MT-Sen 2024 Megathread: Unbeatable Titan Tester

[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.

[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.

[Roll Roons]

As more Millennial and Gen Z candidates run, I don't think social media posts will have much of an impact unless it's something really bad. This doesn't look like anything worse than what an average 2000s college guy would post.

[Roll Roons]

As more Millennial and Gen Z candidates run, I don't think social media posts will have much of an impact unless it's something really bad. This doesn't look like anything worse than what an average 2000s college guy would post.

I was thinking about this quite a bit recently since almost every kid raised in the US has some sort of social media trail these days and you could probably find something to use against them. I probably have many posts on this forum that could be used against me for instance. I wonder if everyone just sort of mutually agrees anything posted before the age of 25 or smtg really doesn't matter unless it's very extreme.

Exactly. As the generational composition of the electorate changes, so will their standards. Old photos of a candidate drinking at a college party (even if they were underage) or posing in a skimpy swimsuit at the beach are not scandalous.

[Roll Roons]

A Libertarian is in:
https://twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1725583844122796263

What makes this even better for Tester is the fact that this guy is from Flathead County, which is a place where Republicans would really need to run up the score.

[Roll Roons]

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/letters_to_editor/letter-to-the-editor-montana-needs-to-send-tester-back-to-the-senate/article_409b3f3c-8af1-11ee-9261-434e8e52dd1d.html

Possible preview of Tester's strategy: attacking Sheehy as an out-of-state faker handpicked by DC interests in contrast to the "real Montanan" farmer.

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/MattForMontana/status/1732579191705522676?t=fhV25dne4PSLqME7...

Rebel doesn't care what leadership tries to do for him, news at 11.

I think a big part of the reason Daines/national Republicans are so eager to stop him is because they know he’d be as much of a troublemaker for leadership in the Senate as he has been in the House.

[Roll Roons]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like if Rosendale does run and win the primary, Senate leadership will only give him half-hearted support if they give him any support him at all.

I really think they'd prefer the seat to be held by a member of the other team who generally votes his party's line but can be a partner on bipartisan legislation than someone who would be on their team but seems to revel in stirring up chaos and being a contrarian just for the sake of it.

[Roll Roons]

Will all the expats moving into Montana help Tester?

Marginally, but probably not going to be the deciding factor.

I think migration is a bit of a wash in terms of who it favors. It seems like the people moving to Bozeman lean liberal but the people moving to Flathead County lean conservative.

[Roll Roons]

I'm fully convinced that McConnell will leave him out to dry if he wins the primary.

[Roll Roons]

I'm still keeping this at lean R, however, if more polls consistently show Tester at or close to 50% I may consider moving the rating down. There were a few odd polls early in 2018 that showed Tester getting smtg crazy like 55% of the vote albeit they were by low quality pollsters.

What was consistent in 2018 is most reputable pollsters consistently showed him in the 46-50% range. If we see that again, I may move this back to tossup, even tilt or lean D if there are other positive signs.

I think the thing people really underestimate is how favorable turnout was for Ds in MT in 2018; that will be hard if not impossible to replicate in a Pres cycle. Tester really needs to hope places like Missoula and Bozeman have grown enough since 2018 lol.

The numbers on growth plus educational attainment... might not actually be so bad for Tester?

Of the six largest counties in the state, Cascade is the least college-educated at only 27%, but also had by far the slowest growth at only 0.5%. Between 2020 and 2022, Missoula (45% college-educated) grew 2.6%, Gallatin (52% college-educated) grew 5% and Lewis & Clark (42% college-educated) grew 4%.

The big Republican counties of Flathead and Yellowstone respectively grew by 7.2% and 3.1%, but those counties are both around 34-35% college educated, which is right around the national average. That tells me that growth in these counties may not be automatic bad news for Tester, and he can narrow the margins if he plays his cards right.

I'm far from an expert on the state so I could be completely wrong, but data is data and it's something to chew on.

[Roll Roons]

When were Daines and Cotton "freaking out" about Sheehy?