Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy speaks alongside Donald Trump at a rally in Bozeman, Montana, on Aug. 9, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)
More than 1,000 Montana women signed a letter calling on Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Tim Sheehy to apologize for describing young women as “indoctrinated” in his comments about younger people and abortion.
“Your comments insult the intelligence of all Montana women and suggest that you think we are not capable of thinking for ourselves,” said the letter, also signed by some men.
Sheehy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment sent Wednesday.
Sheehy earlier said the Republican Party must do more to attract young, female voters. He said young people are “indoctrinated” to support liberal causes, and women who are 19 to 30 years old are “single issue” voters who only want to talk about abortion and being “pro choice.”
In an email, Betsy Swartz, a Bozeman woman who was named one of the co-chairs of Women for Tester this spring, said she drafted the letter because she found Sheehy’s comments about women unacceptable.
“I led and drafted the letter because Tim Sheehy’s comments calling women ‘indoctrinated’ and ‘single-issue voters’ were deeply insulting, demeaning, and unacceptable, as I expressed in the letter,” Swartz said.
The Women for Tester group considers health care and reproductive freedoms a priority.
Swartz said the one thousand women who signed the letter did so in just a couple of days “because Montana women are fired up about this election.” Swartz also identifies herself as a founder of Big Sky Rising, which has a mission that includes equality and human rights.
“Having 1,000 women, from all parts of Montana, sign onto this letter shows that Montana women will not stand by while Tim Sheehy belittles us and attacks our freedoms,” Swartz said to the Daily Montanan. “We will reject him at the ballot box this Tuesday.”
The letter calling for an apology was emailed to Sheehy on Wednesday by a different Montana woman who also provided it to the Daily Montanan.
The call for an apology comes in the final days of a heated battle for the U.S. Senate as Sheehy campaigns to unseat incumbent Democrat Jon Tester, who is seeking his fourth term.
A poll released Tuesday by Montana State University — Billings said both candidates are drawing 43% of the vote, although other recent polls have put Sheehy in the lead.
The letter from Montana women said Republicans, Independents, and Democrats from every corner of the state “express our disgust over your recent comments demeaning us for caring about our reproductive freedoms.”
Young Montana women care about protecting their freedoms and making their own health care decisions, the letter said, but Sheehy calls abortion “murder.”
“By demeaning our intellect and threatening our access to health care, you have demonstrated that women across the Treasure State cannot trust you to represent us in the U.S. Senate,” the letter said.
The letter also said anyone who threatens to strip away women’s freedoms is “unworthy of representing the great state of Montana.”
“We call on you to immediately apologize for your offensive remarks belittling Montana women,” the letter said.
Tribal leaders and faith groups earlier called on Sheehy to apologize for other offensive remarks — racist comments he made about the Crow Tribe on at least four occasions.
In a debate in response to a call from Tester that he apologize, Sheehy said he would “take accountability.”
“But let’s not distract from the issues that our tribal communities are suffering,” Sheehy said at the time.
The Bozeman businessman has yet to issue a full throated apology for his comments, including describing members of the Crow Tribe as drunk by 8 a.m.
Sheehy has described himself as “strongly pro-life” and in “strong support of IVF.” On a campaign stop this summer, he criticized a ballot measure for “trying to legalize abortion completely.”
Abortion is legal in Montana through the Montana Constitution’s privacy protection.
Constitutional Initiative 128 would amend the state constitution to directly protect abortion; it would “prohibit the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability.”
Montanans have expressed strong support for reproductive freedom including in the recent MSU-B poll. It found 60% of Montanans approve of CI-128.
The public letter to Sheehy lists Montana residents by their first name, last initial and city. The Daily Montanan reviewed full submission information to verify a sampling of the complete names of those who signed.
In the letter, the women said they — not politicians — should make decisions about their own bodies, and Sheehy’s position on reproductive freedom is “disqualifying.”
“We will make our ‘indoctrinated’ voices heard at the ballot box this November by supporting Jon Tester, who is a true champion for our freedoms,” the letter said.