MT-SEN: Montana's ticket-splitters could decide a race that's put the Senate within Democrats' reach
GREAT FALLS, Mont. Republican Steve Daines, the freshman senator in this sparsely populated state of hunters, fishers and big-government skeptics where President Trump crushed Hillary Clinton four years ago, was supposed to coast to reelection in November.
Democrats were mounting a modest field to oppose him. Daines, if not defined by legislative wins in Washington, had forged a close alliance with the president. Hes a reliable conservative in a state that has voted Republican for president every year since 1968, except for Bill Clinton 28 years ago.
Then came Steve Bullock and the coronavirus pandemic. And with less than three months until Election Day, the faceoff between the two-term Democratic governor from Helena and the wealthy former software executive from Bozeman has transformed into a margin-of-error race that has helped put Senate control within reach for Democrats. It will measure whether Montanas proud history of political individualism is sustainable in an era when voters are more polarized than ever.
Bullock, a moderate who last year ran a long-odds campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, got into the Senate race relatively late in March, relenting to pressure from top Democrats in Washington who saw an opening in a conservative-leaning state with a key distinction from its neighbors Idaho and Wyoming.
Montanans, stubbornly independent, like to split tickets. And Bullock, a lawyer who narrowly won reelection to the governors mansion in 2016 on the same ticket Hillary Clinton lost by 20 points, is betting that voters will send him to Washington even as theyre expected to support Trump albeit by a smaller margin than four years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/montana-senate-bullock-daines/2020/08/08/bb9ebd4e-d76c-11ea-aff6-220dd3a14741_story.html