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As Tester faces a cascade of daunting polls, Democrats hope his sophisticated ground operation, built up over several cycles,and an abortion rights initiative on the ballot will boost their candidate, who has campaigned on abortion rights.
“If Tester goes over the top, I think that will be what will do it,” Don Seifert, the former GOPcounty commissioner of Gallatin who supports Tester, said of the abortion rights initiative. Still, he conceded he is very concerned about his candidate’s chances.
Tester appears frustrated that the race is tight, telling the crowd in Butte that it “shouldn’t be.”
“He’s made a ton of mistakes. Just a ton of mistakes,” Tester said of Sheehy.
Sheehy has been dogged by reporting that raised questions about the origin of a gunshot wound in his arm that he once told a park ranger was the result of an accidental discharge in Glacier National Park and later said he sustained in combat. He has also been troubled by leaked recordings that revealed him disparaging Native Americans as drunks and young women as “indoctrinated” single-issue voters on abortion, as well as by questions about the financial health of his firefighting business that he touts as a success story.
Sheehy has hit Tester for taking campaign contributions from lobbyists, and he has also attacked Tester in personal terms, taking a page from Trump’s playbook. In leaked recordings of Sheehy’s campaign stops released by the Daily Montanan, Sheehy made fun of Tester’s “stupid” haircut, described him as “waddl[ing]” around the state and called him “Jabba the Hutt.” Trump and his allies have also gone after Tester’s weight.
“I think Montana is going to decide that Jon Tester is 350 pounds of B.S.,” said Zinke, one of the state’s two GOP congressmen, when asked to comment on the race while riding a horse at the Montana State University Homecoming Parade in Bozeman. “His record finally caught up with him.”
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