Steve Daines


Steven David Daines is an American politician and former corporate executive serving as the senior United States senator from Montana, a seat he has held since 2015. He is the first Republican Class II senator from Montana in 102 years. Daines represented Montana's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015.
Daines was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Bozeman, Montana. Before entering politics, he held positions at Procter & Gamble and the Montana-based software service RightNow Technologies. After an unsuccessful lieutenant governor's race in 2008, Daines was elected to represent Montana's at-large congressional district in Congress in 2012.
He was first elected to the Senate in 2014, becoming the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in Montana in the 21st century. He was reelected in 2020, defeating the Democratic nominee, incumbent governor Steve Bullock. In 2023, Daines became chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, succeeding Rick Scott. Republicans gained four Senate seats in the 2024 election cycle and won a majority in the chamber. Daines became Montana's senior senator and dean of Montana's congressional delegation in 2025, following the defeat of Jon Tester in his reelection.

Early life and education

Daines was born in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles to Sharon R. and Clair W. Daines. The family moved to Montana in 1964. He was raised in Bozeman, where he attended school from kindergarten through college.
Daines graduated from Bozeman High School, where he served as student body president and participated in policy debate; his partner was future U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Montana State University. At Montana State, he became a brother of the Sigma Nu fraternity.

Early career

Daines was one of the youngest delegates at the 1984 Republican National Convention. "I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. He was the first president I got to vote for," he has said. Daines was also the president of MSU College Republicans. In 2007, he and his wife started a website, GiveItBack.com, which urged governor Brian Schweitzer to return the state's $1 billion surplus to taxpayers. From 2007 to 2008, he was Montana state chairman for the Mike Huckabee 2008 presidential campaign and a national surrogate for Huckabee.
Daines spent 13 years with Procter & Gamble. After seven years managing operations in the United States, he and his family moved to Hong Kong and China for six years, opening factories to expand Procter & Gamble's Asian business. During his 2014 Senate campaign, Democratic opponents alleged that Daines had outsourced U.S. jobs to China. He stated that he created hundreds of jobs in Montana when he worked for RightNow Technologies.
In 1997, Daines left Procter & Gamble to join the family construction business in Bozeman. Three years later, he met Greg Gianforte, founder of RightNow Technologies, and was put in charge of running RightNow's customer care division. Daines went on to become vice president of North America Sales and vice president of the Asia-Pacific division. During his tenure, the cloud-based software company became publicly traded and Bozeman's largest commercial employer. Daines remained with the company until March 2012, when he left to campaign for Congress full-time.

2008 gubernatorial election

Daines ran for lieutenant governor of Montana in 2008 with Roy Brown, the Republican nominee for governor. They challenged incumbent Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer and his running mate John Bohlinger. Brown and Daines lost the election 65% to 33%, winning only 7 of Montana's 56 counties.

U.S. House of Representatives

2012 election

On November 13, 2010, Daines announced he would run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jon Tester in 2012.
When U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg announced his intention to challenge Tester, Daines dropped out of the Senate race and announced his candidacy for the House seat Rehberg was vacating. He won the three-way Republican primary with 71% of the vote. In the general election, Daines defeated Democratic state senator Kim Gillan, 53% to 43%. He won 48 of the state's 56 counties.

House tenure

On June 5, 2013, Daines introduced the North Fork Watershed Protection Act of 2013, which would withdraw 430,000 acres of federal lands in Montana from programs to develop geothermal and mineral resources. The law would forbid mountaintop removal mining and other natural resource development. The affected lands lie adjacent to Glacier National Park and already have some protections. Daines emphasized his desire "to rise above partisan politics, preserve the pristine landscape, and 'protect this critical watershed'" when he announced that he would be introducing the bill, and said that both conservationists and energy companies supported it. The bill, also supported by Tester and Walsh, passed in the House, but Senate Republicans prevented it from being voted on.

