Mike Pence: ‘A Vote for Steve Bullock’ Is a Vote for ‘Radical Left’

Vice President Mike Pence said during a campaign stop in Montana on Monday that a vote for Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) is a vote for the “radical left.”

Pence visited Belgrade, Montana, in a campaign rally for Sen. Steve Daines’ (R-MT) reelection bid, who faces a competitive challenge from the sitting Democrat governor.

Pence touted Daines’ conservative record in the Senate, referring to him as a “man of faith” and a “fighter for everything that makes Montana great.”

Pence charged, “A vote for Steve Bullock is a vote for the agenda of the radical left.”

“I am now [Senate Minority Leader] Schumer’s No. 1 target for defeat,” Daines said during the campaign rally. He added that control of the U.S. Senate depends on his reelection.

The campaign rally also featured Rep. Greg Gianforte, who hopes to become the state’s next governor, and Matt Rosendale, who hopes to become the state’s next at-large congressman.

The vice president’s campaign stop with Daines arises as an AARP poll released last week found that Daines leads Bullock by three points, which is within the poll’s 3.5 percent margin of error.

Daines’ bid for a second term serves as one of the many crucial races for control of the Senate majority. Republicans have a 53-member majority in the U.S. Senate, and Democrats need to flip a neat four seats to gain control of Congress’s upper chamber.

Barrett Kaiser, a Democrat strategist in Montana, noted that although that the Big Sky state tends to appear very conservative, Montana is “a ruby-red state that tends to vote for the person you want to have a beer with.”

“So if Trump is under-performing here, of all places, it could be a bellwether for the rest of the country, in particular those battleground states that are ‘rural,'” Kaiser added.