Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, who is locked in a highly consequential race with Democratic incumbent Jon Tester, said in newly unearthed audio that the Republican Party needs to do a better job at winning over young women, who he said have been “indoctrinated" for years on the issue of abortion.
"Young people, listen up, they’ve been indoctrinated for too long. We don’t even try to talk to them anymore," Sheehy said at an event in late 2023, according to audio obtained by NBC News.
"I sat with a group of younger folks a couple of months ago talking about, just, various issues. And one of them was life, because of course young women between the age of 19 and 30, abortion is their Number One concern. That’s all they want to talk about. They are single-issue voters," Sheehy continued.
"And it’s all about pro-choice, pro-choice. Well, ‘Republicans are pro-life. They want to take my rights away and lock me up and throw me in prison.’ And I said, well, are you familiar with what the Democrats’ position is on abortion? ‘Yeah, they’re pro-choice. They’re protecting women,’” he said.
Sheehy, who at the time was already a Senate candidate, then used a false talking point that has been repeated by former President Donald Trump and other Republicans, claiming the Democratic Party supports killing babies shortly after they're born.
“It’s called murder. That is the position of the American Democrat Party,” Sheehy said.
The audio matches quotes from Sheehy that were recently reported by The Daily Montanan. The audio was first posted by the Char-Koosta News in Montana.
Tester's campaign slammed Sheehy for the remarks.
“Tim Sheehy calling young women ‘indoctrinated’ because they value reproductive freedom just goes to show how out of touch he is with Montanans,” Tester spokesperson Monica Robinson said. “In Montana, we don’t want the government telling us what to do — and Sheehy’s position that politicians should get the final say over our health care is one of the many ways he’s trying to change Montana for the worse.”
A Sheehy campaign spokesperson responded to the recording Monday by saying in a statement that Tester “is in full desperation mode and the liberal media in DC is falling for it hook, line and sinker by pushing a fake story.”
The spokesperson didn’t dispute the accuracy of Sheehy’s quotes.
"Tim has been crystal clear that he is pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. Full stop," his campaign said. "What we should be discussing is that every time Tester could have supported the commonsense Born Alive Survivors Act, which would require medical professionals to intervene if a baby survives a botched abortion, Tester sided with radical liberals and voted no. That is the extreme position here and why Tester knows he is toast come November.”
The hotly contested race has major national implications and could determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years. Republicans need a net gain of two seats to take control of the Senate or one if Trump wins the White House because the vice president can cast tiebreaking votes.
Abortion-related measures are on the ballot in 10 states next month, the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the help of former Trump’s three nominees to the court. Democrats have used the issue to galvanize voters, warning that a Republican majority in Congress could lead to a national law banning abortion, while many Republican candidates have struggled to craft a cohesive message on the issue.
Sheehy's comments last year were similar to remarks Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno made at a town hall last month, when he complained that many “suburban women” were “single-issue voters” when it comes to abortion. Moreno is in a tight race against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said at the event, according to video obtained by NBC affiliate WCMH of Columbus.
“Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.’ … OK. It’s a little crazy, by the way, but — especially for women that are, like, past 50 — I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you,’” Moreno said.
A spokesperson for Moreno characterized the remarks as a "tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the leftwing media like to pretend that the only issue that matters to women voters is abortion.”
