This is from the liberal PPP Polling firm, so it should be regarded as an outlier poll. I’d rate Rehberg as the marginal favorite.
The incumbent/challenger dynamic doesn’t apply here, as both are Federal officials elected statewide. It’s much more like a race between two incumbents.
If Rehberg doesn’t win by at least 10%, I’ll be shocked.
Remains tight? Seriously, there are sixteen months until the election so I feel confident in saying that certainly 90 percent of the general population doesn’t even know who is challenging who let alone what even three of their positions are. As far as I am concerned to call this a race at this point is simply PPP trying to form a meme for their preferred liberal candidate so that if they supposedly pull ahead they can claim the other candidate (which they were biased against in the first place) has a hemmoraging candidacy.
It will be the real montanans vs the out of staters that live in Billings, Missoula, and Bozeman. Let’s hope there isn’t a libertarian that siphons votes from Rehberg. That is why Tester beat Burns in the 2006 election.