On Friday morning, the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia moved the Montana Senate race from “toss up” to “lean Republican.”
Explaining the move, they wrote:
Beyond the polling, history and recent trends are just not on Tester’s side, as we have mentioned previously. He is one of a relatively small number of partisan outliers in either chamber of Congress, holding a Senate seat that the other party won by 16 points in the most recent presidential election. Many of Tester’s red-state Democratic colleagues have lost or retired in recent years, and it is a credit to his abilities that he has won 3 Senate elections in a state that is otherwise clearly Republican. Democrats used to routinely win statewide elections in Montana, but that is no longer the case—this is similar to West Virginia, a Safe Republican Senate pickup this cycle following now-independent Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision to retire. Perhaps ticket-splitting returns in force this year—if it did, Tester could still survive. But the longer-term trend is clearly toward less ticket-splitting.
I think that’s right. A poll conducted for the AARP, which was done by one prominent GOP pollster and one prominent Democratic pollster, showed Republican Tim Sheehy ahead of Democratic Sen. Jon Tester 51%-45%. That same poll put Donald Trump ahead of Kamala Harris 56%-41% — matching the 15-point margin he carried the state with in 2020.
The simple fact is that for Tester to win, he is going to need to over-perform the top of the ticket by 15+ points. And that, no matter his political skills, is very hard to do. And/but: Other top handicapping sites like the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales still have Montana as a pure “toss up”
The practical effect of the Tester move is that, according to the Center for Politics, there are now 51 Senate seats that are solidly, likely or leaning for Republicans. Which means that if all plays out as the UVA handicappers expect, the GOP will control the Senate in 2025.
Which is a very big deal. If Harris wins the White House, a Republican-controlled Senate would force her to moderate her agenda significantly. If Trump wins, a GOP Senate would, well, just look at the Supreme Court’s current composition to see how much that could matter.
For more on the fight for the Senate majority, check out my Senate rankings.
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The Morning: The Senate is moving toward Republicans