The video covers an in-depth analysis of a Senate race in Montana between Democrat Senator John Tester and his Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy. The report by Forbes explores the characteristics and backgrounds of both candidates. Tester, known as a rural Democrat, has served in the state legislature and emphasizes pro-gun rights and pro-conservation ideals while also supporting the Affordable Care Act. Conversely, Sheehy is characterized as a pro-Trump businessman, a former Navy SEAL, and founder of an aerospace company, marking a vivid contrast to Tester's political stance.

The emphasis of the video lies on the significant financial backing and funding dynamics in this race. The conversation highlights the role of billionaire backers, on both sides, potentially swaying the election results. As the Democrats are predicted to face losses, the race in Montana is seen as pivotal, nearly acting as the linchpin for Democratic control of the Senate. The video reveals the unnamed and dark money groups, alongside billionaire figures like George Soros on Tester's side and Charles Koch with the Koch Industries backing Sheehy, reflecting on how opaque donor structures work to support their candidate preferences.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. consequential [ˌkɒnsɪˈkwɛnʃəl] - (adjective) - Significant in its effects or consequences. - Synonyms: (important, significant, momentous)

There is a really consequential race in Montana that could determine the balance of power in the Senate.

2. incumbent [ɪnˈkʌmbənt] - (adjective / noun) - Currently holding a specific political office, or the holder of such an office. - Synonyms: (current, reigning, officeholder)

Let's first talk about Democrat Senator John Tester. He's the incumbent.

3. pro-conservation [proʊ ˌkɒnsərˈveɪʃən] - (adjective) - In favor of preserving and protecting the environment and natural resources. - Synonyms: (environmentalist, preservationist, eco-friendly)

He is, for example, pro-gun rights, you know, pro, very pro conservation.

4. aerospace [ˈɛərəʊspeɪs] - (noun) - The branch of technology and industry concerned with aviation and space flight. - Synonyms: (aviation, airspace industry, aerospace engineering)

And he actually founded an aerospace company while he was out there.

5. dynamic [daɪˈnæmɪk] - (noun) - The forces or properties which stimulate growth, development, or change within a system or process. - Synonyms: (interaction, change, fluctuation)

So definitely kind of an interesting dynamic there.

6. linchpin [ˈlɪntʃpɪn] - (noun) - A person or thing vital to holding together the elements of a plan, organization, or system. - Synonyms: (cornerstone, keystone, foundation)

Montana really does appear to be the linchpin of a democratic Senate majority.

7. agglomerates [əˈɡlɒməˌreɪts] - (verb) - Collects or forms into a mass or group. - Synonyms: (gathers, accumulates, collects)

...which is this big pack that agglomerates money and then distributes it out across the country.

8. venture capitalist [ˈvɛntʃə ˈkæpɪtəlɪst] - (noun) - An investor who provides capital to start-ups or small companies with long-term growth potential. - Synonyms: (investor, backer, financier)

Vinod Khosla, who's a prominent venture capitalist.

9. opaque [oʊˈpeɪk] - (adjective) - Not able to be seen through; not transparent. - Synonyms: (murky, obscure, unclear)

The video reveals the unnamed and dark money groups, alongside billionaire figures...reflecting on how opaque donor structures work to support their candidate preferences.

10. caveat [ˈkævɪˌæt] - (noun) - A warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations. - Synonyms: (warning, caution, condition)

But I want to caveat this, because tester is actually a little bit interesting here.

These Billionaires Are Trying To Impact Montana's Senate Race

Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my Forbes colleague, money and politics reporter Kyle Kon Mullins. Kyle, thanks so much for coming on.

There is a really consequential race in Montana that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. And you have a report that really looks at the big money in that behind that race. So let's look into that. But before we do, before we get to the money aspect, let's talk about the candidates.

Let's first talk about Democrat Senator John Tester. He's the incumbent. He is a Democrat in a red state. So what type of lawmaker is he? John Tester is really an interesting character. He's kind of this rural Democrat, this brand that you just don't have a lot of anymore. They used to be much more common across the west, and then you just don't see that many anymore. He is, for example, pro gun rights, you know, pro, very pro conservation, very poor border security. But he also supported the Affordable Care act, for example. So you have this kind of rural Democrat, kind of similar, actually, to how Tim Walls was when he was in the House. Tester before he went into politics, he was a farmer in Montana, and then he served some time in the state legislature. And then he's now running for a fourth term in the Senate at the federal level.

And his republican challenger is Tim Sheehy. Who is he? What type of candidate is he? He is a businessman. He's a former Navy SEAL. He actually met his wife in the military as well. So he owns a ranch out in Montana. He and his wife moved there after they left the military. And he actually founded an aerospace company while he was out there with some of his veteran, with some other veterans out there. And so that's where he made his money in aerospace. That company is now publicly traded on the Nasdaq as of last year. And now he's running for Senate. He's a pro Trump conservative. Kind of wears that Trump support on his sleeve. He's campaigned with Trump. That's kind of a contrast to tester. Tester has not even formally endorsed Harris for president and has kind of tried to distance himself from the Biden and Harris administration.

