Gov. Steve Bullock just made the Montana Senate race competitive for Democrats – By Ella Nilsen and Li Zhou (VOX) / March 9 2020
Bullock could help Democrats expand their Senate map this fall.
After spending many months insisting he would not run for the US Senate under any circumstances, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is doing just that.
Bullock, a popular Democratic governor in conservative Montana and a long-shot candidate for president last year, announced Monday he will challenge incumbent Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) in the fall. In doing so, he could give Democrats a huge boost in their gambit of taking back the US Senate. Bullock’s announcement comes just before the March 9 deadline to file his candidacy.
Daines will be a tough incumbent to beat; he has decent favorability ratings in the state among Republicans and independent voters, and he is tying himself closely to President Donald Trump, who won Montana by 20 points in 2016. But experts in the state said Montana — at least at the state level — is more independent than it is solidly Republican, and Bullock is also well-liked.
“I think a lot of people would classify Montana as a purple state,” said Sara Rinfret, a professor who conducts the University of Montana Big Sky Poll. “Nationally we tend toward more Republican-leaning, but if you look at statewide races we really lean both sides.”
In the latest poll Rinfret conducted from February 12 to 22, Bullock is trailing Daines by 9 points — picking up about 38 percent support compared to about 47 percent for Daines. But every other Democrat in the field is polling in single digits, underscoring what national Democrats mean when they say Bullock is the only one with a real shot at beating the Republican.
Continue to article: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/9/21166028/steve-bullock-montana-senate-race-democrats
