Steve Daines

Steven David Daines (born August 20, 1962) is an American politician and former corporate executive serving as the junior United States senator from Montana since 2015.

The family moved to Montana in 1964.

He was raised in Bozeman, where he attended school from kindergarten through college.

Daines graduated from Bozeman High School, where he served as student body president and participated in policy debate; his partner was future U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Montana State University.

At Montana State, he became a brother of the Sigma Nu fraternity.

Daines was one of the youngest delegates at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

"I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. He was the first president I got to vote for," he has said.

Daines was also the president of MSU College Republicans.

In 1997, Daines left Procter & Gamble to join the family construction business in Bozeman.

Three years later, he met Greg Gianforte, founder of RightNow Technologies, and was put in charge of running RightNow's customer care division.

Daines went on to become vice president of North America Sales and vice president of the Asia-Pacific division.

During his tenure, the cloud-based software company became publicly traded and Bozeman's largest commercial employer.

In 2007, he and his wife started a website, GiveItBack.com, which urged governor Brian Schweitzer to return the state's $1 billion surplus to taxpayers.

From 2007 to 2008, he was Montana state chairman for the Mike Huckabee 2008 presidential campaign and a national surrogate for Huckabee.

Daines spent 13 years with Procter & Gamble.

After seven years managing operations in the United States, he and his family moved to Hong Kong and China for six years, opening factories to expand Procter & Gamble's Asian business.

He was Roy Brown's running mate in the 2008 Montana gubernatorial election, losing in the general election to incumbent governor Brian Schweitzer and lieutenant governor John Bohlinger.

Daines ran for lieutenant governor of Montana in 2008 with Roy Brown, the Republican nominee for governor.

They challenged incumbent Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer and his running mate John Bohlinger.

Brown and Daines lost the election 65%–33%, winning only seven of Montana's 56 counties.

On November 13, 2010, Daines announced he would run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jon Tester in 2012.

When U.S. Representative Denny Rehberg announced his intention to challenge Tester, Daines dropped out of the Senate race and announced his candidacy for the House seat Rehberg was vacating.

He won the three-way Republican primary with 71% of the vote.

In the general election, Daines defeated Democratic state senator Kim Gillan, 53%–43%.

He won 48 of the state's 56 counties.

Daines ran again for public office in 2012 for Montana's at-large congressional district; he won the general election, defeating Democratic nominee Kim Gillan.

Daines remained with the company until March 2012, when he left to campaign for Congress full-time.

A member of the Republican Party, he represented Montana's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015.

Daines was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Bozeman, Montana.

Before entering politics, he held positions at Procter & Gamble and the Montana-based software service RightNow Technologies.

On June 5, 2013, Daines introduced the North Fork Watershed Protection Act of 2013, which would withdraw 430,000 acres of federal lands in Montana from programs to develop geothermal and mineral resources.

The law would forbid mountaintop removal mining and other natural resource development.

The affected lands lie adjacent to Glacier National Park and already have some protections.

After incumbent U.S. Senator Max Baucus announced he would not run for reelection in the 2014 Senate election, Daines won, defeating Democrat Amanda Curtis and becoming the first Republican to win a Senate seat in Montana in the 21st century.

During his 2014 Senate campaign, Democratic opponents alleged that Daines had outsourced U.S. jobs to China.

He stated that he created hundreds of jobs in Montana when he worked for RightNow Technologies.

He was reelected in 2020, defeating the Democratic nominee, incumbent governor Steve Bullock.

In 2023, he became chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, succeeding Rick Scott.

Daines was born in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles to Sharon R. and Clair W. Daines.