Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy walks up to the stage during a rally for Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University on August 9, 2024 in Bozeman, Montana.
Michael Ciaglo | Getty Images
Republican nominee Tim Sheehy will defeat incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the election for a Senate seat from Montana, NBC News projects.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and wealthy businessman, was heavily touted by the GOP as one of its strongest chances to pick up a Senate seat.
Former President Donald Trump won a decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race, taking multiple key battleground states, and Republicans made gains in the Senate.
Tester, a farmer who had been elected to three terms in the Senate, was facing strong headwinds in winning reelection.
Sheehy, a 38-year-old who owns a company that fights fires from the air, this week struggled in an interview with radio host Megyn Kelly to explain a 2015 incident in which he went to a hospital after his handgun fired in Montana’s Glacier National Park.
A park ranger said Sheehy told him he had accidentally shot himself in the arm, but Sheehy denies that, saying he went to the hospital because of fears that a bullet that was in his arm from a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan had become dislodged as a result of a fall of his in the park. He said he had not reported the claimed shooting incident in Afghanistan to his superiors at the time to avoid an investigation.