A Republican challenger in Montana has surged ahead in the polls

Republicans are looking likely to “flip” a US Senate seat in Montana, according to a new poll by the New York Times, which would give them control of that chamber of Congress if all the other races go as expected.

While most eyes have been on the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the entire House of Representatives is also up for re-election, along with 33 seats in the Senate. Democrats currently have 51 seats in the 100-member chamber.

“The math for Senate control is pretty simple. For Democrats, it isn’t adding up,” the Times reported on Thursday, citing the latest poll co-authored with Siena College that showed Jon Tester, the incumbent Democrat in Montana, trailing seven percentage points behind his Republican challenger Tim Sheehy.

Sheehy is a former Navy SEAL and a businessman, who just got involved in politics. The Times/Siena poll had him at 52% to Tester’s 44%. Meanwhile, Trump has a 17-point lead over Harris in Montana.

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Until this week, polls showed Democrats comfortably ahead in every contested Senate race.

Republicans were already expected to pick up a seat in West Virginia, where long-time Democrat Joe Manchin first left the party, then announced he would not seek re-election. Should all other races go as the polling predicts, the Republicans would end up with 51 seats to the Democrats’ 49.

The “only hope” for the Democrats is to somehow end up with a tie and for Harris to win the presidency, which would give her running mate Tim Walz the tie-breaking vote. This was the case for the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, when Harris was the tie-breaker, until the Democrats flipped Pennsylvania in 2022.

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According to the Times, however, this would require the Democrats to defeat an incumbent Republican somewhere. Polls suggest that Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Senator Rick Scott would be the easiest races, yet Cruz is up by four points and Scott by nine.

One possible venue is Nebraska, where Democrats aren’t running anyone but appear to be backing an independent candidate, Dan Osborn. The latest polls are showing Osborn neck and neck with the Republican incumbent Deb Fischer.

Republicans currently hold 220 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives, leaving Democrats with 212 and three seats vacant. Election day is November 5, although early voting by mail has already started in some states.