Control of the U.S. Senate might very well come down to the race in Montana, where Sen. Jon Tester is facing a tough challenge from Republican Tim Sheehy. The bad news for the Democratic incumbent is that recent polling leaves little doubt that he’s the underdog, but the good news for Tester is that the GOP has nominated a rival with an unfortunate record.

As regular readers know, Sheehy, for example, has used racist rhetoric when talking about Native Americans — which is indefensible under any circumstances, and which is especially foolish in a state with a sizable Native population. He has also accused women who support abortion rights of having been “indoctrinated.” Sheehy has also been accused of plagiarism, doctoring footage in a campaign commercial, disparaging firefighters, flubbing the basics of the impeachment process, having a controversial lobbying background, and exaggerating his successes in the private sector.

In case that weren’t quite enough, the candidate wrote in his book that he was discharged from the military for medical reasons, but NBC News reported last month that the discharge paperwork indicates that he resigned voluntarily and it does not list any medical condition that forced him out.

But most important is the question of how and when Sheehy was shot. NBC News reported over the weekend:

The conservative host told the Senate hopeful that his version of events is “so confusing,” and it was a rare instance in which I found myself in agreement with Kelly.

Let’s circle back to our recent coverage and review how we arrived at this point.

The Republican candidate, a retired Navy SEAL, has told Montana voters that he has a bullet stuck in his right forearm “from Afghanistan.” It’s the sort of claim that signals to the public that Sheehy wants to be seen as tough, while simultaneously reminding people about his military service.

And while it certainly appears that there’s a bullet lodged in Sheehy’s right forearm, there’s reason to be skeptical about how it got there.

The Washington Post reported back in April that Sheehy visited Montana’s Glacier National Park in 2015, at which point he told a National Park Service ranger that he accidentally shot himself when his Colt .45 revolver fell and discharged while he was loading his vehicle in the park. Soon after, the Post’s article added, a ranger cited Sheehy for allegedly discharging his weapon in a national park illegally, relying on the Republican’s version of events, and the relevant reports were filed.

More recently, however, Sheehy told the Post that he lied to the National Park Service ranger and that he was actually shot while serving in Afghanistan.

The ranger who interacted with the future Senate candidate, Kim Peach, isn’t buying it. In fact, Peach told The New York Times that he remembers seeing Sheehy at the hospital in 2015 “with a bandage on his arm,” presumably because he’d just accidentally shot himself.

The article added, “Because it is illegal to discharge a firearm in a national park, Mr. Peach said, he and Mr. Sheehy went out to Mr. Sheehy’s vehicle, where Mr. Peach temporarily confiscated the gun and unloaded it, finding five live rounds and the casing of one that had been fired.”

The Times also spoke with one of Sheehy’s former SEAL colleagues, Dave Madden, who recalled swapping war stories with the Montanan about their experiences, and Sheehy never said anything about having been shot.

“Mr. Madden said he was surprised when Mr. Sheehy began talking more recently about having been shot that spring in Afghanistan, and that he became convinced that Mr. Sheehy had invented the story,” the article added.

The question isn’t whether Sheehy lied. The question is when and to whom he lied.

To be sure, the GOP candidate remains adamant that he was shot in Afghanistan and lied about the park incident to protect his former platoonmates from facing a potential investigation.

As Sheehy has explained it, he believed that if he’d told the truth in 2015, it might’ve been reported to the Navy, prompting questions about whether the wound was the result of friendly fire or from enemy ammunition. But the Post reported that it would’ve been “highly unlikely that a civilian hospital would report a years-old bullet wound to the Navy.”

In theory, the candidate could release the relevant medical records and put the matter to rest. In practice, Sheehy now says there are no such medical records.

No wonder Kelly found all of this “so confusing.”

As for the significance of this, Sheehy doesn’t have much of a record to fall back on, so if he lied about getting shot in Afghanistan, it does dramatic harm to one of the key pillars of his entire candidacy. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

Democrats are growing more optimistic about Sen. Jon Tester’s reelection chances in Montana in the campaign’s final days, according to party strategists, hopeful that a late surge of support for the senator has at least put him within striking distance of Republican nominee Tim Sheehy.

After bottoming out at the end of summer, Tester’s poll numbers have bounced back in recent weeks, according to one Democratic strategist familiar with the race, who, like others interviewed for this story, emphasized that the three-term senator’s hold on the Senate seat remains precarious. But his support has grown enough that allies think the incumbent — long considered the Democratic senator most likely to lose his reelection — has at least now moved within a poll’s margin of error.

“I would say flip a coin, and then call it heads or tails before it hits your hand,” said former Democratic Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. “And that’s how this thing is going to end.”

