MT-Sen 2024 Megathread: Unbeatable Titan Tester

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Remember that since 2014, the only Democrats who won statewide races in MT were those running for re-election to their existing offices (Bullock in 2016, Tester in 2018), while those who were running for offices they hadn’t yet occupied all fell short. If this trend continues, it should favor Tester if he decides to run again; if he steps aside, Republicans would probably be clearly favored to win this seat.

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I thought I'd add that if Tester wins, I suspect his map and margin will look very similar to this year's referendum there.

If you're referring to the abortion referendum (number 131), then I think there will be significant deviations between that map and a typical winning Democratic map in MT nowadays. Both Bullock in 2016 and Tester in 2018 won the following counties:

Big Horn
Blaine
Cascade
Deer Lodge
Gallatin
Glacier
Hill
Lake
Lewis and Clark
Missoula
Park
Roosevelt
Silver Bow

Now, of the above counties, Big Horn, Blaine, Cascade, Lake, and Roosevelt voted Yes on referendum 131, while Carbon, Jefferson, Treasure, and Yellowstone Counties voted No on referendum 131 but voted for Republican candidates in the 2016 gubernatorial and 2018 senatorial contests. Note that Big Horn, Blaine, and Roosevelt Counties all have substantial Native American populations which make them lean D in most elections.

In terms of what a Tester victory map will probably look like, I mentioned elsewhere on this forum that these are the key county benchmarks for a Democratic statewide victory:

Cascade: R+1-3
Flathead: R+14-16
Gallatin: D+21-22
Lake: D+1-2
Lewis and Clark: D+13-16
Missoula: D+38-41
Ravalli: R+20-22
Silver Bow: D+36-41
Yellowstone: R+7-8

These numbers are the partisan lean of these counties relative to statewide results for key 2020 statewide races, not their actual 2020 results; a Tester victory will mean not underperforming these benchmarks by any significant amount (Lewis and Clark County is especially important - on Election Night 2020, it was early returns from this county that told me Bullock was off to a bad start in his race against Daines).

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I don't mean this in the wrong way, but Tester is a really big guy and he's approaching 70; does anyone know like how his health is? I think it's particularly important because if Tester wants to win re-election, it will almost surely involve an extremely involved ground campaign on his part talking to voters.

Tester is facing a tough re-election, but I don't think it's impossible to win. I tend to not like comparing Senate races, but I could see a window where this plays out a bit like ME-Sen 2020 where Dems got a bit overconfident in their nominee whereas Susan Collins did a good job at staying connected to the needs of her state. Dems nationalized the race to the point where Gideon was painted in a very negative lite. Except now ofc the tables are reversed.

Any winning coalition on Tester's part will probably look a bit different than 2018. In 2018, he ran really far ahead of federal partisanship in rural areas, especially in these western communities and these working class communities that have been shifting away from Dems. Obviously he'll still need to outperform Biden in these areas to have any shot, but he'll probably need to win these traditionally more conservative cities like Billings outright. It's physically hard for him to do much better than Biden in the cores of places like Missoula and Bozeman, but how he does on the outskirts will also be key.

In terms of Tester's physical build, photos indicate that he's had a big build since before he first ran for federal office. It didn't prevent him from successfully campaigning for reelection twice. I do agree with the notion that if Tester were to bow out, Republicans would be clear favorites to take this seat (as I mentioned earlier, the last time a non-incumbent Democrat won a statewide election in MT was back in 2012, and since then the only Democrats to win any statewide elections in MT were those who were running for reelection to their existing offices).

I do think that Tester's last race in 2018 was similar to Maine's 2020 Senate race in many respects - both races involved incumbents who successfully localized their respective races against attempts to nationalize them by their opponents and their respective opposing parties, and both incumbents won by continually emphasizing the positive contributions they've made to their respective home states and attacking their respective opponents as out-of-touch elitist carpetbaggers (since they were both born and raised in other states). In fact, exit polls from those contests indicated that the favorability ratings for the incumbents ended up above that of their challengers.

