Politics

Montana isn’t a swing state — but it still could decide the future of the country

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

Montana isn’t a swing state — but it still could decide the future of the country

Vice President Kamala Harris’ surge in the polls since becoming the nominee has Democrats hopeful about their chances in down-ballot races in November. It’s support she’s going to need if she wins, as many of the policies she’s announced so far will require Congress to get on board. The GOP’s narrow hold on the House is up in the air, but a shaky Senate race in Montana might be all it takes to block any hopes for a Democratic trifecta in January.

As things stand, Democrats have a lengthy wish list in place, should Harris beat former President Donald Trump — including codifying abortion rights nationally expanding voting rights and reforming the Supreme Court. There’s even talk of changing or getting rid of the filibuster in the Senate, the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most legislation. That would still depend on Democrats having a majority in the Senate, which would include a 50-50 split with Tim Walz as vice president casting a tie-breaking vote.

A shaky Senate race in Montana might be all it takes to block any hopes for a Democratic trifecta in January.

Democrats currently hold 51 seats, but the Senate election map is worse for the party than it has been in decades. Twenty-three Democrat-held seats are up for re-election, in contrast to 11 for their Republican colleagues. West Virginia is already counted as a pickup for the GOPas voters will almost certainly hand retiring independent Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat to Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The majority will then come down to which party comes out on top in the race for two treacherous seats: Ohio and Montana.

For months, these two races had been seen as the toughest for their incumbents, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana. But the Cook Political Report on Thursday shifted its outlook on Tester’s racemoving Montana from a toss-up into its “lean Republican” column. The move follows a similar reshuffling from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics the previous week to forecast that Montana’s GOP nominee Tim Sheehy holds a slight edge.

Tester’s race was always going to be a tough one, as Montana has gotten steadily redder since he first won his seat in 2006. Running on his background as a moderate state senator and family farmer, he ousted his GOP opponentSen. Conrad Burns, by only 3,562 votes. Tester’s first two re-election campaigns came a little easier. He outperformed Barack Obama by 7 points in 2012, winning re-election in a state the president lost. His third race saw him win more than 50% of the vote during an election season where four of his fellow incumbent red-state Democrats lost their seats.

The headwinds that Tester faces now are the toughest yet. NBC News pointed out last year that Montana is a state “where former President Donald Trump won by more than 16 percentage points in 2020 and where Republican Sen. Steve Daines defeated the once-popular Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock by 10 points the same year.” Tester has an especially large target on his back, as Daines is now leading Senate Republicans’ efforts to retake the majority.

Daines was an early backer of Sheehy, helping drive Rep. Matt Rosendale from the Republican primary a week after he’d entered it. When coupled with Trump’s quick endorsementSheehy, a former Navy SEAL and aerospace entrepreneur, is the toughest challenger that Tester has yet to square off against. The contest between the two candidates has already been brutal, as Leo Wolfson recently wrote for Cowboy State Daily: “The Tester campaign has gone to great lengths to promote his dirt farm roots, while portraying Sheehy as a wannabe ‘rhinestone cowboy.’ Conversely, Sheehy and his supporters say Tester only embraces his agricultural roots when the TV cameras are on.”

The headwinds that Tester faces now are the toughest yet.

Unlike much of the country, the shift from President Joe Biden to Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket might not have much impact on Montana’s mostly white largely rural population. The state has undergone a boom in growth in the last few years though, thanks to an influx of new residents in cities like Bozeman and Missoula. But Montanans, who once were more focused on state and local issues in a way that benefited Tester, are more likely to view elections through a national lens. So, while he’s tried to keep his distance from his fellow Democrats — becoming an early voice calling for Biden to drop out and avoiding the convention in Chicago this year — there’s only so far he can run from the D next to his name.

There’s still a chance that Tester pulls out a win here. A recent poll from the AARP that gives Sheehy a strong but not insurmountable lead was the tipping point for the prognosticators to say there’s a better chance for Tester to be toppled. But as Semafor’s Burgess Everett recently noted, “Montana is also hard to poll and its statewide elections can turn on just a few thousand votes, leaving plenty of potential wrinkles and unknowns to potentially tip the race.” Sheehy has had missteps, too, including being caught on tape demeaning Native American residents in comments at fundraisers.

But, it must be said, a Tester loss would almost certainly mean a much tougher political environment for Harris should she win. Without a Senate majority, her Cabinet and judicial nominees are more likely to stall out without at least one Republican crossing over to show their support — if a vote is held at all, that is. Any dreams of major legislation would falter in the face of whichever of the three GOP senators named John becomes Senate majority leader in this scenario.

In effect, we face a reality where the direction the country takes over the next few years will likely depend on how a relative handful of Montanans vote in November.

Hayes Brown

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for BLN Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

Politics

Poll: Republicans’ gas price problem is even worse than it seems

Published

56 minutes ago

July 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Gas prices are high. Americans think they’re even higher.

Three in five Americans believe gas prices in their area have risen by more than they actually have, according to an analysis of new results from The Blue Light News Poll. It’s those perceptions that candidates will be running against this fall.

Voters’ anxieties about fuel prices could give Democrats a boost ahead of the midterms, further strengthening the Democratic voting base and putting strains on the MAGA coalition as the increasingly unpopular war in Iran drags on. A plurality of Americans — 46 percent — say the change in gas prices will impact how they plan to vote come November.

Most voters overestimated the change in gas prices in their area, according to the analysis of polling and granular pricing data provided by OPIS, a Dow Jones company that tracks gas prices. That includes majorities of voters who supported President Donald Trump and also those who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Roughly one in four Americans say gas in their local area has risen by $3.00 or more. But no zip code has actually seen that degree of change on average in the year and a half since Trump took office, as of early July.