A national conservative talk show host gave Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy a chance to address a gunshot wound records suggest happened in Glacier National Park, but the Republican businessman-turned-politician said happened because of friendly fire overseas during his Navy SEAL career.

Sheehy’s appearance left the host commenting, “so confusing.”

On Friday, Sheehy appeared on the Megyn Kelly Show with Kelly asking about the gunshot incident, which has drawn both state and national media attention as one of the defining issues that could also determine which political party controls the U.S. Senate. Sheehy is running against three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Big Sandy.

Sheehy has insisted that a bullet in his arm is the result of “friendly fire” overseas, and that he didn’t report the incident to commanders for fears of getting in trouble or having to leave combat.

However, a ticket and interview from former Glacier Park ranger Kim Peach in 2015 detailed that Sheehy was instead cited for discharging a firearm in the park, and was treated at an area hospital for the wound. Sheehy himself wrote a handwritten statement at the time admitting the improperly stored firearm fell and discharged into his arm. Sheehy later paid the fine and the gun, a .45-caliber revolver, was returned to him.

On Saturday, Sheehy was asked repeatedly about the wound, and Kelly told him the interview was an opportunity to clarify what happened as the issue has been repeatedly at the center of the campaign. The Democrats have used it to make their case he’s lying and not to be trusted.

Sheehy said on the program that the friendly fire likely happened because of foreign forces that the U.S. military was helping in Afghanistan, without giving details about when and where the incident happened.

“You’d have Afghans who, either intentionally or unintentionally, would end up shooting friendly forces. You know, sometimes they just start putting their weapons on full auto and start, you know, shooting whatever direction they felt like,” Sheehy said.

In his memoir, Sheehy said he was hit by friendly fire from “a total stud who went on to a successful career as a SEAL.”

In the interview with Kelly, he said that he didn’t report the incident to commanders because it could break up their team with investigations, and also risked him being sent back for medical treatments, something, Sheehy told Kelly, he didn’t want to have happen.

“You know, we were at about half strength this point in our deployment. We’d have many teammates wounded and sent home,” Sheehy said. “And you know me, as a team commander, there was no position to be to be carved off the battlefield. Many of us were injured multiple times. We don’t report that simply because we’re going to stay in the fight, stay with our team. We’re going to finish our deployment and do our job. So unless those injuries are life threatening, of course, you know, if you’ve lost a limb, like some of our teammates had, or there’s a severe injury, you’re going to you’re going to deal with that, because that person has to be cared for, but otherwise you just keep on moving.”

Kelly tried redirecting the conversation several times to the incident itself, but Sheehy sidestepped the question, for example, in this exchange:

“Just to be clear: Did you shoot yourself in the arm?” she asked.

“No, that was never the allegation that. But the point is, you know, it was a friendly fire ricochet downrange that wasn’t reported at the time and after,” Sheehy said.

“I don’t want to harp on this. I just want to give you the chance. I want to give you the chance to explain yourself, because this is their closing message. It’s all about this incident, but voters are confused,” Kelly said.

Instead, Sheehy said that when he was hiking in Glacier, he felt the bullet became dislodged and went to the hospital.

“The point was, at the time, I was injured (in Glacier) and went to the hospital, they required a police report, because any gunshot room requires a police report of any kind. And they said, ‘We have to file this. We have to report this to law enforcement,’” Sheehy said. “And still having active team members, you know, in the service who were involved in at that time, I simply said, ‘Well, this is, this is an old one.’ They said, ‘No, we have to report this as a gunshot wound, you know, to the law enforcement.’ So, yeah, I said, ‘Well, okay, fine. It was an accident.’”

A Montana medical examiner with expertise in gunshot sounds recently said evidence shows it’s possible Sheehy hurt his elbow in a firefight on the battlefield and that he also hurt himself in Glacier Park.

Kelly asked about any medical records that could help clarify or corroborate the incident, but Sheehy said they don’t exist.

“You go in, you check on it, and then you leave. There’s not an extensive medical record for any of this stuff. And unfortunately, that’s the crux of this. Is there’s just not a whole lot to talk about. They decided to take this one report from a park ranger that I gave them,” Sheehy responded.

Sheehy also insisted that he and the campaign have been transparent with voters, satisfying their questions, only to have the Democrats continue to bring it up.

“No, we’ve discussed this at length, repeatedly with every media outlet for the last year. It’s been beat to death,” Sheehy said.

However, both national and state media have reported that Sheehy has ducked interviews and not responded to questions surrounding the bullet incident in Glacier National Park.

On two previous occasions, the Daily Montanan has put in requests to the Sheehy campaign for medical records regarding that incident. The Sheehy campaign did not respond to either of those requests.

The Daily Montanan renewed the requests on Sunday morning.