In terms of Tester's potential winning coalition, I mentioned earlier in the thread the key benchmarks he needs to hit, based on the 2020 election results for the top four statewide elections in MT (President, Senate, House, and Governor). I agree that some areas will probably trend rightward (e.g. Anaconda, Butte, Great Falls, etc.), but other areas will probably trend leftward (e.g. Bozeman, Helena, Missoula, etc.). Nonetheless, the nine most populous counties (Yellowstone, Gallatin, Missoula, Flathead, Cascade, Lewis and Clark, Ravalli, Silver Bow, and Lake) are most critical for any candidate running for statewide office, and in recent statewide elections, pretty much every winning candidate outperformed all of the benchmarks for these counties. In terms of Billings, it should be noted that according to data from DRA, both Bullock in 2016 and Tester in 2018 were able to win the city proper, but the outer parts of Yellowstone are strongly Republican and are almost always enough to give Republicans the overall edge in the county overall. As I mentioned before, under current political conditions Democrats don't have to win Yellowstone County outright in order to win statewide races in MT - they just have to avoid losing it by more than 7-8 points. If I had to guess right now, I would say that out of the counties he won in 2018, the only county he could potentially lose while still winning statewide would be Cascade County (since this county went from D-leaning in 2016/18 to R-leaning in 2020, relative to statewide results).

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Remember that Tester would have the advantage of being an incumbent running for reelection to his existing position should he decide to run again. Since 2014, the only Democrats to win statewide contests in MT have been those fitting this description, and that applied to Bullock in 2016 and Tester in 2018. Note that Bullock's 2016 win came on the same day Trump carried the state by 20 points at the presidential level, while all other Republican statewide candidates won since they were all facing Democratic opponents who weren't already occupying the positions they were seeking (this included several Democratic incumbents who were termed out of their existing positions and were thus seeking new positions). In 2018, there were two other Democratic candidates for statewide office who were running for positions they hadn't yet occupied, and both of those candidates fell short; in 2020, not a single Democratic statewide candidate was running for reelection to their existing positions, and they all fell short (On that front, I think that Bullock might have won in 2020 if he had been allowed to run for reelection as governor; instead, the fact that he was termed out of the governor's office greatly reduced his incumbency advantage when he ran for a different office.).

Now, I'm not saying that Tester can't lose; it's just that he shouldn't be counted out because he has some advantages that are currently unique to him and didn't apply to most other Democratic candidates for statewide office in MT in recent years.

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That’s a shame. Zinke is weaker than Rosendale.

Not necessarily - Zinke did better when he shared the ticket with Rosendale in 2016, and Zinke also did better in the current MT-01 in 2022 compared to how Rosendale did in the equivalent area in 2018 and/or 2020.

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538 just published an article stating that even if the top-two voting system had been applied retroactively to Tester's past Senate elections, it still wouldn't have guaranteed his Republican opponents victories against Tester, since they would have had to win the overwhelming majority of Libertarian voters in 2006 and 2012 in order to win against Tester (which was by no means guaranteed).

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Higher turnout helps Republicans in Montana. Rosendale will win, probably by about 52-45 or something like that.

Yeah in 2018, turnout dynamics clearly favored Democrats pretty heavily in MT. I wonder if Tester would've won with the same crossover appeal but on the 2020 electorate?

In order for Tester to have a chance here, Biden prolly needs to do a few points better in MT than he did in 2020, which starts with making further improvements in places like Helena, Missouri, Bozeman, Billings, and Boise.

Exit polls indicated that the electorate in MT in 2020 was much more R-leaning compared to 2018 (or even 2012):

2012: 27D-33R-40I
2018: 25D-29R-45I
2020: 22D-38R-41I

Using exit poll numbers from 2018 and 2020, I estimate that Tester would have lost by 9 points if he had faced the 2020 electorate in terms of partisan composition (On the other hand, Bullock would have won by a fraction of a point if he had faced the 2018 electorate in terms of partisan composition.).

