Daines is the junior senator from Montana and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 6, 2015. Daines is next up for reelection in 2026 and serves until Jan 3, 2027. He is 60 years old.
He was previously the representative for Montana’s at-large district as a Republican from 2013 to 2014.
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided instead by incumbent politicians running in the very same election. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Daines was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. In the days leading up to January 6, 2021’s congressional certification of the election, Daines announced his intent to object to the inclusion of some states from the certification, which would have disenfranchised millions of voters and amplified lies, conspiracy theories, and preposterous legal theories about purported fraud. (He ultimately did not vote to exclude any states from the Electoral College, however.) The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.
![Photo of Sen. Steve Daines [R-MT]](/static/legislator-photos/412549-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Daines.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Daines is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Daines has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 16, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Steve Daines sits on the following committees:
Enacted Legislation
Daines was the primary sponsor of 19 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 2756 (117th): A bill to posthumously award a Congressional Gold Medal, in commemoration of the service members who perished as a result of the attack in Afghanistan on August …
- S. 2256 (117th): Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act of 2021
- S. 1897 (117th): Protecting Indian Tribes from Scams Act
- S. 900 (116th): A bill to designate the community-based outpatient clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Bozeman, Montana, as the “Travis W. Atkins Department of Veterans Affairs Clinic”.
- S. 490 (116th): B-47 Ridge Designation Act
- S. 3019 (116th): Montana Water Rights Protection Act
- S. 1228 (116th): PIRATE Act
Does 19 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Daines sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Public Lands and Natural Resources (20%) Health (17%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Taxation (16%) International Affairs (8%) Native Americans (8%) Armed Forces and National Security (8%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Daines recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 758: A bill to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to protect personally identifiable …
- S. 536: A bill to authorize the confiscation of assets of the Russian Federation and …
- S. 428: FIND Act
- S. 390: Gateway Community and Recreation Enhancement Act
- S. 199: Root and Stem Project Authorization Act of 2023
- S.Con.Res. 3: A concurrent resolution affirming the importance of religious freedom as a fundamental human …
- S. 110: A PLUS Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2015 to Mar 2023, Daines missed 65 of 2,826 roll call votes, which is 2.3%. This is on par with the median of 2.3% among the lifetime records of senators currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
