Incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is significantly leading his Republican opposition in the unfolding race for Senate putting his seat on the ballot this year, per new data from SurveyUSA, which polled Montanans on behalf of the state’s outlet NonStop Local.
The polling pitted Tester against a pair of potential challengers from the GOP in the general election, though one — pro-Trump Rep. Matt Rosendale — has dropped out. Still in the race is Tim Sheehy, a veteran and businessman who trailed Tester by a full nine percentage points in a prospective November match-up. Montana generally leans heavily Republican, with Donald Trump prevailing there by a margin in the popular vote of over 16 percent in the 2020 presidential election… though that lead was smaller than the lead for Trump in 2016.
Democrats will also be defending Senate seats in Ohio, Nevada, Michigan, and elsewhere — a slew of states that are either close or have recently leaned Republican in elections. In the concurrent races in the House, Democrats are expected to benefit from redistricting done in Alabama and Louisiana in response to challenges to prior Congressional maps’ fairness following the most recent census. Both states are adding districts with either a majority or near-majority of Black residents among prospective voters, better reflecting the share of their populations comprised of Black communities. Under the old district lines, Alabama had just a single district with such a composition, despite Black residents making up roughly one-fourth of the state.
Polling in the presidential race, in which incumbent President Joe Biden is expected to face Trump again this November, is mixed. Recent data from Quinnipiac University put Biden in the lead nationally by four percent, though other polling has found Trump leading by small margins. Survey outcomes have proven similarly mixed in critical, individual states, possibly skewed by claimed levels of support for independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that precedent suggests won’t carry over to the election.