Also remember that Tester ran 17 points ahead of Obama in 2012, while Bullock ran 24 points ahead of Hillary in 2016 (in both cases, they were incumbents running for reelection to their existing posts, which wasn't the case for Bullock in 2020). On that basis, I would only consider Tester a heavy underdog if the presidential margin in MT is comparable to Bush's 2000 margin or greater.

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I really don’t understand why Rosendale is waiting so late to announce, if he’s actually planning on running for Senate. If he had announced earlier, he would probably be the overwhelming frontrunner. But now, he’s allowed Sheehy to raise money and get his name out there. If Rosendale was always going to run, why wait??

I still feel like Rosendale may run for re-election to the House instead. But now, he may even have primary challengers for his seat, since some contenders have already announced.

https://twitter.com/reesejgorman/status/1748150599122661464?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

Maybe he feels that he has sufficient money/name recognition to be able to afford to wait until late in the game to announce his entrance into the race - if that is indeed the case, it reminds me of how Steve Bullock also waited until the very last stage to officially enter the 2020 contest, which in his case worked out on the primary front because none of the other announced candidates back then had anywhere near the same level of money/name recognition as he did (and he had been heavily promoted by political pundits in the mainstream media as the best possible Democratic candidate for that race).

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I really don’t understand why Rosendale is waiting so late to announce, if he’s actually planning on running for Senate. If he had announced earlier, he would probably be the overwhelming frontrunner. But now, he’s allowed Sheehy to raise money and get his name out there. If Rosendale was always going to run, why wait??

I still feel like Rosendale may run for re-election to the House instead. But now, he may even have primary challengers for his seat, since some contenders have already announced.

https://twitter.com/reesejgorman/status/1748150599122661464?s=46&t=-r8JGlJno...

Maybe he feels that he has sufficient money/name recognition to be able to afford to wait until late in the game to announce his entrance into the race - if that is indeed the case, it reminds me of how Steve Bullock also waited until the very last stage to officially enter the 2020 contest, which in his case worked out because none of the other announced candidates back then had anywhere near the same level of money/name recognition as he did (and he had been heavily promoted by political pundits in the mainstream media as the best possible Democratic candidate for that race).

I feel like it’s a bit different in Bullock’s case. There were no other credible Democratic candidates, and Bullock didn’t initially want to run for Senate. He had run for President first, and claimed to have no interest in the Senate. Bullock needed to be convinced to run for Senate by party leaders, and (perhaps reluctantly) decided to run at the last minute.

Rosendale, on the other hand, does have a strong primary opponent in Sheehy. Additionally, Rosendale has long shown an interest in the Senate (running in 2018, and toying with a 2024 run for well over a year) and Washington more generally (he ran unsuccessfully for the House in 2014 and was eventually elected in 2020).

I know it’s different in terms of intentions, but my point is that since Bullock had a clear advantage over other Democratic candidates for MT-SEN 2020 in terms of money, name recognition, etc., he was going to be considered the overwhelming favorite to win the primary the moment he officially threw his hat into the ring, regardless of when that actually occurred, and I suspect Rosendale may be similarly thinking that he could still be favored to win the primary even if he waited until late in the game to throw his hat into the ring (since other posters have commented here that Rosendale may have a stronger grip on the Republican base than Sheehy or any other Republican candidate running for this contest may have).

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Question for those of you from Montana/ familiar with MT politics:

How close do you think Biden has to keep MT in order for Tester to be viable, or does is Biden's performance in Montana irrelevant? Could Tester pull a Susan Collins and outrun Biden by like 20, or is the dynamics here different?

2012 was the last time there was extremely widespread ticket splitting in MT; in subsequent years, ticket splitting still existed, but only Democratic incumbents running for reelection to their existing posts were reelected, while Democratic candidates who were running for positions they hadn't yet occupied (including incumbents who were termed out of their existing positions) all fell short. Given that Bullock outran Clinton by 24 points in 2016 while Tester did similarly in 2018 (after outrunning Obama by 17 points in 2012), I'd say R+25 would be the presidential margin at which it would be almost impossible for Tester to win again.

