Republicans have made the House of Representatives into a spectacle after winning control of the chamber in 2022. With Democrats slightly favored to retake the House this year, the sparks may be minimized. However, as my Pivot Point colleague Alex Pastor recently wrote, this year it seems “Everything always happens.” 

The show must go on, and the show is likely going to be going on the Senate side of Congress. We’ve talked to you about the race for control of the chamber before, and by all accounts, Republicans remain favorites to win control of the chamber. Split Ticket gives Republicans a 79% chance of retaking the chamber. In 2020, a January surprise gave Democrats control over the chamber for the first time in six years. In 2022, when, by all accounts, they should have ceded control given they had no margin for error. They found themselves in a lingering pandemic with inflation reaching highs not seen since the 70s during a president of their party's first midterm. Yet they gained a seat with John Fetterman flipping Pennsylvania. However, the odds this time around have shifted notably in the Republican’s favor with the vast majority of forecasters moving Montana’s race from Toss-Up to Leans Republican, including Pivot Point. If you put a gun to our head, we would predict a 51-49 Republican majority, with Republicans winning the auto-flip of West Virginia (with the retirement of D->I Senator Joe Manchin) and a narrow win in Montana. However, with Chuck Schumer’s decision to make a late play for Texas and Florida, this doesn’t mean there isn’t the possibility of variation once we look under the hood.

By any account, there are four seats that are going to make-or-break either party’s potential Senate majority. Democrats hold two and Republicans hold two: Montana and Ohio for Democrats, and Texas and Florida for Republicans. Nebraska, interestingly enough, has burst onto the scene like the Kool-Aid man, with recent polls showing independent Dan Osborne within the margin of error (including one, potentially dubious, poll putting  him up five) of taking out incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer (R). Today we will keep our focus on Montana, and hopefully illuminate the shootout going down in Big Sky Country.

All Eyes on Montana

Besides the automatic flip in West Virginia, Montana is single handedly the most likely seat to change hands in the US Senate. Senator John Tester (D-Big Sandy) is a relic of ancestral Democratic partisanship from the Bush era. He won his first race for Senate versus Senator Conrad Burns (R) in 2006. This can be broadly attributed to the sixth-year itch resulting from a President’s second midterm, and people were tired of Bush II at the time. However, Burns had notable factors going against him. Among other things, he criticized firefighters battling a wildfire for not doing a good enough job. In the end, Tester defeated him by less than a point, succeeding even where legendary Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (D) had failed (albeit with a Libertarian running that brought down Burn’s numbers in all likelihood).

Tester would win re-election in 2012, another presidential year. He held his seat while Mitt Romney carried the state by double digits. Tester’s coalition shifted somewhat under the hood, a sign of the ongoing re-alignment. Relative to his 2006 race, he flipped 3 more (mostly) urban counties: Gallatin (home to Bozeman), Yellowstone (home to Billings), and Chouteau (his home county). His opponent, Danny Rehberg, managed to flip Sheridan in the far east of the state, and Mineral to the west of Missoula. A sign of the shift to come. Montana Democratic strength would remain for a while longer, with something of a last hurrah coming in 2016, when Gov. Steve Bullock won re-election at the same time that Trump carried the state.

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Now back to the Article

Tester saw his first “DOA” calls come in 2018 during President Trump’s midterm, and he still won re-election with a majority of the vote (vs his previous pluralities). Tester faced now Rep. Matt Rosendale, and ultimately defeated him by just short of a four point margin. While Tester did better, he lost three counties that he had previously carried: Yellowstone, Rosebud (high Native population), and Chouteau. His margins in already Democratic (ancestrally Republican) counties like Missoula, Flathead,  and Gallatin continued to grow, while more rural turf saw Democratic margins plummet (at least vs 2006 or 2012). 

Something Tester has always been able to do is significantly outrun the state’s base partisanship in a big way even when ticket splitting decreased across the board. He has also had the good fortune to run in three cycles that ranged from good to great years for Democrats. This year, Republicans attempted to put up a vanilla candidate to finally take Tester down, and cleared the field for businessman, Tim Sheehy. It hasn’t quite worked out that way for Sheehy. While Sheehy is an upgrade, rhetorically, from Matt Rosendale, he has found himself in hot water throughout this race.  He, among other things, stands accused of plagiarizing his book about his military service, mischaracterizing his wounds in the service of the nation, and conveying controversial opinions about Native Americans. Besides the offensive nature of the remarks, Native Americans are an important voting bloc in Montana.

Tester has tried running the same playbook he ran against Matt Rosendale six years ago. Last time, the moniker “Maryland Matt” was heard by probably everyone in the state before the end of the race. Sheehy hails from Minnesota where he says he grew up in a rural setting. It turns out he grew up in a multi-million dollar home about an eighteen minute drive from the heart of Minneapolis. Now there isn’t anything wrong with growing up in a nice house or running for Senate in a state you moved to, but let’s not pretend those won’t be used against you when running for office. Tester has tried to tie Sheehy to the housing crisis, claiming wealthy people like his opponent are moving to Montana, buying up all the land, and driving housing costs higher. “Montana is changing” has been a common refrain during this race, including during their recent debate, and if Tester is going to make sure his constituents know he thinks it’s because of people like Tim Sheehy. Continuing on this theme, Tester repeatedly hammered Sheehy during the debate about his position on public lands. Pointing out Sheehy failed to disclose his board position on a non-profit that advocated for privatizing public lands. Telling the audience Sheehy digitally altered an ad to remove the logo for the aforementioned non-profit. And Sheehy’s position that public lands should be removed from federal control. Lastly, Tester has tried to tie Sheehy to the unpopular positions Republicans take on abortion. Sheehy has repeatedly helped him out in that endeavor. Saying that abortion is murder and that an upcoming ballot measure on abortion is “not good for Montana”

Despite these scandals, Sheehy is polling ahead of Tester fairly reliably now. In the last two months, 538 has shown this race go from tied to Sheehy +4 with the Republican inching closer to the 50% threshold.  We rate MT-Sen as Lean Republican. Tester has a lot of ground to make up as a Democrat in a reliably red state. Unfortunately for him, with Biden in the White House, Tester has had to defend against calls of being too liberal and enabling the Biden agenda. In 2018, as a moderate Senator in the minority, he was able to make the case that he was a better, more technocratic Senator than Rosendale would have been. He’s also frequently highlighted that he’s still a farmer like many Montanans, and lost three of his fingers to a farming related accident. Tester will outrun Harris and has a lot of money for a small state like Montana, but he’s definitely fallen from even odds. 

Tester’s path to victory essentially means accelerating current trends beyond what Harris is going to be able to do at the top of the ticket. He’ll need to win back Yellowstone County (the state’s largest), at least hold Republicans to close numbers in Flathead, drive out turnout among the Democratic base in Missoula and Bozeman, and post a strong showing with Native Americans. All things considered, it’s a doable feat for Tester, but far from a guarantee of survival. We will run down the rest of this list over the next month to give you an in depth look at the Senate landscape and whether there will be any "October Surprises" this year.