After ruling it out several times in the strongest terms, Montana governor Steve Bullock (D.) is reportedly poised to run for Senate in the 2020 election.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Bullock is getting ready to challenge Republican senator Steve Daines and will file before next week's deadline. That would seem to contradict several statements during his short-lived presidential campaign promising not to run for Senate and suggesting the job wasn't even interesting.
"I was never going to run for the Senate," Bullock told MSNBC shortly after he announced his presidential run in May 2019, "and I do think that I have both the skills and abilities as an executive to bridge some divides. I have great respect for the senators, but this is something that never really got me excited."
Bullock said at a CNN town hall that he was best-suited for executive office and running for Senate was "an absolute no." Bullock senior adviser Matt McKenna told Vox that a Senate seat "has never in [Bullock's] life, not once, been a consideration. There’s just no way."
Bullock continued to maintain his opposition to running for Senate even after he ended his presidential campaign in December. "I’ve said before, during and after that I’m not going to be running for Senate," Bullock said at his first press conference after he dropped out. "I’ve made that clear, that’s just not what I want to do."
The two-term governor continued to insist he would not run as recently as February after former president Barack Obama met with Bullock in Washington, D.C., to ask him to run.
"As he has said repeatedly, there will be a candidate for U.S. Senate in Montana against Steve Daines. It will not be Steve Bullock," McKenna said in a statement.