Trump noticeably absent from key US Senate race in Montana

As Republican leaders fearful of losing the majority in the US Senate parade through Montana to rally behind embattled incumbent Steve Daines, one has been conspicuously absent: President Donald Trump.

According to Press TV, the president visited Montana repeatedly in 2018 and hosted huge rallies in a failed bid to oust the state’s senior senator, Democrat Jon Tester. The 2020 election was lining up to be a potential replay when Trump in June suggested he would return to Montana and “be there to help Steve win big” over his challenger, Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.

But that went by the wayside with Trump playing defense against Democrat Joe Biden in several battleground states and after a coronavirus infection temporarily sidelined the president during the homestretch of the campaign.

It left Daines, whose campaign has leaned on his ties to Trump, to settle for an 8-1/2 minute “tele-rally” with the president in October — essentially a conference call for supporters and reporters in which no questions were taken.

Democrats have far outspent the Republicans in the race that's been one of the most expensive in the country, with Bullock's side spending $82 million and Daines' $63 million on television, radio and digital ads, according to data from the ad-tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.

Republicans visiting Big Sky Country in recent weeks to keep the Senate seat in GOP hands included Vice President Mike Pence, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Daines held a rally with the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., in Kalispell, Montana, on Saturday.

That's not the same as having President Trump, who wasn't on the ballot in 2018, said Jeremy Johnson, a political analyst at Carroll College in Helena.

“Everybody put together does not equal Trump,” Johnson said. “Trump’s the big draw. He’s the one who the press follows ... He is prioritizing his election to the presidency over everybody else.”

Bullock, a two-term governor and former Montana attorney general, has avoided direct confrontations with Trump. He entered the Senate race in March under pressure from fellow Democrats and after dropping a long-shot bid for the party's presidential nomination. After veering to the political left during that bid, he's focused his Senate campaign on health care and public land protections and says he would be a uniting figure in Washington.

Bullock hasn't brought in many well-known Democrats to campaign with him and claims independence from party leaders.

ME