Businessman and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy has collected plenty of wealthy backers as he tries to unseat Sen. Jon Tester, the most vulnerable member of the Democratic caucus.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2024/10/10/here-are-the-top-billionaires-trying-to-keep-montanas-senate-seat-blue/
0:00 Introduction
2:26 The Power Of The Senate: What Could An Unseat Mean?
4:51 Protestor Groups Being Backed By Notable People
8:12 Who Are The Major Groups Backing Tim Sheehy?
10:51 These Powerful Billionaires Are Backing Tim Sheehy: Where Is The Money Going?
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Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2024/10/10/here-are-the-top-billionaires-trying-to-keep-montanas-senate-seat-blue/
0:00 Introduction
2:26 The Power Of The Senate: What Could An Unseat Mean?
4:51 Protestor Groups Being Backed By Notable People
8:12 Who Are The Major Groups Backing Tim Sheehy?
10:51 These Powerful Billionaires Are Backing Tim Sheehy: Where Is The Money Going?
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:07colleague, money and politics reporter, Kyle Kahn Mullins. Kyle, thanks so much for coming
00:12on.
00:13Always great to be here, Brittany. Thanks for having me.
00:17There is a really consequential race in Montana that could determine the balance of power
00:22in the Senate. And you have a report that really looks at the big money behind that
00:29race. So let's look into that. But before we do, before we get to the money aspect,
00:33let's talk about the candidates.
00:35Let's first talk about Democrat Senator Jon Tester. He's the incumbent. He is a Democrat
00:40in a red state. So what type of lawmaker is he?
00:45Jon Tester is really an interesting character. He's kind of this rural Democrat, this brand
00:50that you just don't have a lot of anymore. They used to be much more common across the
00:53West. And you just don't see that many anymore. He is, for example, pro gun rights, you know,
01:01pro very pro conservation, very poor voter security. But he also supported the Affordable
01:07Care Act, for example. So you have this kind of rural Democrat, kind of similar actually
01:13to how Tim Walz was when he was in the House.
01:17Tester before he went into politics, he was a farmer in Montana, and then he spent some
01:21time in the state legislature. And then he's now running for a fourth term in the Senate
01:28at the federal level.
01:30And his Republican challenger is Tim Sheehy. Who is he? What type of candidate is he?
01:36Sheehy is a businessman. He's a former Navy SEAL. He actually met his wife in the military
01:44as well. So he owns a ranch out in Montana. He and his wife moved there after they left
01:50the military. And he actually founded an aerospace company while he's out there with
01:54some of his veterans, with some other veterans out there. And so that's where he made his
01:59money in aerospace. That company is now publicly traded on the Hasdak as of last year.
02:05And now he's running for Senate. He's a pro-Trump conservative, kind of wears that Trump support
02:09on his sleeve. He's campaigned with Trump. That's kind of a contrast to Tester. Tester
02:13has not even formally endorsed Harris for president and has kind of tried to distance
02:18himself from the Biden and Harris administration. So definitely kind of an interesting dynamic
02:23there. Like you said, blue senator in a red state.
02:26That is a really interesting dynamic. And it could be because this race, like I said
02:30at the beginning, could really determine the balance of power in the Senate. We have seen
02:35close races nationwide. So how close is this one?
02:40This one's pretty close, although it's getting less close as the weeks go on. Tim Sheehy,
02:46the Republican challenger, has a small but pretty growing lead, reasonably growing lead.
02:53Last I checked, it was in the four to five points range. Tester has come from behind
02:56before and he's won races where it looked like he was going to lose before. So I wouldn't
03:01count Tester out. It's a small state by population, although a very big state, of course, geographically.
03:09It's going to be a really decisive one.
03:12So your report has a look at the billionaire backers behind Tester and behind Sheehy.
03:18So what are some of the motivations behind the ultra wealthy donating to this race?
03:23Why would one want to donate to Sheehy over Tester or vice versa?
03:27Well, the Tester campaign would tell you it's because the ultra rich want to turn Montana
03:33into their personal playground. That was the statement that they gave me when I reached
03:35out to them about their findings. I'm not going to speculate on the motivations of Tim
03:40Sheehy's backers. And I should say also that the Sheehy campaign did not respond to my
03:43request for comment. But what I will say is that I think whether you're a liberal billionaire
03:48or a conservative billionaire, the reason why you want to give money in this race and
03:53try to swing the results is because it, like you said, could decide the fate of the Senate.
