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Trump-backed Senate candidate Tim Sheehy has been caught on tape making offensive comments about Native Americans, according to reports.
Audio recordings, first reported by Char-Koosta News last week, revealed that the Montana Republican made racially-charged remarks about the Crow Tribe, who have land in the southcentral part of the state. At one point, Sheehy accused tribal members of being drunk in the morning.
“I rope and brand with them every year… A great way to bond with all the Indians while they’re drunk at 8am….” Sheehy is heard saying with a laugh in a clip from a fundraiser on November 6, 2023. The remark came after Sheehy said that one of his ranching partners is a Crow member.
The Independent has not independently verified the tapes but has contacted Sheehy for comment.
Sheehy is Trump’s pick for Montana’s Senate seat and will face Democratic Senator Jon Tester in November.
In another recording, four days later at another campaign event, Sheehy called the tribe a “tough crowd”. He recalled when he strapped a Sheehy sign to a horse and traversed the Crow reservation. “They’ll let you know when they like you or not, if Coors Light cans flying by your head… They respect that,” he said.
At other campaign rallies, the Republican candidate reportedly claimed that Crow members made fun of him by calling him “white boy” and threw beer cans at his head when he missed a “double-heel” shot at their rodeo, Char-Koosta News reported.
Trump, who has endorsed Sheehy, won Montana in 2020 by 16 points. Despite the former president’s support in the red state, Sheehy could see some trouble in November, as Native American voters have been a powerful force in recent years. Indigenous residents make up about 6 percent of the state’s population, according to the New York Times.
Native American voters are “hugely important to the Democratic base,” Jim Messina, an Obama White House aide and former adviser to Tester, told Politico in May.
Senator Tester defeated a Republican in 2006, due in part to peeling off some of his rival’s Indigenous support. “Tester was able to cut into that bloc and really move them towards him,” Messina said.
Sheehy is leading Tester by 3.5 points, according to The Hill’s polling averages.
