'Fear' and farmland in the Montana Senate race

Chinese investors own just a tiny percentage of Montana’s tens of millions of acres of farmland. But you wouldn’t know it from the campaign ads that Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and his GOP opponent have been airing.

Tester and his likely GOP challenger, businessman Tim Sheehy, are both touting their efforts to fend off what they warn is China’s growing influence in Montana’s agriculture industry and economy, as they jostle for an edge in one of the country’s most hotly contested Senate races. Their allies, meanwhile, have been bashing the opposing candidate for past investments in companies tied to China.

Concerns about Chinese investors buying up U.S. farmland have skyrocketed in recent years, prompting a glut of legislation in statehouses and in Washington. On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing on “the dangers China poses to American agriculture.”

Over the past few months, several 2024 campaigns have run ads on the issue, including gubernatorial candidates in Indiana and North Carolina. But nowhere has it taken on as high a profile as in the Montana Senate race, where a few thousand votes could determine the victor — and control of the Senate. And it underscores how politicians are trying to capitalize on the rising fear over China’s economic influence, particularly in agriculture.

“It’s something people in the state of Montana are concerned about and I think it’s something we all ought to be concerned about because food security is just that important,” Tester said in a brief interview Tuesday.

By zeroing in on foreign land ownership, specifically, politicians are combining the “highly emotional issues” of American farmland and fear, said Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican.

“When you combine the fear of the Chinese Communist Party with farmland, that really means something to people,” added Johnson, who has co-sponsored multiple pieces of House legislation that would restrict land purchases by investors from China and other countries.

Foreign investors own just a small fraction of U.S. farmland — 43.4 million acres or 3.4 percent of all privately held agricultural land as of the end of 2022, according to the Agriculture Department. Chinese investors owned less than 1 percent of that foreign-held land. In Montana, they own less than 1 percent of the state’s privately-owned farmland, as well.

But nationally, Chinese farmland ownership jumped from the previous decade, from nearly $900 million worth of land in 2012, according to USDA records, to $1.9 billion in 2022.

That increase, though small, comes at the same time that Americans view Beijing as a growing economic and security threat in the wake of the pandemic.

In a state like Montana, where agriculture plays an outsized role in the culture, ownership of farmland resonates with voters, said Nicole Rolf, national affairs director for the Montana Farm Bureau.

There’s general concern about “competing against outside money and outside forces, especially when those are adversarial,” Rolf said.

Both of Montana’s candidates are trying to tap into those sentiments in what is already one of the highest spending Senate races this cycle. The Tester campaign’s first TV buy of the race last November was a $600,000 spot calling China “the greatest threat facing our nation” and touting his work with Republican colleagues on multiple pieces of legislation that would scrutinize foreign purchases of U.S. farmland.

Soon after, Sheehy spent $350,000 on a television ad of his own, dismissing Tester’s tough talk on China. “I’ve actually done something about the threats we face as a Navy Seal,” Sheehy continued. “Then I built a Montana manufacturing business with zero supply chain dependence on China. Now I’m working to strengthen Montana beef production and stop the Chinese from undercutting our ranchers.”

A more recent digital ad the Sheehy campaign released at the end of February claims that “on Tester’s watch, China has stolen our jobs and Chinese ownership of Montana farm land has soared.”

The messaging has extended to outside spending as well. In January, the More Jobs, Less Government PAC dropped three more ads on the subject in favor of Sheehy’s candidacy, claiming he would crack down on Chinese currency manipulation and farmland buys. The group has spent more than $1 million on advertising so far.

Both candidates have also attacked the other’s past investments in Chinese firms to raise questions about their commitment on the issue. Democrats point to reports that Sheehy recently sold off stock in Chinese-owned companies, while Republicans highlight donations Tester received from conglomerates that own U.S. farmland. Sheehy’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Tester’s campaign team declined to comment.

While Congress has yet to act on Tester’s bills or any of the other proposals to block foreign farmland purchases, nearly half of states have passed laws in recent years to track and/or block land acquisitions from adversarial nations. Montana passed its own law in 2023 to prevent the sale or lease of agricultural land, critical infrastructure and homes near military assets to foreign adversaries — which includes not just China but also Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. A handful of other states are weighing such proposals in their legislative sessions this year.

Rolf said in Montana, people started monitoring the issue of foreign-owned farmland in 2021, the pandemic’s second year. Foreign investments are important in Montana, which has a $1.2 billion agricultural export economy and borders Canada — a “friendly” neighbor, according to Rolf. Canadians are the largest foreign land owners in Montana, as well as in the wider U.S.

Sponsoring legislation to block foreign land purchases has given Tester a platform to talk about China, farming and national security in a way that could help enhance his centrist credentials — and differentiate himself from other Democrats, including President Joe Biden, whose approval numbers in the deep red state are abysmal, noted Jeremy Johnson, a political analyst at Carroll College in Helena, Montana.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive and generational rancher, said restricting foreign farmland ownership highlights the state’s libertarian streak, which cuts across parties.

“You don’t need a bunch of interference, especially when from a foreign government,” said Busse, who is also campaigning against Chinese influence on the state’s economy and agriculture.

Tester is the only Democrat who holds statewide office in Montana, but Busse feels that their messaging could be the “reset” his party needs this cycle.

“There is a broad populist anger in the state about the ways in which the system has been rigged for billionaires and out-of-state interests and huge bajillionaire corporations buying up ranches here … and this Chinese [issue] plays into that,” Busse said. “I think we are really breaking through because that populist anger does not know partisan bounds.”