BOZEMAN, Mont. – Steve Daines is the affable one, the smiler, a consummate salesman who parlayed his corporate success into a meteoric rise through Montana politics and a seat in the U.S.
Senate.His former boss, Greg Gianforte, is more brusque, sometimes even harsh, a self-made technology mogul whose political career has proved rockier and included a stinging defeat for governor and unwanted notoriety when he assaulted a reporter during a successful run for U.S.
House.Together they form a powerful political alliance on the cusp of dominating Montana politics for years to come, pushing the state's Republican Party away from a Western brand of centrism and toward the hard-line partisan agenda of President Donald Trump.