Carpetbagger! GOP's Rich Senate Picks Don't Live Where They May Run

But most of the wealthy candidates Daines, a U.S. senator from Montana, and his team have been recruiting are like McCormick: conservative male business executives who are recent transplants or may not even live in the state in which they’re seeking office.

In the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate primary, Democrats accused both McCormick and eventual nominee Mehmet Oz of not really being Pennsylvania residents.

In a March 2023 interview with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, first flagged by the progressive super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, McCormick suggested that Oz lost to Democratic nominee John Fetterman in part over the issue: “That explains a lot, I think, because people wanna know that the person that they’re voting for kind of gets it, and part of getting it is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.” (Disclosure: The American Independent Foundation is a partner organization of American Bridge.)

The AP report noted that McCormick listed his Westport, Connecticut, mansion in public documents as his primary residence and has done remote interviews from the property as recently as this spring. McCormick has said he is considering a challenge to Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey.

In Wisconsin, as prominent elected officials declined the chance to challenge Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in 2024, national Republicans are reportedly eying wealthy real estate developer and banker Eric Hovde. Hovde reportedly owns a multimillion dollar home in Laguna Beach, California in addition to his Madison, Wisconsin home. He lost a bid for Senate in 2012.

In May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Hovde spends a significant amount of time in California and was named one of Orange County, California’s top 500 most influential people by the Orange County Business Journal in 2020.

“We hope California Hovde had a safe trip to La Crosse from his Laguna Beach mansion. As Republicans continue to scramble to find a candidate for U.S. Senate, California Hovde is back once again to pitch his extreme and out of touch policies in Wisconsin,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin rapid response director Arik Wolk quipped in a June press release.

Daines has also urged New York Stock Exchange vice chair John Tuttle to run for retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s open seat in Michigan next year. As of last September, Tuttle listed a New York City address as his home when making a campaign donation.

Former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who moved to Florida to run a consulting business and reportedly registered to vote there in 2022, is also reportedly considering a run in his former state.

In Nevada, the NRSC recruited business owner Sam Brown to challenge first-term Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen. Prior to moving to Nevada, he unsuccessfully ran in the 2014 Republican primary for a seat in the Texas Legislature.

Brown will face another wealthy newcomer in the GOP primary. President Donald Trump’s controversial former ambassador to Iceland, Jeffrey Ross Gunter, announced on August 7 that he will also run for the Nevada Senate seat. The GOP mega donor told theNevada Globe two days earlier that he has been a full-time Nevada resident for four years, though the Daily Beastnoted in June that he has been registered to vote in the state only since 2021.

The U.S. Constitution requires that every senator “be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen” as of Election Day, but it does not specify what that means.

On August 10, Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler noted that Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville appears to reside primarily in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.