Poll: Steve Daines Beating Steve Bullock in Heated Montana Senate Race

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) leads Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) in the heated race for one of Montana’s Senate seats, according to a poll released on Thursday.

AARP commissioned a poll that found Daines leading Bullock 50 to 47 percent. In contrast, Bullock leads Daines 49 to 48 percent among voters older than 50.

Support for Daines or Bullock widely varies based on demographic and educational level.

Daines leads among men by 17 points, whereas Bullock leads women by 12 points in the Big Sky state. Daines leads among men with less than a college degree, whereas Bullock leads by 36-points among women with at least a college degree.

Daines’ bid for a second term serves as one of the many crucial races for control of the Senate majority. Republicans have a 53-member majority in the U.S. Senate, and Democrats need to flip a neat four seats to gain control of Congress’ upper chamber.

Other AARP polls released on Thursday found that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) leads Democrat Theresa Greenfield, and other Senate Republicans are either within or near the margin of error ahead of the 2020 Senate elections.

Nancy LeaMond, an AARP executive vice president, said in a statement on Thursday that the battle for the Senate will be a game of “inches.”

LeaMond said:

To borrow a phrase from Al Pacino in the football film Any Given Sunday, this year’s Presidential race is a game of inches. The election will be decided in a handful of battleground states, and AARP’s survey results show that either candidate can win. One thing that isn’t in doubt is that 50+ voters will cast the majority of ballots. So, candidates need to address their concerns if they want to get across the goal line.

AARP commissioned the bipartisan firm Fabrizio Ward and Hart Research to conduct the polls across many battleground states. The polling firm interviewed 1,200 likely Montana voters, which includes an oversample of 400 likely voters age 50 and older. The poll was conducted between August 30 and September 5, and the margin of error for the survey is 3.5 percent, whereas, for older Montanans, the margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.