HELENA — While Jon Tester and Tim Sheehy have dominated the Montana airwaves this year, they aren’t the only U.S. Senate candidates voters will see on their ballot. Two third-party candidates are also running.
In recent Montana elections, third parties – especially the Libertarians, the state’s most successful minor party – have often faced accusations that they’ll serve as spoilers, potentially keeping another candidate from winning. Sid Daoud, the Libertarian candidate for Senate, sees that description as unfair.
“I did not consider what this might do to Jon Tester or Tim Sheehy when I'm running,” he said. “I'm running because I want to change policy – and they're not going to do it, as least from what I see.”
Daoud is a native of Great Falls and a U.S. Army veteran. His career has been in information technology, and he currently works as a senior consultant for a company that serves the defense industry. In 2019, he became the chair of the Montana Libertarian Party. Later that year, he was elected to the Kalispell City Council, a nonpartisan position where he’s now serving his second term.
Daoud says he believes both Tester and Sheehy are good men, but that the two main parties are corrupt and need to change.
“Every politician that runs for office in Montana, at some time during their campaign, they'll tell Montanans, ‘I'm basically a libertarian, or have libertarian leanings,’ because that really plays here,” he said. “I think Montana is one of the few states that actually understands maybe what a libertarian is and what our principles are.”
In his campaign, Daoud has talked about reducing federal spending and debt, abolishing the Federal Reserve and keeping the U.S. out of overseas conflicts.
“Everything that I’m basically about is making sure that the dollar that's in your wallet is worth more and that we're taking the lives of our children into consideration, especially when we start talking about the endless wars that we seem to be always engaged with,” he said.
Daoud was not invited to participate in either of the debates between Tester and Sheehy. When the other two candidates met last month in Missoula for a debate organized by Montana PBS, Daoud held an event he called “The Real Debate” in Bozeman. He streamed the debate, paused it after Tester and Sheehy delivered their answers and then gave his own responses to each question.
In the last 20 years, Libertarian candidates have often drawn between 2% and 6% of the vote in statewide and congressional elections in Montana. When asked what keeps the party from breaking through that barrier, Daoud said he believes libertarian ideas appeal to Montanans, but that people are voting “defensively” – against the candidate they don’t like.
“The rational middle is fatigued because they keep having to support candidates that do things that they don't want, just because they don't want the other side more,” he said. “We're starting to see that fatigue come down to, ‘Well, I'm going to take a chance and vote for the third party, because even if they don't win, if they get a higher percentage, my voice is going to be heard.’”
In August, Daoud did receive some added attention when former President Donald Trump held a rally in Bozeman. Trump pointed Daoud out in the crowd and seemingly hinted he might drop out of the race.
“Everybody seems to find this shocking, but that's just like a Tuesday for a Libertarian, right?” Daoud said. “If you're running a race and you're posing a threat because the race might be tight, you're going to be encouraged to drop out every day.”
In 2006 and 2012, Tester’s first two elections to the Senate, Libertarian candidates received more votes than his margin of victory.
Daoud told MTN at the time that Republican leaders had invited him to the rally, and that he spoke to Sheehy and Trump there. He says today that he wouldn’t describe the discussions he had with them as specifically “encouraging” him to drop out, but that they said, if Trump is reelected and Republicans retake the Senate, they could do more to advance Libertarians’ priorities.
Still, Daoud remained in the race.
“Until I hear and I see somebody doing the things that I want to have happen, I'm not going to give up,” he said.
In the days after the rally, Sheehy announced his support for the “Defend the Guard Act,” a Montana bill popular with Libertarians that seeks to prevent the National Guard from being deployed abroad without an official declaration of war.
Daoud said he’s willing to work with either Tester or Sheehy to advance his priorities. However, he believes the Montana member of Congress who’s done the most for libertarian principles is U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale.
“But when he starts charging off and doing what Montana wants against his own party, you see the ramifications of that: He's not going to be in politics in January,” Daoud said.
The other third-party candidate on the ballot for Senate is Robert Barb, of Darby, running for the Green Party. Barb finished second in the Green Party’s primary and assumed the nomination when first-place finisher Michael Downey dropped out. MTN has repeatedly reached out to Barb but has not heard back.
