Daines, Steve, 1962-

Steven David Daines (/ˈdeɪnz/ DAYNZ; born August 20, 1962) is an American politician and former corporate executive serving as the junior United States senator for Montana since 2015. A Republican, he served as the U.S. representative for Montana's at-large congressional district from 2013 to 2015. In 2014, Daines won Montana's open U.S. Senate seat. He was reelected in 2020, defeating the Democratic nominee, Governor Steve Bullock. Before entering politics, Daines worked for Procter & Gamble and RightNow Technologies.

Daines was born in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles to Sharon R. and Clair W. Daines. The family moved to Montana in 1964. He was raised in Bozeman, where he attended school from kindergarten through college.

Daines graduated from Bozeman High School, where he served as student body president. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Montana State University. At Montana State, he became a brother of the Sigma Nu fraternity.

Daines was one of the youngest delegates at the 1984 Republican National Convention. "I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. He was the first president I got to vote for," he has said. Daines was also the president of MSU College Republicans. In 2007, he and his wife started a website, GiveItBack.com, which urged governor Brian Schweitzer to return the state's $1 billion surplus to taxpayers. From 2007 to 2008, he was Montana state chairman for the Mike Huckabee 2008 presidential campaign and a national surrogate for Huckabee.

Daines spent 13 years with Procter & Gamble.[9] After seven years managing operations in the United States, he and his family moved to Hong Kong and China for six years, opening factories to expand Procter & Gamble's Asian business. During his 2014 Senate campaign, Democratic opponents alleged that Daines had outsourced U.S. jobs to China. He stated that he created hundreds of jobs in Montana when he worked for RightNow Technologies.[

In 1997, Daines left Procter & Gamble to join the family construction business in Bozeman. Three years later, he met Greg Gianforte, founder of RightNow Technologies, and was put in charge of running RightNow's customer care division. Daines went on to become vice president of North America Sales and vice president of the Asia-Pacific division. During his tenure, the cloud-based software company became publicly traded and Bozeman's largest commercial employer. Daines remained with the company until March 2012, when he left to campaign for Congress full-time.