Jon Tester’s Montana coalition shifts from his last Senate campaign

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America’s most vulnerable Senate Democrats are continuing to outpace President Joe Biden’s popularity as they enter the 2024 election year, a dynamic that’s especially true for Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.

But despite Tester’s improved standing among Democrats and independents in Montana, erosion among Republicans in the state has begun to weigh on the two-term incumbent, shrinking a crucial piece of support he had in 2018 that helped him overcome his state’s conservative bent when he was last on the ballot. 

Tester’s standing in Montana

According to the latest surveys, 52% of Montana voters approve of Tester’s job performance, compared with 36% who disapprove. It marks a slight decline in his standing compared with our quarterly surveys conducted in advance of his last appearance on the ballot in the 2018 midterms, driven by large attrition among Republican voters. 

Our surveys show 22% of Republican voters in Montana approve of Tester’s job performance and 65% disapprove. This leaves him 43 percentage points underwater with the conservative cohort, compared with a 20--point gap at the same point in his last election cycle.

The good news for Tester is that his decline among Republicans has been matched by an improvement among independents, who despite making up a smaller share of the Montana electorate than their GOP counterparts, have helped make up for his decline on the right. 

In fact, Tester is the most popular vulnerable Democratic senator with unaffiliated voters in our latest round of surveys. Nearly 3 in 5 independent voters approve of Tester’s job performance in Montana, higher than the 43% who give positive marks to Sen Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) or the 39% who say the same of Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). 

This has helped the Montanan perform better than any vulnerable incumbent except for Brown among voters who disapprove of Biden’s job performance, fueling his ongoing approval advantage over the incumbent president in Big Sky Country.

While all the incumbent Democrats facing tough re-election contests this fall get higher marks than Biden, Tester is outperforming the president by the largest margin. His net approval rating is 45 points better than Biden’s in Montana, besting Brown’s 41-point approval advantage over the president in Ohio.

America’s most popular and unpopular senators

No senator facing a tough re-election bid this fall is among America’s most popular senators, which is again led by the No. 3 in Republican leadership, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who boasts at 74% approval rating.

Baldwin is among America’s most unpopular senators as she ramps up her re-election bid, with 42% of voters in her state disapproving of her job performance. It makes her as unpopular with voters in Wisconsin as Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is in Texas, though Cruz sports a higher approval rating (48% to 44%) in his home state than she does. 

As is almost always the case, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is America’s most unpopular senator by a long shot, with a 65% disapproval rating in the Bluegrass State. He’s followed by embattled Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who’s disliked by 58% of New Jersey voters and  — as he mulls an independent bid while facing federal corruption charges — has the lowest approval rating of any senator.

The bottom line

America’s most vulnerable Democratic senators continue to outpace Biden’s standing in their state, just as congressional candidates did in 2022. 

But with a top-of-the-ticket presidential contest in play, the latest data shows that Democratic incumbents in tough states such as Montana are not going to be able to rely on the same dynamics that brought them across the finish line in 2018. They’ll need to shore up their support from unaffiliated voters (as Tester has) or work to get support from across the political aisle.