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The Republican is leading by an eyelash, but if that continues its another Senate pickup for Trump and the GOP

In 2016, the only battleground state Senate Republican to falter in a re-election bid was New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte.  She fell by the slimmest of margins -- losing by roughly 1,000 votes (0.2 percentage points) statewide.  Conservative third party candidate Aaron Day ended up receiving more than 17,000 votes in the contest, tipping it to Democrat Maggie Hassan, who was also helped by a Libertarian candidate pulling in more than 12,000 ballots.  The little-known Day's candidacy benefited from anonymous mailers sent to Republican voters designed to attack Ayotte "from the right."  The liberal outfit behind the ads peddled their mischief...

Roughly 20 people showed up for a Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) campaign rally on Monday—the day before one of the country’s most contentious U.S. Senate elections. NBC Montana ran a live stream of a University of Montana college campus rally in which roughly 20 people showed up for the contentious Montana Senate race. Meanwhile, a Rosendale rally with Vice President Mike Pence gathered more than 1,000 Montanans.

State auditor and Republican Senate nominee Matt Rosendale has taken an 11th-hour lead in Montana over Democrat Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), surging ahead of the Democrat in the wake of President Donald Trump’s latest rally there on Saturday. A Change Research poll released late Sunday evening shows Rosendale, at 49 percent, leading Tester’s 46 percent. Libertarian Rick Breckenridge, who dropped out last week and endorsed Rosendale’s campaign saying a Rosendale win is better for the liberty cause than a Tester win, got three percent in this survey. Tester only leads 51-38 among independents, and that's probably not enough for him...

President Donald Trump shared his outrage after learning that one of the women accusing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of rape admitted that she fabricated her story. “It’s a damn disgrace,” Trump said, calling it a “filthy dirty lie.” The president commented on the news during a rally at the Bozeman, Montana airport on Saturday. “One of his accusers said it was all a lie, she made up the story. It was a total lie. It was fake,” Trump said. “She lied about the story about rape.” The accuser, Judy Munro-Leighton, contacted the Senate Judiciary committee claiming that Kavanaugh and...

Trump rallly in Bozeman, MT af 12:30 PM MDT today.

Democrats -- one presumes -- sent out a false-flag mailer encouraging voters to vote for the libertarian in the race, billing him as the "true conservative" choice. Well, the Libertarian candidate himself realized he was being used dishonestly as a catspaw for Tester. So he's quit the race and endorsed the Republican, Matt Rosendale. The libertarian candidate had been polling at 4% or so; coincidentally enough, 4% is about Jon Tester's lead over Rosendale. So this could turn out to be a dirty trick that sinks the dirty trickster.

A third-party Senate candidate in Montana has effectively dropped out of the race and endorsed Republican candidate Matt Rosendale in his bid to unseat Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.). Rick Breckenridge, a Libertarian and a surveyor, cited his anger with an anonymous campaign mailer encouraging voters to choose him over Rosendale because of privacy concerns. The Republican nominee said Tester's allies were behind the message, and he said he was honored to have Breckenridge's backing.

BILLINGS — The Libertarian candidate in Montana's U.S. Senate race has thrown his support behind Republican Matt Rosendale in response to an election mailer from an unknown group that appears aimed at undermining Rosendale's support among conservatives. Rick Breckenridge said Wednesday that he doesn't know the source of the mailer promoting him as a "true conservative" and claiming Rosendale supports using drones to spy on private citizens. Breckenridge says it's an attempt by so-called dark money groups to influence Montana's election and he's decided that Rosendale is the best candidate to stop such efforts.

At a diner in Hooksett, New Hampshire, Hickenlooper told a woman: “I’m the governor of Colorado and I’m gonna run for president.” ... But then Hickenlooper hesitated, just a bit. “To be honest,” he told the woman behind the counter, “I haven’t made a final decision, and if I say I’m absolutely going to, then there are all kinds of legal ramifications. … I’m leaning strongly.” ... It’s the second time in the last 11 days that he referred to his presidential ambitions. The Des Moines (Iowa) Register reported on Oct. 19 that Hickenlooper seemed to be moving closer to...

WASHINGTON – President Trump plans to hold 11 campaign rallies in seven states in the run-up to the midterm elections. The president’s schedule includes stops in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.