So definitely kind of an interesting dynamic there. Like you said, blue senator in a red state. That is a really interesting dynamic. And it could be because this race, like I said at the beginning, could really determine the balance of power in the Senate. We have seen close races nationwide. So how close is this one, this one's pretty close, although it's getting less close as the weeks go on. Tim Sheehy, the republican challenger, has a small but pretty growing lead. Reasonably growing lead. Last I checked, it was in the four to five points range. Tester has come from behind before and he's won races where it looked like he was going to lose before. So I wouldn't count tester out. It's a small state by population, although very big state. Of course, geographically, it's going to be a really decisive one.

So your report has a look at the billionaire backers behind tester and behind Sheehy. So what are some of the motivations behind the ultra wealthy donating to this race? Why would one want to donate to Sheehy over tester or vice versa? Well, the tester campaign would tell you it's because the ultra rich want to turn Montana into their personal playground. That was the statement that they gave me when I reached out to them about their findings. I'm not going to speculate on the motivations of Tim Sheehy's backers. And I should say also the Sheehy campaign did not respond to my request for comment. But what I will say is that I think whether you're a liberal billionaire or a conservative billionaire, the reason why you want to give money in this race and try to swing the result is because it, like you said, could decide the fate of the Senate.

Democrats currently control 51 seats in the Senate, but Joe Manchin, the independent from West Virginia, is with the Democrats. He's retiring, and so they're almost certain to lose that seat. So that brings them down to 50 50. They're starting at 50 50 going into the 2024 election. Montana, they do not control the Senate. They're on defense almost everywhere in the country. So unless they hail Mary, pass, pick up a seat in Florida or Texas, which seems pretty unlikely at this point, unseating Senator Rick Scott in Florida or Senator Ted Cruz in Texas, whoever wins Montana will control the Senate.

And that could be said. Same thing could be said, by the way, for the other very close race where there's a democratic senator in a slightly less red seat in Ohio, but Sherrod Brown there appears to have a bit more of a lead. So Montana really does appear to be the linchpin of a democratic Senate majority. Let's first look at the incumbent Senator John Tester. What are some of the protester groups that billionaires are donating to?

So we combed through a bunch of federal election commission records for these stories. And we have one story up on Forbes.com about Sheehy and one about tester and their respective billionaire backers. And essentially all of testers, big billionaire backers. We looked at the top ten for him. They are donating to the Senate majority PAC, which is this big pack that agglomerates money and then distributes it out across the country. So it's a very centralized operation. They make decisions about are they going to be spending money in Montana or Ohio or Michigan or Nevada or all of them? How much? So that's kind of, that's where the money is going there.

There's also some environmental groups that are spending in the area as well. Those tend to be some liberal environmental groups, I should say, that are backing tester, but those are a lot smaller. The big, big numbers here are going into Senate majority pack, or SMP, as it's sometimes called, and then redistributed back out. I'm curious, what's the biggest number and who donated it? Who is the top billionaire donor to tester? So the single biggest billionaire that we were able to identify is actually George Soros. He, you know, very prominent liberal mega donor head fund guy. He has been able to.

So what he did is he seeded his own super PAC. He has two super pacs, democracy pack and democracy PAC two. He just dumped a bunch of his money into there and then he distributes that money out. So those two packs have given about $10 million to s and p as of the latest filings. But I want to caveat this, because tester is actually a little bit interesting here. It's hard to know where all of the money that his backing tester is coming from. The reason why is that his single biggest backer is not actually an individual billionaire. It's this dark money group called majority forward. And they have very close ties to Senate majority PAC. But because of the way they're structured, they actually don't have to disclose their donors.

And so they've given something like $15 million to Senate majority PAC. They've also given millions more to a group called last best place PAC. They're the sole funder of this pack. And last best place pack in turn, is the biggest outside spender that's spending in support of John Tester. So who are some of those other notable billionaires donating to tester?

How much are they donating and where are they putting their money? Yeah. So again, like, of the ones we were able to trace. Right. Because that's the, that's the rub here. And that's also the rub on the conservative side to some extent as well. Some of the other big ones you may have heard of. Steven Mendel has given almost as much as George Soros. He's a hedge fund guy. He's given about $9.7 million. Most of that has gone against that Senate majority PAC. But Sullivan has also gone to a group called, that is affiliated with the Environmental Defense Fund, which is a liberal environmentalist group that supports democratic candidates. And then he's also given to the democratic senatorial campaign committee. That's the DSCC, the official body that is backing Senate candidates for Democrats.

