Polls and pundits will soon be proven right or wrong. Last-ditch ads stray further from the facts. Early voting is higher in some counties than others.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Lee Newspapers State Bureau Chief Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin. Tune in on-air Saturdays at 9:45 a.m. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Sally Mauk: Rob, A new poll by Montana State University in Billings shows the Senate race between Jon Tester and Tim Sheehy is a virtual tie, 43% to 43%. But that is a lot closer than other recent reputable polls showing Sheehy leading Tester by anywhere from 4 to 8 points. I guess we'll soon know which poll is right.
Rob Saldin: I suppose so, Sally. I'm a little skeptical. That poll was off by quite a lot four years ago when it showed, among other things, Bullock one point ahead of Daines in that year's Senate race, which, of course, Daines ended up winning by 10. Now, many of the other 2020 polls were also off. So, that wasn't just an MSU-Billings thing, and maybe they've made an effort to correct for the Republican undercount last time. But there's also an unusual amount — I noticed in this latest one of — 'I don't know', responses, and I'm just not quite sure what to make of that. That said, there was another poll this week, Sally, by a reputable national outfit that had Sheehy's lead down to 4, which aside from that MSU-Billings poll, is the closest we've seen it in a long time, and of course, well within the poll's margin of error. So it is possible that there is some late movement toward Tester, that these polls are now starting to pick up. And that does make some sense.
As we've discussed, Sally, Sheehy is taking a lot of heat, most notably over this latest flare up of the gunshot story, that goes directly to Sheehy's character. You know, the only thing we've seen out of Sheehy so far in response to all that is this kind of indignant response that attempts to distract from what is a pretty straightforward allegation that Sheehy's been lying about his combat records. But Sheehy would apparently like us to believe that anyone who has doubts or questions about his story, which has really never made much sense, that they should be ashamed of themselves. And of course, it's all the more ridiculous because all of this would be pretty easy to resolve if Sheehy released his medical report. It's just not that hard to distinguish between a gunshot wound and a slip and fall in Glacier. And so maybe it is the case that these polls are picking up some late, very late, movement towards Tester.
Sally Mauk: Holly, in the Western District congressional race, Democrat Monica Tranel says she's running a close race with Republican Ryan Zinke. But that same MSU-Billings poll shows her trailing Zinke by 7 points.
Holly Michels Yeah, what Tranel is citing here, Sally, is a poll that the campaign had done itself by Impact Research, and that shows Zinke up over Tranel by just one point, which is within the margin of error for that poll. That's from mid-October. Tranel's campaign has been touting that pretty hard.
But something to note here is polls are pretty tricky to write about. Different polling outfits have different methodology, different quality of results and sometimes political leanings. And for print journalism, we often look to the Associated Press for guidance. And the AP is pretty clear that for a poll to be reportable, it must, among several other measures, come from a source without a stake in the election results. So that's why you haven't seen that poll reported in news stories.
But we did see in early October, before that internal poll was available, the Cook Political Report shifted its ranking of the Tranel/Zinke race from 'likely' Republican to 'lean' Republican. And they did that citing Tranel's aggressive reminding to voters about all the investigations Zinke came under when he was Secretary of the Interior. That change in ranking also happened two years ago in the matchup between Tranel and Zinke. And that's when Tranel came up three points shy of beating Zinke.
But we've seen otherwise, that major AARP poll we had in late August, bouncing Zinke up about six points. Other nonpartisan polls have Zinke up by about 4 or 5 points.
Sally Mauk: Rob, Tranel has been running a very aggressive ad campaign against Zinke, including this recent ad.
Tranel's Campaign Ad: Tranel Speaking My family has a lot of great memories here at Holland Lake Lodge, but out-of-state developers are trying to take over all this land, and Ryan Zinke is bankrolled by developers. He's helping them do it. It's just like when he was caught trying to sell our land to international developers when he was Interior Secretary. I'm Monica Tranel and I approve this message because this is what's at stake.
Sally Mauk: Well, there's an ongoing controversy, Rob, over developers wanting to buy the much loved Holland Lake Lodge in the Seeley Swan Valley. But as far as I know, Ryan Zinke has nothing to do with that.
Rob Saldin: Yeah, right, Sally. You know, certainly Holland Lake is a special place for Montanans and the issue over the future of the Lodge has received a lot of attention. Apparently Tranel is trying to harness some of that. But yeah, there is a big non-sequitur when the ad attempts to connect Zinke to the Holland Lake Lodge issue. Whatever one thinks about Zinke's tenure as Interior Secretary, or his approach to public lands, that one strikes me as too big of a stretch.
Sally Mauk: Holly, the ballot has two constitutional initiatives: 126 and 127 that would change Montana's elections. And here's an ad supporting CI-126.
CI-126 Announcer When it comes to elections. We deserve better choices. But right now, we are forced to pick a party just to vote in Montana's primary. No option to vote for a Republican for one office and a Democrat for another. The parties have all the power. But 126 changes that. It creates an open primary with every candidate on one ballot, giving you the freedom to vote the person, not the party. Vote yes on 126.
Sally Mauk: And Holly, I get asked about these initiatives more than anything else, and I think that's because a lot of people are wondering if and why these election changes are needed.
Holly Michels I think there's a lot of confusion and just lack of awareness about what these measures are. CI-126 and 127 are related, though by no means do they both need to pass together.
