Timothy Patrick Sheehy (/ʃiːhi/; born November 18, 1985)[1] is an American politician, businessman, aerial firefighter, and former Navy SEAL serving since 2025 as the junior United States senator from Montana.

He won the party's nomination on June 3, and defeated three-term Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in the general election.

Sheehy has said a bullet lodged in his arm during a 2012 Afghanistan firefight and that, suspecting it was from friendly fire, he did not report the incident at the time to protect his unit's members.

[7][8][9] In 2015, when seeking medical care in a Kalispell hospital, he said the injury was from an accidental discharge of a firearm in Glacier National Park that day.

[6] Sheehy told The Washington Post that he "made up the story about the gun going off to protect himself and his former platoonmates from facing a potential military investigation into an old bullet wound that he said he got in Afghanistan in 2012.

[20] Sheehy wrote in his memoir and in a resume submitted to the Montana State Legislature that he had been medically discharged due to wounds received in Afghanistan.

[31] In June 2023, Sheehy announced he would run as a Republican against three-term Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in the 2024 United States Senate election in Montana.

[42] Recordings first reported by The Char-Koosta News in August 2024 of Sheehy at a 2023 closed-door fundraiser led to accusations that he had racially stereotyped Montana's Crow people.

[43] In one statement about how he ropes and brands cattle with Crow tribe members, he said it is "a great way to bond with all the Indians while they're drunk at 8 a.m." Sheehy said the tapes had been "chopped up".

After inspecting the plane and interviewing Sheehy, who said he was not piloting it, the National Transportation Safety Board determined the instructor's actions led to the crash.