After earning a music degree in 1978 from the College of Great Falls, Tester worked for two years as a music teacher in the Big Sandy School District. In 1980, he turned back to farming; two years later, he was elected to the Big Sandy School Board, where he served as chair.

In 1985, Tester converted his conventional wheat and barley farm to an organic one, adding such crops as alfalfa, buckwheat, hay, lentils, millet and peas.Tester's enthusiasm for agriculture earned him spots on the Big Sandy Soil Conservation Service Committee and the Chouteau County Agricultural Stabilization and Service Committee. "I do some of my best thinking on my tractor," Tester told Time in 2006.

Tester and his wife, Sharla, still operate his family's 1,800-acre farm today. Together they have a daughter, Christine, and a son, Shon.

Statewide Politics

Tester entered Montana politics in 1998 after his neighbor, a Republican state senator, announced that he would not seek re-election. Tester made a successful bid for the seat, winning the first of two four-year terms in the body. He climbed the ranks of state Senate leadership quickly, becoming minority whip for the legislature's 2001 session and minority leader for the 2003 session. After Democrats gained a majority, Tester was elected president of the Montana Senate in 2005.

2006 Senate Race

At the end of that year's legislative session, Tester-term-limited in the state Senate-announced that he would challenge three-term incumbent GOP Sen. Burns (R-Mont.) for U.S. Senate in 2006. He faced competition in the Democratic primary from four other Democrats, but chiefly in state Auditor John Morrison, the grandson of a former Nebraska governor. Despite Morrison's name recognition and nearly two-fold financial advantage, his campaign was hobbled by the disclosure of a 1998 affair with the fiancee of a businessman later investigated by his office. Tester, a unrepentant populist and darling of the netroots, sailed to a 61% to 35% victory over Morrison.

As in the primary, Tester was vastly outspent in the general election-this time by a 3-to-1 margin-but Burns' financial advantage was offset by his towering negatives. Since early 2005, Burns had been plagued by the revelation that he had taken more money from scandal-tainted lobbyist Jack Abramoff than any other member of Congress. Though Burns called for a federal probe of the donations to exonerate himself, Montana's sizeable Native American population (a demographic targeted in Abramoff's schemes) made it difficult to beat the rap. Also hampering Burns was a series of high-profile verbal gaffes, including his reference to Arabs as "ragheads" and his chiding of firefighters as having done a "piss-poor job" putting out a wildfire.

Tester, meanwhile, repelled efforts by the GOP to brand him as radical liberal, relying in part on his unpretentious demeanor and the full-throated support of popular Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) to earn voters' confidence. In the end, Tester nosed ahead of Burns by 3,562 votes (49.2% to 48.3%), earning a spot in the Democrats' slim but pivotal Senate majority for the 110th Congress.

U.S. Senate

Tester's direct style, unconventional appearance and progressive politics have led many Democrats to tout him as a symbol of the party's growing position of strength in Western states.

As a senator, Tester has often inveighed against the balance of power and the influence of lobbyists in federal government, declaring that Washington is "controlled by K street cronies." After arriving in the nation's capital, Tester asked a retired Montana Supreme Court justice to conduct an ethics audit of his office and became the first member in the chamber's history to post his daily schedule online.

Show less