Candidates in Montana's U.S. Senate and House primary elections have spent the final days of their campaigns rallying their bases and working the phones in an effort to get more voters to the polls.
"Voter turnout, it’s always hard to estimate that," says Dana Corson, Elections Director for Montana’s Secretary of State. "Just looking at the past three federal primaries, those have experienced 32 to 34 percent. So unless something, you know, there’s a factor or something that we’re not aware of, I would estimate 32 to 34 percent."
Turnout is on track to be higher than the last two non-presidential primary elections in 2014 and 2010, when just a third of all registered Montana voters cast ballots. Nearly 173,00 of them have already voted absentee.
At stake is the Republican nomination for the chance to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and the Democratic nomination to take on GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte this fall.
The four-way GOP Senate campaign has turned negative in recent weeks, indicating the race may be a close one. Campaign officials in the five-candidate Democratic House race say there were a lot of undecided voters as of last month.
