Dem
51
GOP
49
Freedom Caucus member Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) loves to keep people guessing. For months he dangled the idea that he would run for the GOP Senate nomination to challenge Jon Tester. Then he finally took the plunge. A week later, he changed his mind and said, no, he wouldn't run for the Senate, preferring to keep his House seat in his R+16 MT-02 district. Now he changed his mind again and said he will retire at the end of this term. What's going on here?
Rosendale claimed that he is retiring from Congress due to a death threat against him and false and defamatory rumors against him and his family. Therefore he cannot serve the people of MT-02 properly. This doesn't pass the smell test. The people who threaten public officials are nearly always very Trumpy and the officials being threatened are nearly always accused of being insufficiently Trumpy. There are probably no members of the House who are Trumpier than Rosendale except maybe Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). So something is wrong with this picture.
We understand why he dropped out of the Senate race. NRSC chairman Sen. Steve Daines, who just happens to be the other senator from Montana, didn't want him to challenge Tester because he expected Rosendale to lose, just as he did in 2018. Daines might even have asked NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC) to toss some money Rosendale's way to encourage him to stay in the House. But why did Rosendale decide to give up a seat he could easily win and leave politics? FCers are not quitters.
The only thing we have seen that makes any sense is a remark made by former senator Heidi Heitkamp in which she said Rosendale had impregnated a 20-year-old staffer. If that is true and if Rosendale paid for an abortion, that would pretty much finish him, in which case he might as well get out before the staffer went public. One might think that a far-right Republican who is making $174,000/year and knows what paying for an abortion would do to his career prospects, would spend 50¢ to make sure the problem didn't arise. Maybe Heitkamp is wrong, but she is out of office and has no reason to get involved in any of this unless some young female staffer who knew her came to her and spilled the beans. (V)