Tim Sheehy

Tim Sheehy, a GOP Senate candidate in Montana, has campaigned on being a self-made entrepreneur. But his new book details how much his family made it happen. As he introduces himself to Montana voters, top GOP U.S. Senate recruit Tim Sheehy has highlighted his experience “bootstrapping” the successful aerial firefighting company he launched in the state. Talking to party luncheons and interviewers, Sheehy’s success story about Bridger Aerospace has sounded like a gritty start-up tale that began with a dream and some savings, not “freebies,” as he put it in a podcast interview. “We had a nice little six-figure nest egg, and we just booted off our company with that,” Sheehy said on a November podcast appearance. “We bought our land, and we lived in a tent, literally, for months, and we built the barn that we lived in for four and a half years. And it was like bootstrap central.” Sheehy’s sterling resume and colorful backstory has made him such a highly prized recruit for Senate Republicans. A Navy SEAL who served in combat before starting his business, the 38-year-old could pose a serious threat to Sen. Jon Tester, and potentially help flip control of the Senate back to the GOP. But fresh information has emerged that undercuts Sheehy’s story of self-made scrappiness. And the details come from an unlikely source: Sheehy himself. In a forthcoming memoir to be released this month, titled Mudslingers: A True Story of American Firefighting, Sheehy divulges the hard work and determination that went into building Bridger Aerospace. But he also details the extensive financial support from his family that made its success possible. While Sheehy writes that he worked out a deal to pay the seller some share of funds up front and the rest in quarterly installments, it’s clear that his father and brother provided the cash needed to seal the deal. His father, Sheehy writes, backed him “financially and emotionally, without expecting anything in return,” while his brother, a financier in New York, “wanted access to the company’s financial records and an equity stake in the business in exchange for a significant cash investment.” In telling his story, Sheehy often mentions that he and his wife lived in a “tent” for a period after moving to Montana, an evocative detail that underscores how much money they had sunk into the company and how broke they were. “Again, this is just true, every dollar we had, we poured into our company,” he said in a September meet and greet. “We literally lived in a tent in our barn for a few years.” But in Mudslingers, Sheehy reveals that he and his wife “could easily have moved into a pleasant enough place in Bozeman, thrown ourselves into raising a family and growing a business, figuring ‘someday, when we’re ready, we’ll buy some land and build a place in the country.’” Living in a tent, then, was more of a lifestyle decision to commit to “the life we dreamed of” on a farmstead, not because they had literally no money. In response to questions from The Daily Beast, Sheehy campaign spokesperson Katie Martin attacked his potential Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Jon Tester. “As a former Navy SEAL and successful business owner, Tim Sheehy fought for this country and created hundreds of jobs for Montanans, running multiple mission-led, service-oriented businesses. Tim has been blessed to live the American dream he was willing to die for,” Martin said. “While Tim has bled for this country to ensure America's homeland was safe, Jon Tester got six times richer as a career politician in Washington collecting millions in taxpayer dollars while delivering zero results for the state of Montana.” “Tim looks forward to continuing to campaign across the state and tell his story of service and job creation, unlike Jon Tester who spends his time wining and dining D.C. lobbyists,” Martin continued. (Coincidentally, on Tuesday evening, Sheehy was in Washington for a fundraiser co-hosted by high-powered GOP lobbyists