Steve Daines

Steve Daines (born August 20, 1962, Van Nuys, California, U.S.) is an American politician who was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 2014 and began representing Montana the following year. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives (2013–15). In March 2026 Daines unexpectedly dropped his bid for a third term in the Senate.

Daines was born in southern California but grew up in Bozeman, Montana. His family had connections to the state going back five generations; his great-great-grandmother emigrated from Norway in 1869 and homesteaded in Montana. Daines attended Montana State University (MSU), graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1984. He then worked for Procter & Gamble in the United States and abroad. During that time Daines married, and he and his wife, Cindy, later had three children. In 1997 Daines returned to Montana to join his family’s construction firm. Three years later he became an executive at Rightnow Technologies.

Daines’s political activities began in college, where he served as president of the MSU College Republicans. He represented Montana as a Ronald Reagan delegate at the 1984 Republican National Convention, and he served as state chairman of Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in 2007–08. Daines first ran for public office in 2008, when he was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. However, he lost in the general election. In 2012 he joined the race for Montana’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Popular within the Tea Party movement, he adopted a campaign platform that included calls for a balanced federal budget and the development of Montana’s natural resources without the oversight of such federal authorities as the Environmental Protection Agency. He won the election, and after taking office in 2013, he continued to pursue a conservative agenda. He publicly opposed gun-control efforts, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and restrictions on energy development. In addition, he was a vocal proponent of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. In 2014 Daines ran for the U.S. Senate and was easily elected. He won a second term in 2020.

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During his time in office, Daines was a reliable supporter of Republican policies, and he was a strong ally of Pres. Donald Trump. Daines notably backed the construction of a border wall and advanced unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Shortly before the filing deadline for the November 2026 election, Daines announced that he would not seek a third term. He subsequently endorsed Kurt Alme, a candidate who also received the backing of Trump.