Sen. Tim Sheehy (R., Mont.) is fighting back against what he is calling a politically motivated hit piece from New York Times reporter Mike Baker, which takes aim at both his campaign financing and Bridger Aerospace, the aerial firefighting company he founded before leaving to run for Senate.
Sheehy said Baker’s inquiry implied the company is “struggling” or in financial distress. His response was blunt: “the claim of a ‘struggling’ company is detached from reality.” Sheehy published his full written responses to Baker publicly, saying experience has shown the Times “often omits context to fit a false narrative.” He went further, accusing Democrats of running a coordinated campaign against the company during his Senate run, calling it “Democrat-orchestrated stock manipulation and fraud,” and made clear this attack is no longer just about him. “The NYT is no longer attacking me,” he wrote. “They are out to hurt the hardworking employees of Bridger Aerospace who are all stockholders.”
Since Sheehy stepped down as CEO in July 2024 to focus on his Senate campaign, Bridger Aerospace under CEO Sam Davis has posted record quarter after record quarter. Third quarter 2025 revenue hit $67.9 million, up 5 percent year-over-year, while net income jumped 26 percent to $34.5 million. Nine-month revenue reached $114.3 million, a 38 percent increase over the prior year. The company revised its full-year 2025 revenue guidance upward to $118-$122 million, above the original top-end of $111 million.
Bridger’s public reports show the company has been rapidly growing. In December, the company purchased Canadair fire-fighting planes bringing its total Super Scooper fleet to eight planes and making it the largest private operator of Super Scoopers in the world.
Four additional Air Attack aircraft were also added to the balance sheet in the fourth quarter of last year. The fleet expansion was funded through a loan secured by Bain Capital, one of the most prestigious lending and private equity firms.
This week, Bridger announced a major contract with the U.S. Department of Interior which follows a recent contract from last January.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, then-candidate Sheehy dealt with multiple stories from press outlets attacking his company, which was a major theme of his opponent’s campaign. Sheehy defeated three-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.) in a state Democrats spent heavily to defend.
Those attacks on Bridger failed to derail Sheehy’s campaign. The company Sheehy left behind has more than 160 employees, every one of them a stockholder, and just topped $120 million in annual revenue.
A Senate source unaffiliated with Sheehy’s office told the Washington Reporter, that “the New York Times is still running oppo from Jon Tester after the election. This smear piece is garbage — Bridger’s stock is up 2X the S&P over the past year.”
During the 2024 cycle, the Reporter covered the bizarre lengths that the Times would go to attack Republicans. In one instance, the paper attacked Republican candidate Derrick Anderson for posing with the family of his friends, while ignoring how Anderson’s Democratic opponent, then-candidate Eugene Vindman, did the same thing.