03:58Democrats currently control 51 seats in the Senate. But Joe Manchin, the independent from
04:03West Virginia, talks with the Democrats. He's retiring. And so they're almost certain to
04:07lose that seat. So that brings them down to 50-50. They're starting at 50-50 going
04:11into the 2024 election. Montana, they do not control the Senate. They're on defense almost
04:18everywhere in the country. So unless they, you know, hail Mary pass, pick up a seat in
04:24Florida or Texas, which which seems pretty unlikely at this point, unseating Senator
04:29Rick Scott in Florida or Senator Ted Cruz in Texas, whoever wins Montana will control
04:35the Senate. And that could be said. Same thing could be said, by the way, for the
04:39other very close race where there's a Democratic senator in a slightly less red seat in Ohio.
04:44But Sherrod Brown there appears to have a bit more of a lead. So Montana really does
04:47appear to be the linchpin of a Democratic Senate majority.
04:51Let's first look at the incumbent Senator Jon Tester. What are some of the protester
04:56groups that billionaires are donating to?
05:00So we combed through a bunch of Federal Election Commission records for these stories. And
05:04we have one story up on Forbes.com about Sheehy and one about Tester and their respective
05:08billionaire backers. And essentially all of Tester's big billionaire backers, we looked
05:14at the top 10 for him. They are donating to the Senate Majority PAC, which is this big
05:19PAC that agglomerates money and then distributes it out across the country. So it's a kind
05:26of very centralized operation. They make decisions about are they going to be spending money
05:29in Montana or Ohio or Michigan or Nevada or all of them? How much? So that's kind of
05:35that. That's that's where the money is going. There's also some environmental groups that
05:39are spending in the area as well. Those tend to be some liberal environmental groups, I
05:42should say, that are backing Tester. But those are a lot smaller. But the big, big numbers
05:47here are going into Senate Majority PAC or SMP, as it's sometimes called, and then redistributed
05:53back out.
05:55I'm curious, what's the biggest number and who donated it? Who is the top billionaire
06:00don't donor to Tester?
06:02So the single biggest billionaire that we were able to identify is actually George Soros.
06:07He, you know, very prominent liberal mega donor. Yeah, head fun guy. He has been able
06:14to so what he did is he seeded his own super bag is to supervise democracy back at Democracy
06:19PAC to he just dumped a bunch of his money into there and then he distributes that money
06:23out. So those two PACs have given about 10 million dollars to SMP as of the latest filings.
06:29But I want to caveat this because Tester is actually a little bit interesting here. It's
06:34hard to know where all of the money that is backing Tester is coming from. The reason
06:38why is that his single biggest backer is not actually an individual billionaire. It's a
06:42stark money group called Majority Forward, and they have very close ties to Senate Majority
06:47PAC. But though because of the way they're structured, they actually don't have to disclose
06:52their donors. And so they've given something like 15 million dollars to Senate Majority
06:55PAC. They've also given millions more to a group called Last Best Place PAC. They're
07:01the sole funder of this PAC. And Last Best Place PAC, in turn, is the biggest outside
07:06spender that's spending in support of Jon Tester.
07:10So who are some of those other notable billionaires donating to Tester? How much are they donating
07:15and where are they putting their money?
07:18Yes. So, again, like of the ones we were able to trace, right, because that's the that's
07:22the rub here. And that's also the rub on the conservative side to some extent as well.
07:26Some of the other big ones you may have heard of. Stephen Mandela has given almost as much
07:30as George Soros. He's a hedge fund guy. He's given about nine point seven million dollars.
07:35Most of that has gone, again, that Senate Majority PAC. But Sullivan has also gone to
07:38a group called that is affiliated with the Environmental Defense Fund, which is a liberal
07:41environmentalist group that supports Democratic candidates. And then he's also given to the
07:46Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the DSCC, the official body that is backing
07:52Senate candidates for Democrats. Some other examples of folks that are backing Tester.
07:56You've got some some tech money in there as well. Reed Hastings. He made his money in
08:00Netflix. Jeff Skoll, founder of eBay and Vinod Khosla, who's a prominent venture capitalist.
08:06All these guys putting money largely into Senate Majority PAC, but occasionally some
08:10of them also sprinkle money elsewhere.
08:12So now let's move on over to the Republican side. Let's look at Sheehy's donors.
08:16You found the billionaires who have donated at least one million dollars in support of
08:20Sheehy since 2023. So what are some of the major groups backing him?
08:26So you've got a couple of major groups that are backing you. I'm going to go through three
08:28real quick. The first one you've got, the biggest one is a group called More Jobs, Less
08:33Government. It's the name of the PAC. It's a super PAC that seems to be solely focused
08:37on electing Sheehy. And it's spent over 11 million dollars in the race as of the latest
08:41filings. And I should also say a lot of these filings that we have were actually as of the
08:46summer. And we're expecting some new filings this month that could show dramatic changes
08:51in some of these numbers, because the spending really ramps up as we get closer to November.
