Is winning Cascade County a prerequisite for a Jon Tester victory in 2024?

[TML]

Cascade County has been carried by all Democratic statewide winners in MT in living memory, including Jon Tester in all of his past senatorial victories. However, in recent election cycles, it has shown a significant rightward trend, and in 2020, it actually voted more Republican than the state at-large in all of the major statewide contests that year (President, US Senator, US House, Governor) for the first time in recent memory.

This begs the question: do you think it is still necessary for Jon Tester (or, for that matter, any Democratic candidate for statewide office in MT) to win Cascade County in order to win statewide overall?

I personally think the answer is no, if we use the 2020 results as the baseline. Those results suggest that a Democratic candidate can afford to lose Cascade County narrowly (i.e. by not more than 1-3 points or so) and still win statewide.

[Maps are a good thing]

If he losses Helena and Great Falls then he'll lose his seat.

[Xing]

It’s probably possible for him to eke out a win while barely losing Cascade, but he’ll obviously want to win it.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

No but he can’t afford to lose it by as much as Biden.
More important is getting double digits in Gallatin. I’d argue he needs at least 60 there and 70 in Missoula

[CentristRepublican]

It's certainly not a prerequiste.

No but he can’t afford to lose it by as much as Biden.

Of course not. As the OP said, he can afford to lose it, but not by more than a few points.

More important is getting double digits in Gallatin. I’d argue he needs at least 60 there and 70 in Missoula

I very highly doubt that's gonna happen, tbh.