Donald Trump has been awfully quiet this cycle about which candidates he plans to back in Senate GOP primaries. By our count, the former president and 2024 front-runner has only thrown his weight behind three Senate Republican candidates to date: Jim Banks in Indiana, Kari Lake in Arizona, and, as of this afternoon, Jim Justice in West Virginia.
As the campaign cycle heats up, it’s also worth watching how candidates and prospective candidates are threading the Trump needle this far out from Election Day. This week our eyes are on Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana, who is considering running against Democratic senator Jon Tester again in 2024. (Rosendale narrowly lost to Tester in 2018. If he runs again this cycle, he will face businessman and military veteran Tim Sheehy in the GOP primary. Sheehy has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm.)
Rosendale gave a rather curious answer this week to a question from a local-radio host Aaron Flint on the show Montana Talks about whether Rosendale plans to back Trump’s 2024 presidential bid. Here’s a quick read-out from the interview:
Flint: “President Trump was a big backer of Jim Jordan to be speaker of the House. President Trump came out here, what, five rallies in 2018 backing you to try to take on Jon Tester back then. Have you endorsed President Trump? Or why haven’t you endorsed President Trump in 2024 as of yet?”
Rosendale: “Me and President Trump are, we are in communication. And what I say is that I’d want to make sure that I don’t want to do anything — I didn’t endorse Jim Jordan early ahead of this [speaker] race. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to negatively impact anybody else’s race. And quite frankly, while there’s a lot of people across the state of Montana that continue to, to cheer for me, it’s not always in, in everybody’s best interest to have Matt Rosendale tagline on there unfortunately. . . . We’ll see how that works out”
Flint: “So you think your endorsement would hurt — your endorsement would hurt Trump, then?”
Rosendale: “I don’t know. I can’t gauge what my endorsement would help or hurt anyone. And I can tell you this. I think President Trump is gonna do fine whether he has Matt Rosendale’s endorsement or not. ”
It didn’t take long before Rosendale clarified in a follow-up statement that he is, in fact, endorsing Trump in 2024.
President Trump and I have had a great relationship over the years, and I am grateful for the work he has done for our country.
We need him in the White House again, and I stand ready to support his bid for President in whatever manner he feels would be most beneficial. pic.twitter.com/e3Pie96Z3A
— Matt Rosendale (@MattForMontana) October 18, 2023
This is the same Rosendale who told donors in late September that, ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, he “was praying each evening for a small majority” so a handful of hard-line conservatives could “drag the conference over to the right,” according to a video of his remarks obtained by the Messenger. Earlier this month, Rosendale joined seven other House Republicans and a united Democratic caucus in ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (The House is still without a speaker two weeks later.)