In the aftermath of his 2024 Senate defeat, former Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) took to HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” to offer his take on what went wrong for Democrats in 2024—and he blames Kamala.
Tester, a three-term Democrat, lost his seat to Republican Tim Sheehy in what became a disastrous election night for his party. Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, secured victory by consolidating GOP voters in Montana, a red state that has grown increasingly red.
Speaking with Maher, Tester didn’t mince words about the impact of the presidential ticket on his campaign.
“If you want to know the truth, the top of the ticket lost by, what, 30-some points?” Tester said. “And the truth is, the top of the ticket has to at least be competitive if you’re going to win in a red state or even a purple state. And the top of the ticket did not perform, because I don’t think the top of the ticket embraced the issues that Americans were talking about. We got wrapped up in all the cancel culture crap.”
Maher had been discussing a New York Times headline about Democratic divisions, particularly whether the party should focus on resisting Donald Trump or courting the center. To Maher, that wasn’t a choice—it was the same strategy.
“It’s not an or,” Maher said. “That is how you stand up to Trump. You court the center. You go to the place where people are going to vote for you.”
Tester agreed. “That’s right,” he said. “You go to the place where the people are. And that way those disenfranchised Republicans have a place to land because they don’t think the other party’s crazy.”
Maher then pointed out that Tester couldn’t hold on to his seat, despite having a reputation for being a moderate.
“Well, that’s true,” Tester admitted. “Because there were more people that voted against me than voted for me.”
Jon Tester blames Kamala Harris’ poor performance for his Senate loss on Bill Maher:
Bill Maher: “Headline: Party divided on resistance: Stand up to Trump, or try to court the center? It’s not an or! You go to the place where the people vote for you.
Jon Tester: “The top of the… pic.twitter.com/poMA92wrcZ— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 8, 2025
Now, we can sit here and pretend that Tester is a centrist or a moderate or whatever, but I’m not going to do that. Tester could have easily won his seat if he had actually been a centrist instead of playing one in campaign ads. Tester’s seat was always a ripe opportunity for Republicans to flip, and not just because he was a Democrat; it was because he consistently voted in lockstep with the radical left, rather than aligning himself with the moderate positions he now claims to represent.
Kamala Harris was always going to lose Montana, yet Tester did nothing to set himself apart from the radical wing of the party.
Last year, I wrote about how an analysis of Tester’s voting record showed that he supported the Biden-Harris administration 91% of the time. That tracked with his lifetime score of 8% in Heritage Action’s conservative scorecard—which is actually lower than the average Senate Democrat score of 11%. If he wanted to keep his job, he needed to represent the values of his state, not the values of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden. If he doesn’t get that, he’s dumb.
If Tester had voted like a moderate instead of voting like a radical leftist, he could have won. But when you are a pawn of the most radical left-wing administration in history, your constituents notice, and your opponent has all the ammo necessary to call you out on it.
Democrats need to learn that saying things like “I’m a centrist” won’t fool people. It’s basically just like how you can’t say Bidenomics was working when it clearly wasn’t. Talk is cheap. Had Tester heeded his own advice, the GOP majority in the Senate could have been even smaller.
