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Montana’s Senate Race Depends on the Ever Rarer Split-Ticket Voter [1]
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Date: 2024-10-23
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see? Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week.
Hear reporter Claire Carlson narrate her column on Keep It Rural, a series from the Rural Remix podcast.
Once upon a time, it was not unheard of for a voter to cast a Republican vote for president and a Democratic vote for a down-ballot candidate like a congressman or state representative – or vice versa. In the 1970s and 80s, an estimated 25% of voters split their ballots this way.
Now, this type of voter is rarer than ever because of the political polarization that defines modern-day American politics. In the 2022 midterms, only 8% of voters cast ballots with both parties represented, according to FiveThirtyEight data.
This ideological siloing could cost Democrats control of the Senate this November, which is predicted to hinge on the election results of a single state: Montana’s Senate race.
Incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Tester is running against Republican candidate Tim Sheehy. This would be Tester’s fourth term as U.S. senator if he wins, but polls show that this could be his toughest race yet because of growing party allegiance from voters that motivates them to cast all-red (or all-blue) ballots.
As political scientist Alan Abramowitz put it in a 2022 article, a “growing share of Americans have come to see politics as a form of warfare, with elections viewed as contests between the forces of good and evil.” In 2024, political affiliation has become a way to identify what kind of person someone is – depending on the crowd, saying someone is a conservative or a liberal functions as shorthand for a whole host of set characteristics..
This political tribalism makes it harder to believe a person can be kind or intelligent or in any way agreeable if they vote in a different way. “Partisans increasingly view supporters of the opposing party not as opponents but as enemies,” Abramowitz writes.
This good-versus-bad compartmentalizing means split-ticket voting has become rarer than ever, and it could cost Tester this year’s election.
“Montanans historically are ticket-splitters in ways that sort of defy logic,” said reporter Chuck Johnson in a 2018 Montana Public Radio interview. “I mean, you would think if you were voting Democratic for Senator you’d vote Democratic for House.” Tester garnered more votes than he ever had in 2018 because of split-ticket voters who did just that.
For his fourth Senate election, Tester is appealing to Montanans – particularly ones who plan to vote for Donald Trump for president – to split their tickets once again this November.
In order to convince them, Tester has tried to distance himself from national Democratic politicians like Joe Biden by emphasizing his rural Montana roots. He grew up on a farm near Big Sandy, Montana (population 582), and still operates the land as a third-generation, self-ascribed “dirt farmer,” growing grain without hired help. His farming background certainly affects the policies he prioritizes: Tester is one of the few members of Congress to tackle corporate consolidation that drives small farms out of business.
“The system isn’t working when you have that kind of situation where the consumers are getting hit hard and the folks that are on the ground in rural America aren’t getting a fair return for their products,” Tester said in a 2022 Daily Yonder interview about two of his bills that would strengthen competition standards set by the Packers & Stockyards Act of 1921 (they’ve been introduced during several legislative sessions to no avail).
Tester’s opponent, Sheehy, has also identified corporate consolidation of agriculture as a top issue, but other than that, most of his policy priorities differ from Tester’s.
One example is Sheehy’s stance against public healthcare, an issue Tester’s campaign said would “shutter 49 rural Montana hospitals by putting federal subsidies on the chopping block.” Whether dismantling the Affordable Care Act would be possible even if Sheehy joined the Senate is unclear – the law has survived several Republican attempts to repeal it and currently holds a relatively high favorability rating among U.S. adults, according to a KFF Health News poll.
Regardless of the feasibility, Tester has jumped on this rural issue and other ones like Sheehy’s Minnesota-born, “outsider” roots to appeal to Montanans, especially ones who’ve lived in the state for a long time. He’s also stressed the dangers of what Sheehy might do to Montanans’ reproductive rights if elected.
Will any of this resonate with voters who split their tickets in previous elections but are less willing to do so now? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
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https://dailyyonder.com/montanas-senate-race-depends-on-the-ever-rarer-split-ticket-voter/2024/10/23/
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