Montana attorney general won’t run for US Senate

HELENA – Montana Attorney General Tim Fox says he will not run in 2018 for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Democrat Jon Tester.

Monday’s announcement by the popular Republican means the national GOP will have to scramble to find a candidate to oppose Tester, who is running for his third term and is considered among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats in 2018.

Fox told the Associated Press that he still had a lot of work to do as attorney general, an office in which he was re-elected to last November.

Fox was being courted by national and state party leaders to run against Tester after the GOP’s first choice, former U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, took a cabinet position with President Donald Trump as secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.