Minutes after the polls closed Tuesday night, the election was called for Sen. Jon Tester, who had run unopposed in the Democratic primary. It did not take much longer for a conservative group to weigh in on Tester’s opposition to President Trump’s agenda.
“America Rising PAC has been tracking and researching Jon Tester for years to reintroduce his less than moderate record to Montana voters,” the group’s executive director Alexandra Smith said in a statement. “President Trump won the state by 20 points, yet Tester has opposed the Administration at every turn: tax reform, repealing Obamacare, and the Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination.”
Smith could have gone further. Tester was the only red state Democrat to vote against reopening the federal government in a largely party-line fight over immigration. He was also the only red state Dem to vote against Mike Pompeo for secretary of state.
That’s not how Tester portrays himself, however. His first ad boasted about the 13 bills he introduced that Trump signed into law. “Washington’s a mess, but that’s not stopping me from getting bills to help Montana signed into law by President Trump,” Tester says in the 30-second spot.
Nevertheless, the Republican nominee to challenge Tester — Judge Russ Fagg is narrowly leading state Auditor Matt Rosendale in the primary at this writing [Update 1:59 a.m.: Rosendale came back and won the GOP nomination] — will have ample opposition research material to work with.
Trump and his allies were especially incensed by Tester’s role in torpedoing Ronny Jackson’s nomination to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, which elicited a presidential tweet calling for the senator’s resignation.
“In Montana, we value integrity and support our president,” said an ad by the Trump-aligned America First Action. “But Jon Tester spread false information about a respected Navy admiral, helping D.C. Democrats derail President Trump’s Veterans Affairs nominee.”
Ten Democratic senators are up for re-election this year in states Trump won in 2016, including several in states that are as red as Tester’s Montana. That’s one reason that despite predictions of a blue wave, Republicans are actually favored to expand their Senate majority. But Trump’s influence isn’t just felt on those Democrats.
Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., was forced into a runoff Tuesday by primary challengers who emphasized her criticism of Trump after the vulgar “Access Hollywood” tape was released during the presidential campaign. She not only failed to clear the required 50 percent threshold but seems unlikely to break 40 percent of the vote.
Roby’s runner-up is former Rep. Bobby Bright — the Democrat she beat when she first took the seat in 2010. Bright voted for Barack Obama for president and Nancy Pelosi for speaker, but the newly minted Republican was able to make a race of it by running against the incumbent as a Never Trumper.
One Bright ad featured video of Roby calling on Trump to “step aside” as the nominee, saying she “turned her back on President Trump.” Bright’s campaign slogan is a play on Trump’s “Make America Great Again.”
“The NRCC congratulates Martha Roby on her strong finish in tonight’s primary. The results proved that Martha Roby fights for Alabamans first and gets results,” Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, of the National Republican Congressional Committee said in a statement. “We continue to stand behind her and are confident she’ll emerge victorious in the coming runoff.”
To be sure, there are plenty examples of when Trump imitators have lost even in Republican primaries while GOP primary voters have also turned a deaf ear to presidential endorsements and exhortations (just ask former Alabama Sen. Luther Strange). Lots of at-risk suburban House Republicans would love to be seen as independent from the White House. Tester, Roby, or both could easily be back in Washington next year.
It is nevertheless remarkable, and a testament to the political moment, that a recent Obama-Pelosi Democrat can get to a runoff in a Deep South Republican primary against a multi-term incumbent on the strength of Trump loyalty alone.
Even in an election year in which Democrats are favored partly because of an anti-Trump backlash, opposing the president is not without risk.