Committee assignments

2014 election

In July 2013, Daines attended a NRSC fundraiser in Washington, prompting speculation that he would run for Max Baucus's soon to be vacant U.S. Senate seat. In the second quarter of 2013, he disclosed raising $415,000 in campaign funds, fueling more speculation. On November 6, 2013, Daines announced his candidacy.
In February 2014, Baucus resigned from the Senate to accept a post as U.S. ambassador to China. Governor Steve Bullock, a Democrat, appointed lieutenant governor John Walsh to the vacant Senate seat for the remainder of Baucus's term. Walsh had already declared his intention to run for the Senate in 2014, and it was suggested that his appointment might give him the advantage of incumbency, improving Democratic chances of holding the seat.
Daines won the Republican primary on June 3, 2014, with 83.4% of the vote against Missoula state representative Champ Edmunds and political newcomer Susan Cundiff. Walsh won the Democratic primary with 64% of the vote.
In August 2014, Walsh withdrew from the race following the publication of a New York Times article that accused him of plagiarism in a paper written as part of his master's degree work at the U.S. Army War College. With only 50 days until the election, a special convention called by the Montana Democratic party nominated State Representative Amanda Curtis.
Daines won the general election with 57.8% of the vote to Curtis's 40.1%.

2020 election

Daines was reelected in 2020, defeating Bullock with 55% of the vote. Democrats outspent Republicans by $19 million on the race, $82–63 million; it was one of the most expensive Senate races in the 2020 cycle.

Senate tenure

114th Congress (2015–2017)

In April 2016, Daines signed on to the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act, legislation to address the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools program by renewing the federal government's commitment to manage forest resources.

115th Congress (2017–2019)

In January 2017, Daines announced his support of Executive Order 13769, ordered by President Trump, which imposed a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.
In August 2017, Daines co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison, for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government.
In May 2018, Daines announced his support for the so-called nuclear option "to speed up consideration of President Trump's judicial nominees". He has argued that changing the Senate's rules to a simple majority vote would "ensure a quicker pace on Trump's court picks".
During Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in October 2018, Daines, who supported the nomination, was absent during the vote due to his attendance at his daughter's wedding that day; Senator Lisa Murkowski, who opposed Kavanaugh's confirmation, voted "present" to compensate for Daines's absence.

116th Congress (2019–2021)

In the 2018–2019 United States federal government shutdown, when Congress would not meet Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in federal funds for a U.S.–Mexico border wall, Daines voted for a bill that put $5.7 billion toward the border wall and against a bill that would have funded the government without putting resources toward a wall.
File:President Trump Signs the Great American Outdoors Act.jpg|upright|260px|thumb|Daines watching President Donald Trump sign into law the Great American Outdoors Act on August 4, 2020
In January 2019, Daines was one of 11 Republican senators to vote to advance legislation intended to block Trump's lifting of sanctions against three Russian companies. In June 2019, he was one of 8 senators to sign a letter to Premier of British Columbia John Horgan expressing concern over "the lack of oversight of Canadian mining projects near multiple transboundary rivers that originate in British Columbia and flow into" Alaska, Idaho, Washington, and Montana. The senators requested that British Columbia replicate American efforts to protect watersheds.
Daines voted to acquit Trump in his impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his request that Ukraine announce an investigation into Joe Biden, which became known as the Trump–Ukraine scandal. He said Trump had not committed a crime, that Democrats had "not done their complete homework", and that it was the most partisan impeachment trial in history. Daines said the purpose of the impeachment was to " the election of 2016 and to define the election of 2020". During the trial, he voted not to hear witnesses and to block the Senate from subpoenaing documents from the White House.
In June 2020, Daines argued against statehood for the District of Columbia, saying that most Americans oppose statehood for the U.S. capital and suggesting that members of Congress "get out of this city, go out to where the real people are at across our country and ask them what they think." Critics objected to his implication that D.C., a city of more than 705,000, nearly half of whom are Black, are not "real people". Further pressed, Daines explained that people outside the D.C. "bubble" oppose statehood, while those in D.C. support it.