Amid divisions in the Republican Party, the Tea Party Express came out with a forceful endorsement of Montana Congressman Steve Daines in his bid for the U.S. Senate Friday.

Daines, a first-term Republican in the House, attended a Pachyderm Club meeting Friday in Kalispell along with Amy Kremer, a Georgia resident who chairs the Tea Party Express, which is the nation’s largest tea party political action committee.

“Harry Reid has caused so much gridlock in Washington, D.C.,” Kremer said of the Democratic Senate majority leader’s refusal to let the Senate vote on scores of bills passed by the Republican House. “The only way to change that is to take the gavel out of Harry Reid’s hand ... If we’re going to take that gavel out of Harry Reid’s hand, we have to win that Senate seat.”

Kremer praised Daines for his business experience, his support for pro-growth policies and fiscally conservative views.

“Congressman Steve Daines is a conservative that will fight for every Montanan,” Kremer states in a national press release. “America is suffering under an unsustainable $17 trillion in debt, the Obamacare train wreck and anemic economic growth. Congressman Daines went to Washington, D.C., in order to tackle these problems, not play politics, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing.”

Derek Skees, a former state legislator from Whitefish and a co-founder of a Flathead Valley tea party group called the Freedom Action Rally, gave an enthusiastic endorsement of Daines, and called on Republicans to unite and defend Daines in his Senate bid.

In an interview, Skees said tea party groups are definitely at odds with the Republican establishment to a point where many people may have speculated that the Tea Party Express might have supported the other Republican running for Senate, Champ Edmunds, a state lawmaker from Missoula. 

Edmunds presents himself as the most conservative candidate in the race.

But Skees said tea party groups have every interest in winning the Senate seat held by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who is retiring at the end of next year.

Daines has the best chance of winning and he is getting endorsed, even though some of his votes have irked Tea Party supporters, he added.

Skees said tea party groups need to adopt a philosophy of supporting candidates they agree with 80 percent of the time. “A lot of the grassroots, we’ve to come to an 80-20 agreement. We’ll never get 100 percent.”

He said the Tea Party Express endorsement is “very important” for rallying grassroots support for Daines.

In his remarks to the Pachyderm Club, Daines reiterated some of the points made by Kremer, saying that Washington is in gridlock because of Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama. The House has passed about 150 bills that push back on federal regulations, and none have come up for a vote in the Senate, he said.

“Calling Obamacare a train wreck is not fair to train wrecks,” he quipped, noting that 20,000 Montanans have had their insurance canceled due to the federal health-care law, while only 212 signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act in the first month it was available.

The Affordable Care Act website is “full of security holes,” he said.

Ironically, he added, the best defense for protecting Americans’ private information has been their inability to use the technically flawed website.

Daines raised the issue of Democratic judicial appointments presenting potential threats to Second Amendment rights, and he noted that as a senator, he would only support judicial nominees who would not pose such a threat.

Daines noted that Republicans need to pick up only six Senate seats to win a majority, and he recalled that in 2006, the majority shifted to Democrats with the late-night victory of Montana Sen. Jon Tester over Republican Conrad Burns.

Had 3,600 Montanans voted for Burns instead of Tester, he said, the Affordable Care Act would not have become law.

“But we fired [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi in 2010, and we’re going to fire Harry Reid in 2014,” Daines said.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.