Top Republican Senate recruit Tim Sheehy, who is hoping to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana, has characterized himself as a self-made entrepreneur who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. But according to The Daily Beast, his biography to voters leaves out some critical details that make that narrative fall apart.
Sheehy, who made waves this month by suggesting all health insurance should be abolished and poor patients should be made to barter with doctors to receive care, is the founder of Bridger Aerospace and, in one speech to voters, said, “When I saw a business opportunity, I took my entire life savings — I didn't get a government loan, didn’t get a government handout—I started a business in my barn and built it from scratch.”
He described his startup money as a "six-figure nest egg" he had saved up with his wife. He even said that for much of that time, he and his wife were living in a "tent in our barn."
But that's not the whole story. According to Sam Brodey, Sheehy himself admitted in his upcoming memoir that $100,000 of that "nest egg" came from his parents.
“In addition to the $100,000 loan, they offered me plenty of free advice, which as anyone knows in family business, can go both ways,” wrote Sheehy. “But nothing would have moved forward without them.”
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He further added that later on, his parents and brother helped front him some of the $500,000 he needed to acquire two planes. And as for the tent they lived in, he admits in the book that he had enough money for a home in Bozeman and it was just a "lifestyle choice."
Sheehy is the preferred candidate of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who is hoping to retake the majority in 2024 and sees Tester, whose state voted for former President Donald Trump by double digits, as a key pickup opportunity.
But another potential challenger is Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT), who previously lost to Tester in 2018, and was one of the insurgent Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the House speakership. This has caused bad blood between him and party officials, with some even grumbling that it's like he was planted by Democrats within the GOP to hurt them.
