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- By Levi Rickert
Native Vote 2024. Already in trouble with Montana tribes for his disparaging and racist comments about Native Americans, Montana GOP senatorial candidate Tim Sheehy was caught on tape during a campaign stop in August erasing the tribal influence in the state prior to European contact.
Speaking at a campaign event in Maxville Montana, Sheehy referred to the territory that is now the state on Montana as “a backwater, vacant land of not a whole lot going on.”
On a clip obtained by Native News Online, Sheehy told his campaign audience: “In a very short period of time, we went from being a backwater, vacant land of not a whole lot going on, and we came here and turned this into an amazing nation with the strongest economy that saved the world time and time again.”
Native News Online reached out to the Sheehy campaign for comments with no response by publication time.
Sheehy’s erasure comments are very similar to remarks made by former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorium (R-PA) in 2021. His comments eventually caused Santorium to lose his job as a CNN conservative contributor for saying the country was set up based on Judeo-Christian principles, and that white settlers “birthed a nation from nothing."
The candidate’s erasure of Native American in pre-colonization comes on the heels of an audio clip from November 2023 where Sheehy brags about roping and branding with members of the Crow Nation. He says “it’s a great way to bond with the Indians while they’re drunk at 8:00 a.m.”
Last month, Sheehy’s comments then drew the ire of Native Americans nationwide.
“Such harmful rhetoric has no place in public discourse, especially from those seeking elected office. These derogatory comments are a stark reminder of the persistent racism that Native communities continue to face,” the NCAI statement said. “We expect our elected leaders and those who seek public office to uphold the highest standards of respect and integrity, particularly when discussing historically marginalized communities.”
The Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council reacted to Sheehy’s comments with ire and asked for an apology.
“The Crow people are not your punchline. Native Americans are not your punchline,” Bryce Kirk, the council’s chairman, said in the statement. “Your words were unnecessarily hurtful, and unfortunately a little too close to being hateful.”
Sheehy is running against the third-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, who previously served as chairman of the committee.
In weighted polls, Sheehy (51.4) was leading Tester (44.1) with a 7.3 point advantage as of Oct. 16, according to The Hill. There are an estimated 74,130 Native Americans of voting age in Montana, according to Four Directions - Native Vote. It is not clear on how many habe been included in the polls.
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