REPORT: “Sen. Steve Daines Isn’t Who He Says He Is”

Daines Trades On “An Invented Legacy” In Montana To Distract From His “Very Real Legacy Furthering The Family Fortune In Washington”

A deep dive by The American Prospect into Senator Steve Daines found that the vulnerable incumbent has consistently misled Montanans on everything from his personal history and his voting record to his fealty to corporate donors. The report shows Senator Daines “has long traded on an invented legacy in the state to distract from his very real legacy furthering the family fortune in Washington.”

Senator Daines “has tried to sell himself as a fifth-generation Montanan, even though publicly available records show that’s not the case”: the report shows only one member of his family line was “actually born in the state” and Daines himself was born in California. And while Senator Daines seeks to paint himself as a politician with Montanans’ best interests at heart, “his voting record…paints a picture of an astroturfer profiting off the surveillance of some of America’s most libertarian, anti–big government voters.” It’s why Montana voters are realizing they just can’t trust Senator Daines to look out for their interests in Washington.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The American Prospect: Sen. Steve Daines Isn’t Who He Says He Is
By Daniel Boguslaw
October 14, 2020

Key Points:

• If there’s one thing I learned in Montana fighting wildfires, it’s that people in Big Sky Country don’t like being lied to. Not by out-of-state news media, not by out-of-state politicians, and not by out-of-state tech giants either. It’s surprising, then, that incumbent Sen. Steve Daines has tried to sell himself as a fifth-generation Montanan, even though publicly available records show that’s not the case.

• In 2002, Daines told his hometown newspaper, “I’m a third-generation Montanan, kind of that classic Montana kid.” Where those extra two generations came from in his current boasts is still a mystery. In reality, the only member of Daines’s family line actually born in the state was his maternal grandfather, Harold J. Erickson. Daines himself was born in Los Angeles, California, as anyone in Montana can easily discern.

• The minutiae of the senator’s pedigree would be a footnote in an otherwise unremarkable career defined by fealty to Big Tech and Donald Trump, were it not for the weight he’s placed on his genealogical record. Daines has long traded on an invented legacy in the state to distract from his very real legacy furthering the family fortune in Washington.

• Daines and his former employer, Rep. Greg Gianforte (known for body-slamming a journalist in addition to his current gubernatorial bid), made their fortunes at RightNow Technologies, a cloud computing company owned by Gianforte, which he sold to Oracle in 2011 for $1.8 billion. Since the sale, both Gianforte and Daines have raked in millions from their company Genesis Partners, which rents office space that Daines’s father built for Oracle. Between his time at Montana State University and his ascension to national politics, Daines and his family lived in Hong Kong, where he worked for Procter & Gamble.

• Daines has celebrated his relationship to Oracle, the largest employer in Bozeman, as a rationale for his political career. But his voting record, paired with Oracle’s troubled past, paints a picture of an astroturfer profiting off the surveillance of some of America’s most libertarian, anti–big government voters.

• Daines’s situational ethics lines up with his down-the-line conservatism, even in a state that’s long been skeptical of corporate power. Daines has raked in millions from the coal industry, oil and gas interests, and the big banks over the past couple of years, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. His fealty is to big-dollar donors, even if “God and country” are what tend to fall out of his mouth when he tries to cloak his disastrous environmental record for the folks back home.

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