Why is Tester doing so much better than Heitkamp?

[MT Treasurer]

Mondale, if they are as ineffective as you claim, then why are the Tester campaign and outside groups bombarding voters with negative ads here? Why aren’t they as wise as a poster on uselectionatlas.org?

- Tester is male
- Tester is male
- Tester is male
- Tester's haircut
- People are afraid Heitkamp has no soul because gingers

No, no, no, Gianforte/Tester voters definitely don’t care about such shallow or superficial things, it’s all about #populism and actual issues. And the only reason Kathleen Williams is doing worse than Jon Tester is because she’s not as "moderate" and clearly more "out of touch" with "Montana values", you see.

[ctherainbow]

They actually do have quite similar demographics, see here, the main differences between the states are median income ($59K in ND vs $48K in MT) and North Dakota being more Republican.

But the rest of your points are solid.

Although the demographic differences aren't as big as the examples I posted, there are some key ones that stand out to me.  Montanans are better educated but less insured, both of which would indicate more Democratic support.  And while Montana is whiter than North Dakota, a good chunk of nonwhites in North Dakota are likely to be reliably Republican non-renewable energy workers who are new to the state and might not have the connection to Heitkamp that Montanans have to Tester.