The latest poll from the Montana Senate race shows Democrats are in danger of losing the Senate, even if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency.
The latest poll, from AARP, shows Republican challenger Tim Sheehy with 49% of the vote and incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D) with just 41% when all third-party candidates are included. In a head-to-head matchup, Sheehy leads 51-45%.
The poll of likely voters was conducted between August 25 and 29 and has a margin of error of +/-4% with the total sample and a margin of error of +/-3.5% with voters over 50. The survey was answered by twice as many Republicans than Democrats, as well as Independents, but it is in line with other polls being conducted in this race.
Democrats need to win Montana in order to keep control of the Senate if Harris is elected president. According to Axios, they are likely to lose the Senate race in West Virginia and therefore need to win all eight other competitive seats. If they do so, the Senate will be split 50-50 and Gov. Tim Walz, as vice president, would be able to cast the tie-breaking vote, as Harris did under President Joe Biden.
But if Democrats lose Montana, Republicans will hold 51 seats to Democrats’ 49, meaning they would have control of the Senate even if Harris wins.
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As The Daily Wire has previously reported, Tester’s poll numbers haven’t been favorable for a while, and likely played a role in him skipping the Democratic National Convention and refusing to endorse Harris for president.
The RealClearPolitics polling average has Sheehy up 5.2 points.
Former President Donald Trump also leads in Montana, a state he won by 16 points in 2020. Tester is also the only Democrat in Montana’s congressional delegation.
He won his previous elections by less than four points (3.1 percentage points in 2018 and 3.7 percentage points in 2012), so if Sheehy is helped even a little by the state’s favor of Trump, Tester could lose his seat.
Polling is also tight in several other Senate races Democrats need to win, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, but Montana appears to be the most likely one for Democrats to lose at this point.
In late August, Tester told reporters he wouldn’t endorse Harris for president.
“Two reasons — because I’m focused on my race, and number two, people want to nationalize this race, and this isn’t about national politics,” Tester told NBC Montana. “This is about Montana.”
