GOP Sen. Steve Daines made the last-minute decision to to prevent Democrats from fielding a top recruit for the open Montana seat, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Daines was aware that if he withdrew too soon then Democrats would have a chance at fielding one of several potential Democrats — namely former Sen. Jon Tester or former Govs. Brian Schweitzer or Steve Bullock. Any of those Democrats could have put the state on the map in the midterms and likely have sucked up enormous cash, as Democrats have done in red states like Alaska and Ohio, scrambling the race for the majority in the fall.
Instead, Daines withdrew from the race minutes before the Wednesday evening filing deadline. Kurt Alme, who was US attorney in Montana, filed to run eight minutes before the deadline. With the deadline closed, no top-tier Democrat can now jump in the race.
Aritcle doesn’t appear to have any explanation of why the Democrats fielding a candidate is in any way dependent on what the Republicans are doing. Over in this article it says there are 5 Democratic (and two other Repulicans and two Libertarians).
Are they saying the Montana Democratic party decided to just phone it in with a bunch of nobodies because the incumbent appeared to be running for re-election? And they would have tried to actually find a good candidate had he withdrawn earlier? If so, that’s on those people for choosing not to fight for it in the first place.
I think what they’re saying is that none of the “top names” wanted to risk losing the election to the incumbent, but might have stepped in if they knew the guy was leaving.
And if that’s true, well, that “top names” are just a bunch of spineless cowards. They don’t deserve the job if they are that afraid of running a campaign and losing.