Fact-checking the Montana Senate debate between Jon Tester and Tim Sheehy

In the final planned debate of their closely watched Senate race, Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy sparred over major campaign topics, including abortion, immigration and the economy.

The Sept. 30 debate, sponsored by PBS Montana and held audience-free in Missoula, turned sometimes testy, with Sheehy tying Tester to the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policies and Tester casting Sheehy’s opposition to abortion as out of the mainstream. 

The Montana Senate race is one of a half-dozen tight contests across the country in which Democrats are defending seats they need to keep their one-seat majority. PolitiFact is partnering with Scripps TV stations and Lee Enterprises newspapers in Montana to fact-check the campaign.

Both candidates made inaccurate statements. Here’s a fact-check of notable debate claims.

RELATED: PolitiFact’s coverage of 2024 tossup Senate races

Sheehy: "Jon Tester supports abortion up to and including a moment of birth."

False. Tester’s support for the Women’s Health Protection Act does not mean he supports elective abortions all the way through a nine-month pregnancy. The law is more limited; it allows for medical judgment in rare cases involving life-threatening risks to the fetus or the pregnant woman.

Tester: Sheehy has said "he doesn't even believe the ballot issue (on abortion in Montana) should be on the ballot."

He’s close. In a July campaign stop, Sheehy described the ballot measure that would enshrine abortion protections as "trying to legalize abortion completely, 100 percent across the board," the Daily Montanan reported. "Those petitions are not good for Montana."

Tester: Sheehy "has called abortion terrible and murder."

True. Sheehy said of abortion in December, "I think it's sinful. I think it's terrible. I think it's a repulsive thing to do."

Sheehy told a conservative talk radio show in April, "It’s really frustrating how, you know, we have one party in this country that seems to be bent on murdering our unborn children and taking that, taking that tack, you know, in a very militant way."

Sheehy: "We've had 12 million people enter this country, by some accounts, in the last three to three and a half years."

Encounters are not the same as entries. Since Joe Biden became president, immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border around 10 million times. When accounting for "got aways" — people whom border officials don’t stop — the number rises to about 11.6 million. 

But encounters aren’t the same as admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tries to cross the border twice counts as two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let into the country. The Department of Homeland Security estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.

During Biden’s administration, about 3.8 million people have been released into the U.S. to await immigration court hearings, Department of Homeland Security data shows. 

Sheehy: "We had a secure border four years ago. Donald Trump handed a sealed border to the Biden-Harris administration." 

Mostly False. Illegal immigration during former President Donald Trump’s administration was higher than it was during both of former President Barack Obama’s terms.

Illegal immigration between ports of entry at the U.S. southern border dropped in 2017, Trump’s first year in office. But illegal immigration began to rise after that. It dropped again when the COVID-19 pandemic started and immigration decreased dramatically worldwide.

In the months before Trump left office, as some pandemic travel restrictions eased, illegal immigration was rising again. A spike in migrants, especially unaccompanied minors, started in spring 2020 and generally continued to climb.

It’s difficult to compare pre-COVID-19 data with data since, because data reporting methods changed. But, accounting for challenges in data comparisons, a PolitiFact review found an increase of 300% in illegal immigration from Trump’s first full month in office, February 2017, to his last full month, December 2020.

Tester: "Tim wants to purely privatize health care, not just privatize it, but purely privatize health care. That means Medicare, which is a government program, would go away."

Mostly False. Sheehy did use the term "pure privatization" when discussing the U.S. health care system during an August 2023 event. But he did not say he intended to get rid of Medicare.

Sheehy’s ad-libbed quote conflicts with his officially stated approach to health care policy, which is summarized on his campaign website and in an op-ed. In general, Sheehy has criticized the Affordable Care Act but offered few specifics for how he’d change it. But the Sheehy campaign said he does not support eliminating Medicare.

Sheehy: Tester has "continually advocated" for "taking us to a single-payer system for health care.

This overstates Tester’s support. The closest Tester came to arguing the government should handle health insurance was in 2017, when he said Congress should take a "solid look" at a single-payer health care system.

However, he is not a co-sponsor of the current version of the Medicare for All Act, sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and he has previously voted against or declined to sponsor similar legislation that would make the government the sole primary insurer for all Americans.

Tester: "I was the only one in the (Montana) delegation to vote for" the Inflation Reduction Act, which enabled the federal government to negotiate prices with drugmakers and capped insulin at $35 for Medicare beneficiaries.

True. The state’s other senator, Republican Steve Daines, voted against the measure. The state’s single House member at the time, Republican Matt Rosendale, also voted against it.

Sheehy: During the COVID-19 pandemic, timber was "quadrupling in price."

Prices are back at pre-pandemic levels. The price of lumber and wood products increased dramatically during the pandemic. The U.S. Forest Service blamed both supply constraints (including a worker shortage, damaged supply chains and a lack of truckers) and soaring demand for home improvements. However, the market for lumber settled down in late 2022, and current prices are roughly in line with what they were prepandemic, official federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

Tester: Sheehy was "on the board of an organization that wants to privatize our public lands."

The group’s current position isn’t clear. The Property and Environment Research Center, a group specializing in free-market approaches to the environment, reported in its 2022 IRS Form 990 that Sheehy served as an uncompensated member of its board of directors, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported in June. And web archives of the group’s website listed him as a board member.

In 1999, the group’s former executive director wrote that he wanted to auction off "all public lands over 20 to 40 years," the Daily Chronicle reported. And in 2016, the group urged each national park to be run as a stand-alone business, Outside Magazine reported.

Kat Dwyer, a center spokesperson, told the Daily Chronicle that these stances were old and written by people no longer affiliated with the group.

Today, the group’s website says it "explores innovative ways to better fund public lands, such as user fees that are retained for maintenance and operational needs or other ‘pay-to-play’ funding mechanisms similar to the successful model used by hunters and anglers to fund wildlife conservation."

Sheehy: Tester is the "No. 1 recipient of lobbyist cash in the whole country."

True for this campaign cycle. Tester received $489,440 from lobbyists, a figure that rises to $502,591 when lobbyists’ family members’ contributions are included, according to the nonpartisan campaign-finance tracking group OpenSecrets.org.

That ranks as the most out of any member of Congress in the 2024 election cycle to date.