As RedState previously reported, there are a handful of Senate elections to watch closely between now and November, with eight in particular worth keeping an eye on as they have the potential to shift control of the U.S. Senate from the hands of the Democrats to the Republicans.
Among them is Montana, where Democratic Senator Jon Tester is fighting for his political life against Republican candidate Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq who has the support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in a state that delivered for the former POTUS without any problems in 2020.
Since June, polls in the race for the race have been ahead of testers with a RealClearPolitics Lead average of just over five points at the time of this writing.
A up-to-date poll by Fabrizio/Binder is further proof that Jon Tester is in massive trouble.https://t.co/3C9Vc8CMGh pic.twitter.com/wETxqLzp6V
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) 5 September 2024
The most recent, however, conducted for AARP by the non-partisan polling group Fabrizio Ward/David Binder Research, is perhaps the most worrying for testers yet, shows him 8 points less than Sheehy in a race with four participants and 6 points less in a race with two participants:
Sheehy’s lead is bolstered by the popularity of former President Donald Trump, who leads Vice President Kamala Harris 56 percent to 41 percent in the state. Trump leads among independent voters by 9 percentage points. Tester has a narrow lead among independent voters in the Senate race. “Trump is ahead of Sheehy in nearly every age and party group, but Tester is not outperforming Harris enough to overcome the wide gap at the top of the pack,” the nonpartisan polling team of Fabrizio Ward and David Binder Research concluded in its memo. They also warned: “Tester and Harris have both nearly maxed out their share of the vote among Democrats.”
To make it even clearer how crucial this race is: If Sheehy were to defeat Tester, it would be almost impossible for the Democrats to Stay in control of the Senate:
Regardless of which party wins, Montana will likely have a majority in the Senate in 2025, which is currently what all indications are.
- With West Virginia almost certain to swing Republican, Democrats will need to win the eight other contested seats to maintain a 50-50 split in the Senate – and hope that Vice President Tim Walz is the deciding link in the chain.
- Poll results are also close in several other swing states, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, but Montana appears to be the most hazardous state for the Democrats.
What makes things even more complicated for Tester is his Joe Biden citizenship.
In the summer of 2023, as questions and concerns about Biden’s cognitive health grew, Tester publicly defended Biden, claiming that the times they were together Biden was “absolutely 100 percent there”:
“Joe Biden, when I’m with him — and it’s not every day — but when I’m with him, when I see him on the news, he’s absolutely 100 percent on task. And, uh, uh, he has his — remember, his … cognitive abilities, whatever you want to call it — I’m not a doctor, I’m a dairy farmer, but he’s fine and he’s doing a good job. I think people are making a bigger deal out of it than it is.”
Of course, Sheehy reacted accordingly:
WOW. After all his failures, corruption, “America Last” policies, and inability to put two sentences together, Jon Tester still believes President Biden is doing a “good job” and is “absolutely 100% on it.”
It’s time we got rid of them both. #RetirementTester pic.twitter.com/WQwssmMcqd
— Tim Sheehy (@SheehyforMT) 17 August 2023
As I said, if voters in Big Sky Country are as infirmed of having their intelligence insulted about what is happening to this country as the rest of us in other states, Tester might find that his fourth run Things will be anything but “good” for the Senate in November.
Flashback: Democrat from Montana provides Exhibit A of how climate fanaticism damages the soul
