skip to main content

 
Sen. Steve Daines

Senator for Montana

pronounced steev // daynz


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.

Elections must be decided by counting votes

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]

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:

View All »

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:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Daines voted Yea

Motion Agreed to 64/33 on Jul 27, 2022.

This bill includes provisions on two separate subjects: 1) the domestic production of semiconductors and incentives for science and technology research and development and 2) …

Daines voted Yea

Daines voted Nay

Motion Agreed to 71/28 on Feb 9, 2018.

This bill became the vehicle for passage of funding for the federal government through March 23, 2018, to avert a government shutdown that would have …

Daines voted Yea

Passed 219/206 on Dec 11, 2014.

This bill became the vehicle for passage of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 [pdf], which was approved by the House on December …

Daines voted Yea

Daines voted Aye

Daines voted Nay

Passed 303/121 on May 22, 2014.

Daines voted Nay

Passed 359/67 on Jan 15, 2014.

This is the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, the bill that set the federal budget for fiscal year 2014. The bill began as the Space …

Daines voted Nay

Passed 354/67 on Jan 4, 2013.

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.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: