Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy are locked in a tight Montana Senate race, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey found that when Montana voters were asked about a hypothetical Senate match-up between Tester and Sheehy, 44 percent backed Tester, while 42 percent supported Sheehy. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were undecided.
Because the polling falls within the survey’s margin of error of 3 percentage points, Tester and Sheehy are statistically tied.
The new polling highlights a slight contrast from October, when a similar survey showed Tester with 39 percent support, Sheehy with 35 percent and 21 percent of respondents undecided. However, that poll still showed a tight match-up between the two, while suggesting Sheehy likely had less name ID among voters.
Pollsters also noted that 27 percent of respondents in the new survey said the economy was the most important issue to them, 26 percent selected housing affordability and 11 percent chose threats to democracy. Health care and immigration ranked lower, at 9 percent each, while abortion access was the top issue selected by 4 percent of respondents.
“Independent Montana voters break for Senator Tester by 10 points, 44% to 34%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement. “Fourteen percent of 2024 Trump voters plan to split their ticket and vote for Tester, while 71% support Trump-endorsed Sheehy.”
Tester, who is one of two Senate Democrats running for reelection in states former President Trump won in 2020, has proved to be a resilient candidate, winning previous close races in his state. Still, the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rates his seat as a “toss up.”
The Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey was conducted between Feb. 26 and March 2 with 1,000 registered voters in Montana surveyed and a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.