08:57So the second group is Americans for Prosperity. This is a group that was started and largely
09:01funded by Charles Koch and his network of donors. That's a longstanding, established
09:09but conservative group. And then the third one is Sentinel, the Sentinel Action Fund,
09:13which is a group that's focused on Senate races across the country.
09:16And so you just mentioned the name, but elaborate a little bit. Who was the billionaire who
09:21donated the most to Sheehy?
09:24So the billionaire who donated the most to Sheehy, and again, there is this caveat here,
09:27is Charles Koch, but it's through this network that he has. The donations aren't actually
09:32coming in under Charles Koch's name. They're coming in under Koch Industries' name. That's
09:38his company. And under this group called Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, which is a group
09:43that he started, but that might not all be his money. That might also be some other groups
09:47that are putting money into that, or other people putting money into that group.
09:50So again, you have kind of this untraceable donors problem where you don't know exactly
09:53where the money's coming from. But these groups are so closely tied to Charles Koch that we
09:57kind of lump them together under his name. The other big donor here that I want to talk
10:03about is, and by the way, those groups have all given to Americans for Prosperity, that
10:07longstanding conservative group. The other group, billionaires that have given to Americans
10:11for Prosperity, the Walton family. They made their fortunes from Walmarts. You've got three
10:16of the Walton kids that have given millions and millions of dollars to Americans for Prosperity.
10:20The other caveat I want to note here, though, Americans for Prosperity spends across the
10:24country, and they are this longstanding, established conservative group. They're not actually huge
10:29Trump fans. They've spent a couple million dollars in the Montana Senate race. The vast
10:33majority of their money, over $31 million, has gone to supporting Nikki Haley in the
10:38Republican primary. They spent over $10 million opposing Donald Trump in the Republican primary.
10:42So again, this kind of illustrates this money. There's a lot of different flows, and it's
10:47important to recognize that just because the Kochs gave, you know, $25 million, Koch Industries,
10:53for example, gave $25 million to Americans for Prosperity, doesn't mean the $25 million
10:57is behind Tim Sheehy.
10:59So give us a little bit of a rundown here. Who are the other notable billionaires donating
11:03to Sheehy? How much are they giving, and where is that money going?
11:08So they're giving to these groups that are backing Sheehy, and some of them are actually
11:11donating to these groups that are more directly backing Sheehy, not like Americans for Prosperity.
11:16More Jobless Government, this big PAC, seems to be solely dedicated to electing Sheehy.
11:22And so, you know, this is a, this is, you've got a lot of Wall Street folks here, Ken Griffin,
11:26Stephen Schwartzman, and, you know, they are giving to More Jobless Government, they're
11:31giving to everybody that Sentinel Action Fund that I mentioned. And those groups in
11:34turn are spending on behalf of Sheehy, and they're spending a lot of money.
11:38One other surprise billionaire that I wasn't expecting to see when I was going through
11:41this list, Jimmy John Leotaud. He was the founder of the Jimmy John's Sandwich franchise.
11:47Not a Wall Street name. He's given $1.6 million to that Sentinel Action Fund that I mentioned.
11:52So maybe, but he's also a newcomer, relative newcomer to the billionaires list. So he's
11:56dipping his toe into politics as well.
11:59So a ton of billionaires donating millions of dollars into politics that is going to
12:04this race. So who has more money on hand? Do you know? Is it Tester or is it Sheehy?
12:12So again, we had this caveat that the filings for these aren't 100% up to date, but we're
12:17pretty sure Tester still has more money on hand. He's been outraising Sheehy, at least
12:22when it comes to the group, the campaign itself, which, again, we should note, can't accept
12:27unlimited money from billionaires. They have to actually raise money from just everyday
12:30people and there are limits on that.
12:32Tester has vastly more money than Sheehy did. He raised over $40 million over the course
12:37of his six-year Senate term. Part of that is just because Sheehy's only been running
12:39since the beginning of this year. He's had a lot less time to raise the, I want to say
12:43it was $11 or $12 million that he has raised this year so far. So Tester, three-term Senator
12:51going on fourth. He's hoping, he has all these fundraising connections that he's built over
12:56the years. Sheehy has to start from scratch. So Tester definitely has the money advantage
12:58as of right now.
12:59Well, Kyle, per usual, I appreciate reporting. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so
13:04much for joining me.
13:05Fantastic to be here, Brittany. Thanks again.