A poll shows Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester barely leading his Republican challenger, indicating the seat might be within reach for the GOP. A survey conducted by Montana State University and the Montana Television Network shows Tester beating state auditor Matt Rosendale, his Republican opponent, by 3 percentage points. The poll — released Monday — shows Tester pulling in 46 percent of registered voters to Rosendale’s 43 percent. Over 6 percent of respondents said they are still undecided. The survey suggests a neck-and-neck race just two weeks ahead of Election Day. “In just 19 days, the people of this incredible...

Early Voting According to NBC News: ARIZONA: REP: 44% DEM: 33% FLORIDA: REP: 44% DEM: 38% GEORGIA: REP: 52% DEM: 43% INDIANA: REP: 51% DEM: 38% MONTANA: REP: 48% DEM: 29% NEVADA: REP: 38% DEM: 45%

HELENA, Mont. — Donald Trump Jr. blasted Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) at a boisterous rally in his home state on Friday, calling him a “piece of garbage” for sinking Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson’s nomination to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this year. Trump Jr., who headlined a rally for Tester's GOP Senate rival Matt Rosendale and Rep. Greg Gianforte (R), slammed Tester over Jackson's failed VA nomination, saying the Democratic senator had “ruined this guy’s life" after a bitter confirmation process. President Trump's eldest son accused Tester, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, of...

The Democrats typically lead Republicans in early voting during midterm and presidential election cycles. In 2016 the Democratic lead in early voting was such that it inspired major news outlets, AP for example, to run articles with titles like “Early voting: More good signs for Clinton in key states.” Among the states in which early voting portended a victory for Hillary, according to AP, were Florida and North Carolina. The story went on to quote her spokesperson as follows: “The Clinton campaign describes both North Carolina and Florida as ‘checkmate’ states.” Trump won both of course.Oddly, most of the major...

A newly released poll says Republican Greg Gianforte has a 7-point lead over Democrat Kathleen Williams in the race for Montana’s lone seat in the U.S. House. The poll of nearly 2,000 voters was conducted between mid-September and early October by MTN News and Montana State University. It shows Gianforte’s lead over Williams is outside the margin of error, giving him a decisive lead. But more than 8.5 percent of the poll’s respondents said they didn’t know who would vote for yet, indicating Kathleen Williams may be able to eke out a win on Election Day if she can swing...

Early voting numbers from several key battleground states now show Republican voters turning out in far greater numbers than Democratic ones, signaling an initial GOP surge that may dull the prospects of a so-called "blue wave" on Nov. 6. Republican voters have taken the lead in turnout numbers in Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Arizona -- states that Fox News analyses show are the scenes of close and pivotal House, Senate and gubernatorial races. The results are most striking in Tennessee, where 63 percent of early voters are affiliated with the Republican Party, compared to only 30 percent...

A poll shows Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester barely leading his Republican challenger, indicating the seat might be within reach for the GOP. A survey conducted by Montana State University and the Montana Television Network shows Tester beating state auditor Matt Rosendale, his Republican opponent, by 3 percentage points. The poll — released Monday — shows Tester pulling in 46 percent of registered voters to Rosendale’s 43 percent. Over 6 percent of respondents said they are still undecided. The survey suggests a neck-and-neck race just two weeks ahead of Election Day. “In just 19 days, the people of this incredible...

Is the "blue wave" turning purple? Republican-affiliated voters have outpaced Democratic-affiliated voters in early voting in seven closely-watched states, according to data provided by TargetSmart and independently analyzed by the NBC News Data Analytics Lab. GOP-affiliated voters have surpassed Democratic-affiliated ones in early voting in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas, the data showed. Only in Nevada have Democratic-affiliated voters exceeded Republican-affiliated voters so far in early voting, according to the data.

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said President Donald Trump’s compliment of Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) for assaulting a reporter last May was “not OK.” Sasse said, “I believe the First Amendment is the beating heart of the American experiment. We need to have a president who celebrates the First Amendment and not pretends that beating up a reporter is OK. What you hear from Nebraskans who also tune out most of the rallies is that there’s a short-term, long-term thing going on and feel that the president’s rhetoric is short-term playful. I don’t think...