HELENA, Mont. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke told Montana Republicans Saturday they need to unite to win seats in 2016 while the senator and congressman work to stem President Barack Obama’s “overreach.”
About 150 Republicans gathered at a statewide Lincoln Reagan Dinner in Helena, celebrating the party’s 2014 victories and starting to gear up for the 2016 election season.
Daines won a U.S. Senate seat in November that Montana Republicans have not held in more than a century by defeating Amanda Curtis, a late substitution by the Democrats after Sen. John Walsh dropped out of the race.
He said it’s his job to continue to attempt to rein in what he calls Obama’s severe constitutional overreach on issues including immigration, the Affordable Care Act and his “war on energy,” especially in the coal industry.
“Our friends across the aisle, they are moving so far left, they are leaving the tribes behind and they’re leaving the unions behind,” Daines, of Bozeman, said.
Zinke told Republicans to keep their fights inside the locker room if they want to win the governor’s seat and other state positions in 2016.
“The time to fight is when you’re planning. When you’re on the field, it’s time to unite,” the freshman congressman from Whitefish said. “If we continue as a party to be divided, we will not win the next presidency nor will we win the governor’s office.”
Zinke defeated Democrat John Lewis for Montana’s lone U.S. House seat in November after Daines left to run for U.S. Senate.