In terms of 2020, it should be noted that there were some circumstances unique to that election which are likely not replicable in 2024:

-None of the Democratic candidates running for statewide office that year were running for reelection to their existing posts. Back in 2016, Bullock was running for reelection as governor but was termed out of that position in 2020, which greatly reduced his incumbency advantage in 2020; back in 2016, all Democratic statewide candidates besides Bullock fell short (including some who were running for different positions after being termed out of their existing positions), whereas in 2020, all Democratic statewide candidates were in that position, and they all fell short. Similarly, in 2018, Tester was running for reelection and won, while all other Democratic statewide candidates on the ballot that year were running for positions they hadn't yet occupied and fell short.
-Due to the pandemic, mail-in voting was made nearly universal in MT (almost 99% of all ballots cast in MT in 2020 were absentee ballots) and Democrats drastically reduced in-person campaigning (while Republicans mostly maintained their usual levels of in-person campaigning). This ended up bringing out many more R-leaning voters than expected, given that mail-in voting benefits rural, white areas much more than Native American reservations due to pre-exsting problems with mail access in the latter areas. Exit polls indicated that the partisan composition of the 2020 MT electorate was 22D-38R-41I, whereas it was 27D-33R-40I in 2012 and 25D-29R-45I in 2018. I agree that Tester would be in trouble if he faced an electorate with a partisan composition similar to 2020, but without the unique circumstances from that election, I would expect the 2024 electorate to be more similar to 2012/2018 in terms of partisan composition than 2020.

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Interesting analysis, but a tad bit of pushback on the idea mail voting in MT helped Rs more in terms of turnout.

Below is a 2016-->2020 turnout change map. Generally Dem areas like Missoula and Bozeman saw turnout increases of similar magnitude to the increases statewide. You can see a few Native American areas that underperformed in turnout but those are very low population communities where you may be talking about an extra 50 or 100 votes - can matter in a very close race but not gonna make a huge difference big picture. Honestly the increased turnout 2016-->2020 in MT is remarkably consistent across communities, especially in the western half of the state.

Also those sorts of exit polls can be iffy, and 2012 was so long ago pre-Trump that changes in voter regristration could have an impact. And 2018 was a unique situation of a Dem midterm where Ds invested way more in MT than Rs.

In terms of mail-in voting, this was the prudent thing to do from a policy/safety perspective, so I too would have expanded it to near-universal status if I were in charge. I did mention that the other major factor in the 2020 results was the Democrats' drastically reduced ground game compared to Republicans due to the pandemic, and this actually hurt Democrats in many areas across the country, not just in MT. Thankfully, this won't be a factor in 2024, so I think what will probably matter most is if Tester can avoid making critical mistakes on the campaign trail in response to attacks against him (he successfully accomplished this in his past Senate election campaigns; people like Donnelly/McCaskill/Heitkamp all made mistakes on the campaign trail that ended up eroding their popularity over the course of the 2018 campaign cycle, thereby contributing to their defeats).

In terms of voter registration, MT is one of the states which does not include partisan identification in official voter registration files, so partisan identification is self-reported; however, actual election results along with exit polls clearly indicate that the 2020 electorate in MT was much more R-leaning compared to most other recent election cycles before that.

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Good news for Tester.

https://twitter.com/MontanaMuckrake/status/1769856134285083120?s=20

I wonder if this, combined with the abnormally high Senate spending will cause any dent in the Presidential margin in MT. The state is obviously very likely if not safe for Trump, but could it maybe only be like Trump + 12 or something?

I don't think there's a direct correlation between ballot measure and partisan results. For example, in 2022 the pro-choice side of an anti-abortion ballot measure in Kentucky outran the Democratic Senate candidate there by 28 points. Similarly, in 2020 a marijuana legalization ballot measure in Montana passed by 14 points, outrunning Democratic statewide candidates on the same ballot by anywhere from 22 to 33 points.