MT-Sen 2024 Megathread: Unbeatable Titan Tester

[😥]

I think it's about a time to start a thread about Montana Senate race in 2024. Sources claim that both Republican Representatives, Rosendale, who lost to Tester in 2018, and newly-elected Zinke, who barely won his primary and GE, are preparing to challenge Tester in the race for Senate seat two years later.

https://twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1591783277966381056?t=gAYSck0fUtFD8z4DHz...

It's too early to tell anything, but, as for me, Tester would be a slight favorite against these two

My rating as of today is something like that
Tester vs Rosendale: Tossup/Tilt D
Tester vs Zinke: Lean D

[Holmes]

Zinke’s probably the easier opponent for Tester, yeah. And if he runs it opens up MT-01, giving Dems more of a chance.

[here2view]

Tossup this far out. Tester's probably going to have to get ~10% of his support from Trump voters (40% floor of the Dem vote + 10% GOP.)

Will be interesting to see the quality of the Libertarian candidate, they've gotten >2.5% each of the three times Tester has run.

[Oryxslayer]

Zinke’s probably the easier opponent for Tester, yeah. And if he runs it opens up MT-01, giving Dems more of a chance.

Competitive  senate race encouraging Dem votes and an immediately open MT-01 would definitely mean that seat starts at tossup.

[Lemmiwinks]

Out of Manchin, Brown, and Tester, Tester is the one whose prospects I feel best about.

[Holmes]

Zinke’s probably the easier opponent for Tester, yeah. And if he runs it opens up MT-01, giving Dems more of a chance.

Competitive  senate race encouraging Dem votes and an immediately open MT-01 would definitely mean that seat starts at tossup.

Yeah, probably. Although I want more of a postmortem on MT-01. Was it so close because Zinke sucks or because of D strength downballot?

[Roll Roons]

Zinke’s probably the easier opponent for Tester, yeah. And if he runs it opens up MT-01, giving Dems more of a chance.

Competitive  senate race encouraging Dem votes and an immediately open MT-01 would definitely mean that seat starts at tossup.

Yeah, probably. Although I want more of a postmortem on MT-01. Was it so close because Zinke sucks or because of D strength downballot?

It's both. Zinke is a weak candidate, but Democrats will naturally have a high floor in the district because of the cities and the reservations.

[Xing]

This race is going to be another meme factory, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m really not sure how this one will end up. 2022 showed that candidate quality can make a huge difference, but with a presidential race going on at the same time, there’s an argument to be made that it’ll be harder for Tester to get enough ticket-splitting to work in his favor. I might wait to see who the Republican candidate is before rating this race.

[Tekken_Guy]

Tossup this far out. Tester's probably going to have to get ~10% of his support from Trump voters (40% floor of the Dem vote + 10% GOP.)

Will be interesting to see the quality of the Libertarian candidate, they've gotten >2.5% each of the three times Tester has run.

Don’t you mean DeSantis voters?

[SnowLabrador]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

[GALeftist]

Wow I can't believe these two jokers are seriously looking at taking on Tester lol. Inb4 they nominate Mooney in WV and Mandel in OH or something similarly stupid

[Figueira]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

This is a bad take.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

Are you a social experiment? You can be honest with us. Because I genuinely do not comprehend how a real person could err so egregiously in the same direction constantly and never have the awareness to self-correct, even a little bit.

[Dani Rose]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

Untrue. As much as Brown and Manchin are capable politicians, Tester is one of those people like Mary Peltola who just understand the culture of who they represent to a laser-focus degree. Alaska is an appropriate comparison in this case, too, because Montana is just so fundamentally weird in terms of politics and there's always some libertarian dragging down Republican margins in statewide races. It's also one of those states where there's absolutely bound to be party infighting between the establishment and America First wings, and a candidate like Blake Masters could 100% blow it.

[Ferguson97]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

Given your track record, I'm inclined to think this race is actually Tilt D.

[ꙮ]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

Delete your account

[Hope For A New Era]

Lean D, like all races that include King Jon I of Montana

[YE]

Tester is probably still an underdog because he’s running in a presidential year and idk if 2024 will go back on the long term trend of less and less ticket splitting that we’ve seen in recent decades (I’ll pessimistically assume so) but he isn’t out of it by any stretch.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Let's set some ground rules for this thread: no responding to SnowLabrador and no responding to MillennialModerate. They will not change their minds on this race no matter how high Tester polls and it is not worth allowing continued derailments with unending feedback loops between them and their responders, which also renders the ignore option useless.

Repeat this in other threads for similar quality control purposes.

[Roll Roons]

Let's set some ground rules for this thread: no responding to SnowLabrador and no responding to MillennialModerate. They will not change their minds on this race no matter how high Tester polls and it is not worth allowing continued derailments with unending feedback loops between them and their responders, which also renders the ignore option useless.

Repeat this in other threads for similar quality control purposes.

TBF, polls showed Daines and Bullock in a close race that ended up being a blowout so there's reason to take them with a grain of salt.

[Gracile]

Bullock's performance in 2020 makes me pessimistic about Tester's chances (although I suppose he will have an easier time running away from the national party on his own brand than a failed presidential candidate that swooped into a Senate race as a backup). I agree that presidential year turnout and declining ticket splitting make this tougher for him than in 2018.

Not totally writing Tester off, given Montana's electoral peculiarities, but I do not think he is favored.

[Ljube]

Tester is a partisan hack who won't be able to escape his terrible voting record this time.

In a presidential year Montana will vote R, so Tester will be gone.

Who is going to ticket split for Tester and to what end?

[Suburbia]

I think Tester actually retires in 2024.

Lean R

[SnowLabrador]

Let's set some ground rules for this thread: no responding to SnowLabrador and no responding to MillennialModerate. They will not change their minds on this race no matter how high Tester polls and it is not worth allowing continued derailments with unending feedback loops between them and their responders, which also renders the ignore option useless.

Repeat this in other threads for similar quality control purposes.

TBF, polls showed Daines and Bullock in a close race that ended up being a blowout so there's reason to take them with a grain of salt.

This. The polling average was like Daines +2 (not that there were very many polls) and the final result was Daines +10. Trump will likely be on the ballot again, so I have no reason to trust the polls this time either. Tester will need a tremendous amount of split tickets to win, and that'll be a lot harder this time than in 2012.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Unless Biden wins Montana, Tester can't win. Safe R. Polls will show it close, but don't let that fool you.

This is a bad take.

It's SnowLabrador.