The one Montanans are hearing the most about is 126, which as we just heard in that ad, would create this open primary system. So right now, in Montana, when you vote in the primary, either you get your ballots in the mail or go to the polling place, you have to pick which ballot you're voting — Democrat or Republican or third party. If this ballot measure passes, all the candidates, like that ad said, would just be on one ballot, and the top four vote getters would advance to the general election. And this would only apply to federal, statewide and legislative races.
And then this companion measure, 127, would say candidates need to get more than 50% of the vote to win the general election. That's different from the current system, which is simply whoever gets the most votes wins. And the measure would leave it up to the Legislature to say what happens if a candidate doesn't clear that 50% threshold. Some of those options that the Legislature could implement could be things like ranked choice voting or runoffs.
So, as for who's backing these measures, that's a group called Montanans for Election Reform. What they're saying is that these changes would result in electing people who are more representative of Montana. Like the ad says, it would move the power away from political parties and back to the voters who could be choosing between candidates from either party in that primary election. The thought is also that this would result in possibly more moderate Republican candidates emerging from primaries. And this measure is being backed by that Montanans for Election Reform group that includes a lot of moderate Republicans. On the flip side, the state Republican Party has rallied pretty hard against these measures. They argue top four primaries are expensive and can cause confusion. And then they're saying that CI-127 is a path to ranked choice voting, which they're really opposed to. They're arguing it hasn't gone well elsewhere and it makes voting harder.
Sally Mauk: Rob, in the last election for statewide offices like Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor and State School Superintendent, Republicans swept them all. Do Democrats have any better chance at any of these offices this time, do you think?
Rob Saldin: Well, Sally, I think all those are going to be pretty tough for Democrats this cycle. If there was one to keep an eye on, I'd say it's probably Shannon O'Brien's run for Superintendent of Public Instruction. And that's because that position is directly linked to a very specific policy area — education — in a way that most of the other offices that we vote for just aren't. And the particular policy area in question is one that has traditionally been a real strength for the Democratic Party. So you might expect the Democratic candidate in this particular race to overperform the other statewide Democrats. And in fact, that often has been the case in the past. Now, one huge caveat here: things have changed a lot in recent years. So all that might be just much less true than it once was. There's obviously been the partisan changes in the state combined with the big macro forces of polarization and the nationalization of our politics, all of which have probably served to swamp that specific education policy dynamic. And of course, then Sally, there's also been the fallout from the COVID era when education as a policy issue at the national level, at least maybe here in Montana as well, became associated with lockdowns and teachers unions resisting the opening of schools and the lingering learning loss and so forth. That does seem to have undercut the traditional Democratic advantage on this policy. So, you know, you can look back to 2020, just for comparison's sake, and this was during the pandemic when a lot of those COVID-era factors were in play. Well, the Montana superintendent race was the closest of all the statewides four years ago. But still, you had Republican incumbent Elsie Arntzen winning that one pretty easily by 8 percentage points.
Sally Mauk: Over a third of Montanans have already voted, and presidential elections usually draw a big turnout. Do we see any reason, Holly, that turnout will be any different in this election?
Holly Michels I think we're on track for a pretty good turnout. Those absentee returns you just referenced, I've been watching those. We're seeing some pretty solid return rates. Lewis and Clark, Yellowstone County have about 70% of absentee voters who've already gotten their ballots back. Same for some of these other big ... Lake County, Silver Bow County. They're up around 68%, 67%. It is interesting in watching some of the bigger, more Democrat leaning counties — Missoula County, Gallatin County — they're kind of on the lower end of those absentee returns right now, about 61% and 58% respectively back there. So people are definitely voting, you know, getting those absentee ballots in, which is interesting to see. But I'm really curious to see what Election Day looks like.
Sally Mauk: And what do you think, Rob? The Senate race obviously probably is attracting a pretty good turnout.
Rob Saldin: Yeah, I think so, Sally. I mean, I think Holly nailed it there. You know, I'd just maybe add that to have any chance, Democrats need basically everything to go just right. There's no margin for error. They need their people to turn out everywhere. Certainly they need more people coming out in places like Missoula and Bozeman and the reservations than was the case last time. But this also isn't the Electoral College. So a vote in Mineral County counts the same as a vote in Missoula County. And they'll need all of them. On that front at least, Sally, I do think Democrats have some reason for optimism because of that Senate race that you mentioned. The Tester operation wasn't activated in 2022 or 2020. So that really should help. But Democrats probably also need a pretty depressed Republican turnout and they have less reason for optimism, it seems to me, on that front, because the presidential race has been so close and that probably will be sufficient to get out some of those low propensity MAGA voters who wouldn't vote if Trump wasn't on the ballot, or might stay home if it appeared as though Harris was going to win comfortably. But Sally, you know that old adage is ultimately true. After all these months and all these dollars raised and all these ads, all these get-out-the-vote efforts, it really does come down to turnout.
Sally Mauk: What we're just a few days away from all those annoying ads disappearing. Holly and Rob, thank you. I'll talk to you next week about who won and who lost.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Lee Newspapers State Bureau Chief Holly Michels and UM Political Science Professor and Mansfield Center Fellow Rob Saldin. Tune in on-air Saturdays at 9:45 a.m. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