Some other examples of folks that are backing tester, you've got some tech money in there as well. Reed Hastings, he made his money in Netflix. Jeff Scholl, founder of eBay, and Vinod Khosla, who's a prominent venture capitalist. All these guys putting money largely into Senate majority PAC, but occasionally some of them also sprinkle money.

So now let's move on over to the republican side. Let's look at Sheehy's donors. You found the billionaires who have donated at least $1 million in support of Sheehy since 2023. So what are some of the major groups backing him? So you've got a couple major groups that are backing you. I'm going to go through three real quick. The first one you've got, the biggest one is a group called more jobs, less government. It's the name of the pack. It's a super PAC that seems to be solely focused on electing Shihyde. And it spent over $11 million on the race as of the latest filings. And I should also say a lot of these filings that we have were actually as of the summer, and we're expecting some new filings this month that could show dramatic changes in some of these numbers because the spending really ramps up as we get closer to November.

So the second group is Americans for Prosperity. This is a group that was started and largely funded by Charles Koch and his and network of donors that's a longstanding establishment conservative group. And then third one is Sentinel, the Sentinel Action Fund, which is a group that's focused on Senate races across the country. And so you just mentioned the name, but elaborate a little bit. Who was the billionaire who donated the most to Sheehy? So the billionaire would donate the most to Sheehy. And again, there is this caveat. Here is Charles Koch, but it's through this network that he has.

The donations aren't actually coming in under Charles Koch's. Name. They're coming in under Koch Industries name. That's his company. And under this group called Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, which is a group that he started. But that might not all be his money. That might also be some other groups that are putting money into that, other people putting money into that group. So again, you have kind of this untraceable donors problem where you don't know exactly where the money's coming from. But these groups are so closely tied to Charles Koch that we kind of look them together.

Under the other big donor here that I want to talk about is, and by the way, those groups have all given to Americans for prosperity, that longstanding conservative group, the other group, billionaires, that have given to Americans for prosperity. The Walton family made their fortunes. And from Walmart, you've got three of the Walton kids that have given millions and millions of dollars to Americans for prosperity. The other caveat I want to know here, though, Americans for prosperity spends across the country, and they are this long standing, established a conservative group. They're not actually huge Trump fans. They've spent a couple million dollars in the Montana Senate race. The vast majority of their money, over $31 billion, has gone to supporting Nikki Haley in the republican primary. They spent over $10 million opposing Donald Trump in the republican primary.

So again, this kind of illustrates this money. There's a lot of different flows, and it's important to recognize that just because the Kochs gave, you know, $25 million, coke industries, for example, give $25 million to Americans for prosperity doesn't mean the $25 million is behind. Tip. She give us a little bit of a rundown here. Who are the other notable billionaires donating to Sheehy? How much are they giving, and where is that money going? So they're giving to these groups that are backing sheehy, and some of them are actually donating to these groups that are more directly backing she not like Americans are prosperity, more jobless government. This big pack seems to be solely dedicated to electing Shih.

And so, you know, this is a, this is, you've got a lot of Wall street folks here, Ken Griffin, Stephen Schwartzman. And, you know, they are giving to more duos government. They're giving you that Sentinel action fund that I mentioned. And those groups, in turn, are spending on behalf of Shiki. And they're spending a lot of money. One other surprise billionaire that I wasn't expecting to see when I was going through this list, Jimmy John Leotaud. He was the founder of the Jimmy John Sandwich franchise not a Wall street name. He's given 1.6 million to that Sentinel action fund that I mentioned. So maybe he's also a newcomer, relative newcomer to the billionaires list.

So he's dipping his toe into politics as well. Lot of billionaires donating millions of dollars into politics. That is going to this phrase. So who has more money on hand? Do you know? Is it tester or is it Sheehy? So again, we had this caveat that the filings for these aren't 100% up to date, but we're pretty sure tester still has more money on hand. He's been outraising sheehy, at least when it comes to the group, the campaign itself, which again we should note, can't accept unlimited money from billionaires. They have to actually raise money from just everyday people and there are limits on that. Tester has vastly more money than she, he did. He raised over $40 million over the course of his six year Senate terminal. Part of that is just because she, he's only been running since the beginning of this year.

He's had a lot less time to raise the, I want to say it was eleven or 12 million that he has raised this year so far. So, you know, Tester, three term senator going on fourth. You know, he's hoping he has all these fundraising connections that he's built over the years. He has to start from scratch. So Tester definitely has the money advantage as of right now. Well, Kyle, per usual, I appreciate reporting. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for joining me. Fantastic to be here, Brandy, thanks again.

Politics, Economics, Global, Montana Senate Race, Campaign Finance, Billionaire Influence, Forbes