Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, who is locked in a highly consequential race with Democratic incumbent Jon Tester, said in newly unearthed audio that the Republican Party needs to do a better job at winning over young women, some of whom he said they have been ‘indoctrinated’ due to years on the issue of abortion.
“Young people, listen, they have been indoctrinated for too long. We don’t even try to talk to them anymore,” Sheehy said at an event in late 2023, according to audio obtained by NBC News.
“A few months ago I was talking to a group of younger people about all kinds of issues. And one of them was life, because of course for young women between the ages of 19 and 30, abortion is their biggest concern. It’s the only thing they want to talk about. They are voters discussing one issue,” Sheehy continued.
“And it’s all about pro-choice, pro-choice. Well, ‘Republicans are pro-life. They want to take away my rights and lock me up and throw me in jail.’ And I said, are you familiar with the Democrats’ position on abortion? Yes, they are pro-choice.
Sheehy, who was already running for Senate at the time, then used a false line echoed by former President Donald Trump and other Republicans, claiming that the Democratic Party supports killing babies soon after they are born.
‘It’s called murder. That is the position of the American Democratic Party,” Sheehy said.
The audio matches quotes from Sheehy recently reported by The Daily Montanan. The audio was first posted by Char-Koosta News in Montana.
Tester’s campaign condemned Sheehy for the comments.
“Tim Sheehy calling young women ‘indoctrinated’ for valuing reproductive freedom only shows how out of touch he is with the people of Montana,” Tester spokesperson Monica Robinson said. “In Montana, we don’t want the government telling us what to do – and Sheehy’s position that politicians should have the final say on our health care is one of the many ways he is trying to change Montana for the worse.”
A campaign spokesperson for Sheehy responded to the recording on Monday, saying in a statement that Tester “is in full desperation mode and the liberal media in DC are falling for it by pushing a fake narrative.”
The spokesperson did not dispute the accuracy of Sheehy’s quotes.
“Tim has made it crystal clear that he is pro-life, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. Period,” his campaign said. “What we should be discussing is that every time Tester could have supported the common-sense Born Alive Survivors Act, which would require medical professionals to intervene if a baby survives a botched abortion, Tester sided with the radical liberals and voted no. That is the extreme position. here and why Tester knows he’ll be done in November.
The hotly contested race has major national implications and could determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years. Republicans need a net gain of two seats to take control of the Senate, or one seat if Trump wins the White House, because the vice president can cast tie-breaking votes.
Abortion-related measures are on the ballot in 10 states next month, the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the help of Trump’s three former nominees to the court. Democrats have used the issue to galvanize voters and warn that a Republican majority in Congress could lead to a national law banning abortion, while many Republican candidates have struggled to formulate a coherent message on the issue.
Sheehy’s comments last year were similar to those that Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno made at a town hall last month when he complained that many “suburban women” were “single-issue voters” when it came to abortion happened. Moreno is locked in a close race against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said at the event, according to video obtained by NBC affiliate WCMH of Columbus.
“Unfortunately, by the way, there are a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women who say, ‘Listen, that’s what abortion is.’ If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for someone else.” …OK. It’s a bit crazy, by the way, but – especially for women who are already over 50 – I think to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s a problem for you,’” Moreno said.
A spokesperson for Moreno characterized the comments as a “tongue-in-cheek joke about how Sherrod Brown and members of the left-wing media like to pretend that abortion is the only issue that matters to women voters.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com