Tight race shaping up for Montana Senate seat

By Richard K. Barry

Daily Kos has a great summary of the Montana Senate race. Jon Tester is the Democratic incumbent. He's going up against Republican Denny Rehberg, who has been a state-wide member of Congress. By all accounts, it's going to be very close. 

Jon Tester (D)

As David Jarman writes: 

[Jon Tester] was elected in 2006 by only a few thousand votes in a red state, amidst a Dem wave year and against Conrad Burns, an unpopular, Abramoff-linked Republican opponent, [so] re-election in 2012 was always going to be a tough row for Jon Tester to hoe. In fact, with Ben Nelson's retirement, he's probably the most vulnerable Senate Dem incumbent up in 2012 (Claire McCaskill being his only real competition for that title). And needless to say, any path for the Republicans to take control of the Senate has to go through picking up Montana. 

Public Policy Polling (PPP) polled three times in the state in 2011 and in each case found Rep. Rehberg with a 2% lead. More recently, PPP did polling (May 1, 2012) that found Tester with a 5% lead. These are fairly gentle swings, with the margins of error generally in the 3% range. 

Denny Rehberg (R)

Jarman admits that there really hasn't been much in the way of significant events to impact the numbers in any real way over the past several months. He speculates that: 

The last poll was taken back in November, when the country's mood was a little more dismal; as economic improvement and the fallout from the Republican presidential primaries seemed to boost Barack Obama over the intervening months, so too may Tester have benefited. 

He also writes that independent voters are coming to Tester in the more recent poll, supporting him by 5 points in the 2011 poll, but by 12 points more recently. Tester also managed to get more of the Democrat vote in the recent poll than he had in the past, from 86 up to 90%, which is relevant because Democrats outnumber Republicans in Montana.

Very interesting overview by Mr. Jarman. In the vernacular of political wisdom through the ages, this one looks like it's a little too early to tell. Back to you, Kent. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)