Frustrations over cost of living could be reinforcing existing negative views of the Trump administration: Harris voters are far more likely to overshoot the cost jumps than Trump voters, making it harder for Republicans to peel off Democratic voters.

And the analysis shows a fracture among Trump voters. Self-identified MAGA Republicans were more likely to underestimate cost increases than non-MAGA Republicans — another crack in the president’s winning coalition as Republicans scramble to hold it together for the midterms.

“It is a particularly tough dance that many Republican candidates will have to endure for the next three months,” said Arizona GOP strategist Barrett Marson. “How do you feel the pain of your voters without feeling the wrath of Donald Trump?”

What’s more, American’s perceptions do not quickly change even when prices do. The Blue Light News Poll asked about gas prices in both May, when they were near their peak, and July, when they had dipped.

The results were the same in both.

“President Trump and his energy team anticipated these temporary market disruptions, communicated them openly to the American people, and implemented an aggressive plan to mitigate any impacts,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. “As the U.S. military degrades the terrorist Iranian regime’s ability to attack commercial vessels and disrupt the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, oil and gas prices will plummet back to pre-conflict levels.”

Gas prices could swing votes

Americans’ frustrations with prices and the economy overall are changing how they say they will vote in the fall.

Of the 46 percent of Americans who said gas prices will have an impact on their vote, just under 40 percent said they are considering voting for a different party than they normally would, including 49 percent of MAGA Republicans and 57 percent of non-MAGA Republicans.

“Three quarters of the country is confronting higher gas prices and feeling it,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson. “That leaves them … very vulnerable to the economic pain and very vulnerable to the economic argument the Democrats are going to make.”

To better understand public perception of gas prices, The Blue Light News Poll asked Americans how the price of gas in their area had changed since Trump took office. Respondents could choose between buckets like “$1 to $2 higher per gallon,” “$1 to $2 lower per gallon,” or say prices had stayed roughly the same.

More than three-fourths said gas prices in their area have gone up.

Using OPIS data, Blue Light News compared each respondent’s answer against the actual average cost of regular gas in their zip code during the first week Trump was in office and the week prior to the July poll, which was conducted by the independent polling organization Public First from July 12 to July 15.

That comparison revealed the difference between the pain the American public is feeling and where actual gas prices stand — and, in particular, how that pain is expressed differently among Democrats and Republicans. Roughly 70 percent of Harris voters and 54 percent of Trump voters overestimated the increase in gas prices in their area, according to Blue Light News’s analysis.

“Democrats are highly motivated,” as a voting base, Marson said. “The longer the war goes on, probably the less motivated Republicans will be.”

The perception of higher gas prices is linked to how people see the economy — and who they blame for it.

Across the country, 57 percent of Americans say the cost of living is worse than they “can ever remember it being.” Those who overestimate gas price increases had more than twice the odds of agreeing with that statement, even after controlling for demographics and their 2024 vote.

Similarly, a plurality of Americans — 43 percent — blame Trump more than former President Joe Biden for the state of the economy overall. Those who overestimated their local increase in gas prices had nearly twice the odds of saying the same, compared with those who perceived the change in gas prices correctly or who underestimated the change.

It’s already affecting the battlegrounds

In the country’s most competitive races, Republicans will have to answer for the perceived cost pressures of rising gas prices more often than Democrats.

Thirteen of the most competitive districts have experienced gas price increases higher than the national average, according to Blue Light News’s analysis. Of those, nine are currently represented by Republicans.

In California’s 22nd District, where Republican incumbent Rep. David Valadao will face off against progressive political newcomer Randy Villegas, average prices across the district had gone up $1.17 by early July — the third highest increase of any district, according to Blue Light News’s analysis.

Villegas said in an interview that he thought frustration over gas prices would mobilize turnout in the fall, driven by how the cost of gas is “tied to every other thing.”

“It’s the cost of gas when you’re driving to the grocery store, when you’re driving to, you know, see a doctor,” he said. Or, the cost of gas when driving 7 to 8 hours away to “go get cheaper health care.”

Valadao did not respond to requests for comment.

In Colorado’s 8th District, where gas prices have risen by $0.73 on average since Trump took office, Republican incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans blamed local Democratic policies for increased costs more than the Iran war.

While “what’s happening halfway around the globe has some impact on global energy prices,” Evans said, high gas prices in the district are “a direct result of the local economic policies — the anti-energy policies — of the state Democrats who run the state of Colorado.”

But The Blue Light News Poll results from this month show voters don’t necessarily feel the same. Roughly 63 percent of Americans selected “the war with Iran” as the primary reason why gas prices have increased since Trump took office, including 59 percent of Trump voters and 70 percent of Harris voters.

By the middle of May, the average price of gas across the country reached its highest point of the Trump administration to date: $4.50 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In July, average prices dipped to $3.78 per gallon, the lowest average price since March.

Still, in both months, more than 75 percent of Americans said gas prices had gone up, Blue Light News’s polls show. And in both months, roughly 23 percent said prices had gone up by $3.00 or more.

This week, Trump said the upcoming midterms would not impact how he goes about fighting the war with Iran. “I can’t think about that having to do with this,” he said, referring to the elections. “I think people are very impressed.”

Politics

Capitol agenda: House GOP budget faces Senate reality check

Published

8 hours ago

July 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Capitol agenda: House GOP budget faces Senate reality check

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been frank about the rocky road the reconciliation effort faces and careful not to guarantee he’ll be successful…
Read More