A Democratic lawmaker lost her seat in a landslide after leaving an expletive-filled, threatening voicemail for freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) in July.
The message came shortly after Sheehy and most Senate Republicans voted to advance the Trump-backed “Big Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping spending package that fulfilled several of the president’s key campaign promises.
The voicemail was traced to Haley McKnight, a Democratic candidate for city commissioner in Helena, Montana’s capital, Fox News reported.
“Hi, this is Haley McKnight. I’m a constituent in Helena, Montana,” McKnight began in her message, which was obtained by Fox News. “I just wanted to let you know that you are the most insufferable kind of coward and thief. You just stripped away healthcare for 17 million Americans, and I hope you’re really proud of that. I hope that one day you get pancreatic cancer, and it spreads throughout your body so fast that they can’t even treat you for it.”
In the roughly one-minute voicemail, sent on July 1, McKnight directed a series of angry remarks at Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, taking aim at his personal health and his family’s wellbeing before issuing a warning for him “not to meet me on the streets.”
“I hope you die in the street like a dog,” McKnight continued. “One day, you’re going to live to regret this. I hope that your children never forgive you. I hope that you are infertile. I hope that you manage to never get a boner ever again. You are the worst piece of s*** I have ever, ever, ever had the misfortune of looking at … God forbid that you ever meet me on the streets because I will make you regret it. F*** you. I hope you die.”
Federal Election Commission records indicate that McKnight has previously donated to multiple Democratic candidates. She has also publicly expressed her support for former President Barack Obama and highlighted her campaign work for former Montana Democratic congressional candidate Steve Held.
She was also a candidate for a traditionally non-partisan on the Helena city commission, but her phone call likely led to her disastrous finish in that race this week. She finished third with just 20 percent of the vote, eliminating her from contention for either of the two available seats.
It also cost her a job.
McKnight, a North Carolina native, ran the Sage & Oats Trading Post, which she describes on her campaign website as “a successful Native American-owned gift store.” After news of her threatening phone call to Sheehy broke, the owners of Sage & Oats Trading Post, Major and Michelle Robinson, fired her.
According to the Montana Free Press, McKnight told the Robinsons that a national news article about her threatening voicemail was about to hit the country. The Robinsons said they were only given about an hour’s notice and were unprepared for the onslaught of criticism that followed.
The couple described the voicemail as “completely out of character” for 30-year-old McKnight but said Wednesday that they had decided to terminate her employment after initially suspending her without pay. The Robinsons said they were strongly opposed to the “threatening language” she used in the message but acknowledged that firing her was a difficult decision.
They considered McKnight “like family,” they said, crediting her with playing an integral role in the growth of their business since its opening in 2018.
“Even with your work family or your regular family, if you make a mistake, you learn to grow from those mistakes,” Major Robinson said in a Wednesday phone interview with Montana Free Press. “This one’s a mistake on a national level. And it’s hard because it’s impacting not just us personally, but our business as well.”
