Helena candidate faces backlash over voicemail to Tim Sheehy

Haley McKnight’s July 1 voicemail to U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy’s Helena district office has become a political liability for the Helena City Commission candidate, drawing condemnation from Sheehy’s office, a public apology from McKnight and a backlash that reached her employer, Sage & Oats Trading Post.

The message surfaced after Sheehy had voted with Senate Republicans that day to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In the voicemail, McKnight identified herself as a Helena constituent and used profanity while wishing Sheehy would die and develop terminal pancreatic cancer. What might have stayed a private outburst instead became a public measure of how much anger local candidates can direct at an opponent before voters treat it as disqualifying.

Sheehy’s office seized on the voicemail in a Nov. 3 press release, turning the episode into an immediate partisan flashpoint. A campaign response from spokesman Tate Mitchell condemned the message, and the senator’s office framed it as a threat rather than routine campaign heat. That response pushed the story beyond Helena’s city race and into Montana’s broader political fight over civility and limits.

McKnight later acknowledged that she left the message. She also issued a public apology after the voicemail drew wider attention. The apology did not end the fallout. By Nov. 5, Sage & Oats Trading Post, where McKnight worked, was dealing with thousands of messages as the controversy spread through Helena and beyond.

For Helena voters, the episode puts temperament and judgment at the center of a race that already sits close to the state’s political spotlight. The city’s commission contests often overlap with Capitol politics, and this one now carries an added question: whether a candidate who makes a threatening voicemail part of the record can still persuade voters she meets the standards expected for office.