HELENA – Montana’s race for the U.S. Senate comes to a close Tuesday after 18 months of twists and turns that included the departure of the Democrats’ political patriarch, a plagiarism scandal that brought down his would-be successor and the emergence of a political unknown.
Through all the Democratic upheaval of the past 1 ½ years, Republican candidate Steve Daines has kept out of the fray and stuck mantra-like to his campaign slogan.
“I campaigned on more jobs and less government two years ago, and I have the same positive, optimistic message today,” the first-term congressman said Monday.
Now the voters will decide whether Daines’ strategy was enough to earn him a victory over Amanda Curtis of Butte and the prize of a Senate seat that Republicans have not held for more than 100 years.
Curtis took a three-month leave of absence from her high-school teaching job in August to build a statewide campaign from scratch and travel nonstop to introduce herself to voters. She planned to make the most of every last moment of her short run by knocking on doors in Butte on Tuesday.
“There’s a chance I’ll be back in class on Thursday,” she said. “I don’t think that it’s in the bag, but I don’t think that it’s over.”
Republicans have eyed this year as their best shot in decades to take the seat since former U.S. Sen. Max Baucus announced in April 2013 that he would not run for a sixth term. The race was high on the list of national campaign watchers, too: With Montana and five more pickups, the GOP retakes control of the Senate.
The Democrats struggled to find a replacement for Baucus. Their top choice, popular former Gov. Brian Schweitzer, said no. That was followed by demurrals from other potential candidates, from education superintendent Denise Juneau to Emily’s List president Stephanie Schriock.
Finally, Lt. Gov. John Walsh stepped up and announced his candidacy in October 2013. Walsh was a career National Guardsman and the state’s adjutant general, and his only other run for political office had been on the ticket with Gov. Steve Bullock in 2012.
His military background and combat service in Iraq made him an appealing crossover candidate for the Democrats, but he faced a formidable foe in Daines, who had the name recognition and the campaign bank account to make him the instant favorite.
Walsh’s campaign received a huge boost in February, when Baucus resigned to become ambassador to China. Bullock appointed his lieutenant governor to fill the rest of Baucus’ term, giving Walsh the power of the incumbency and lifting him to a new level in campaign fundraising.
It all came crashing down in July, when The New York Times published a story that revealed Walsh had plagiarized large portions of a research paper required for his master’s degree from the U.S. Army War College in 2007.
Walsh came under criticism when he appeared to tie the plagiarism to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder he was suffering since returning from Iraq in 2005. Walsh emphasized that he wasn’t blaming PTSD for his mistake but that it might have had an effect.
He and his campaign tried to move on from the allegations, but couldn’t. Walsh announced in August he was dropping out of the race because the issue had become too much of a distraction for him to effectively campaign.
In October, the U.S. Army War College substantiated the plagiarism allegations and stripped Walsh of his degree.
Finding themselves with no candidate less than three months before the elections, the Montana Democratic Party held a first-of-its-kind special nominating convention. Delegates chose Curtis, a one-term state legislator and math teacher, over rancher Dirk Adams of Wilsall.
Time was against Curtis. She was only able to put up her first television ads in October, compared to Daines’ ads that had been running across the state for months.
Curtis’ big chance to gain ground on Daines came in back-to-back debates in Billings and Sidney in October, and she made the most of them. She tried to paint Daines as out of touch with working-class Montanans and called him an extreme conservative who advocated for corporate and moneyed interests.
By contrast, she called herself the candidate of the people and touted her and her family’s labor ties every chance she could.
Daines held steady in his calls for energy development and reducing government regulations that hindered that development. He also looked to support from traditionally Democratic voters, such as American Indians and labor unions.
While Curtis spends Election Day in Butte, Daines and his family planned to work the phones from his campaign headquarters in Bozeman.
“It’s a full-court press to the finish,” he said.