheehy.”

Tester, 68, took office as one of a half-dozen Democratic senators in a five-state district stretching from Nebraska to Canada. He is the last person still in office, and Republicans have spent years trying to chip away at his support, especially in rural areas.

Montana is one of the least populated states in the United States, and only a quarter of its residents live in cities of 50,000 or more.

“Except for Montana cities, Republicans made gains in most towns and rural counties,” said Jeremy Johnson, a political analyst at Carroll College. “This is a challenge for Democrats.”

‘Obscene’ amount of money

Republicans have a two-seat deficit in the Senate.

Democrats, eager to retain their majority, are on track to outpace Republicans in the Montana race by nearly $50 million. Total spending is expected to exceed $315 million, according to party officials, or about $487 for each of the state’s 648,000 active registered voters; this is a record for a congressional race per voter.

The cash fuels dueling ad campaigns with similar goals: To tear down the competition.

A Sheehy campaign ad talks about rampant corruption in Washington and calls Tester “one of the worst criminals.” A Tester ad labels Sheehy a “fake cowboy” and attacks him for lying about a gunshot wound to his arm.

Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot called the influx of money into the sparsely populated state “absolutely obscene.” It’s been more than a decade since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down political spending restrictions on corporations and unions.

“You can’t even stand to turn on the television,” Racicot said in an interview. “You’re constantly faced with this anger, the complaints, the slogans, everything that’s going on in these campaigns because there’s so much money involved. “This is disgusting.”

If Sheehy wins, a Republican-dominated Senate could disrupt the Democratic agenda if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House. Likewise, Testers’ victory could help Democrats counter the Trump administration’s actions.

Most of the money goes back to shady political committees with wealthy donors.

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed the lawsuit over alleged financial transparency violations by the Last Best Place PAC, a pro-Tester group that amplified some of the most incendiary claims against Sheehy. Another complaint from the advocacy group charges that a straw donor was used to hide more than $2.5 million in contributions to political committees, including one backing Sheehy.

It seems unlikely that the allegations will be resolved before the election.

Trump is on the ballot

Trump won Montana overwhelmingly in 2016 and 2020. The 2024 election was the first in which both Tester and Trump were on the ballot.

Sheehy’s campaign themes largely mirror those of Trump and the national party. He opposes immigration, inflation and social problems such as transgender children in sports.

Democrats want the Supreme Court to decide Roe v. in 2022. He tied Tester’s campaign to abortion and women’s health services, hoping that the backlash that followed his decision to overturn the Wade case, even in red state elections, would continue.

Tester distanced himself from Harris and other Democratic leaders. This political isolation reflects the gains the GOP has made over the past two decades with rural voters who once supported Democrats.

Tester’s campaign outpaced Sheehy’s by three to one, driven by small out-of-state donations after Democrats sounded the alarm about the race.

“Jon Tester has more money, but dollars don’t work,” Sheehy’s campaign said in a statement. “Montanans just want common sense: a safe border, safe streets, cheap gas, cops are good and criminals are bad, boys are boys and girls are girls.”

Lies and lobbyists

Sheehy, who had arrived in Montana a decade earlier and compared himself to early European settlers, sought to turn Tester’s tenure in the Senate into a liability.

Republicans claim campaign donations are flowing to Democrats from industries that need his vote. The tester has previously faced scrutiny over donations from bank executives affected by the 2018 rollback and Lockheed Martin employees who benefited from the 2021 defense bill. There is no indication that anything wrong was done or that the contributions affected the Tester.

With a donation of $500,000 this election cycle, he became the number one member of Congress to receive money from lobbyists, raising a total of $88 million.

Tester said in an interview after the Bozeman rally that he didn’t know who donated to him or whether any lobbyists were there that night.

“I have policies to write, people to join,” he said. “If it makes sense for Montana, I will support it.”

Sheehy is also showered with money from national groups. He received $109,000 from lobbyists and lobbied government officials himself, seeking work for the aerial firefighting company he had previously founded with his brother.

Sheehy has no prior political experience and has avoided in-depth interviews. He faced backlash over derogatory remarks he made to supporters about Native Americans and questions about a gunshot wound to his arm that he said resulted from a conflict in Afghanistan.

Sheehy told a Glacier National Park ranger in 2015 that the wound was self-inflicted. Ranger Kim Peach, now retired, accused Sheehy last week of lying by saying it was due to the war.

Peach later appeared in an ad by a pro-Tester PAC that she acknowledged was recorded weeks ago, although she told the AP last week that she was not affiliated with Democratic groups.

Republicans said Peach wasn’t trustworthy.

“He’s moving his story left and right because he’s a liar and a Democratic partisan,” said Mike Berg of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Tester said Sheehy had to release his medical records to resolve the dispute, adding: “Stolen courage is a big problem.”