Alme leads by 12 in new Montana poll; our forecast holds at R+11

A new poll of Montana's open Senate race shows Republican Kurt Alme ahead. Aspect Strategic, polling for Montana Freedom PAC, surveyed 715 likely voters from September 7 to 15 and found Alme at 44%, independent Seth Bodnar at 32%, Democrat Alani Bankhead at 14%, and 3% for others. No margin of error was reported with the survey.

Our forecast did not move. The model gives Alme's party a 97% chance of winning the seat and Bankhead a 3 in 100 chance, with a mean margin of R+10.7. Both figures are identical to our previous run, earlier this morning. The only change is at the edge of the distribution: our 5th-to-95th-percentile range for the result shifted from R+20.2 to R+1.2 to R+20.1 to R+1.2. That is noise, not news.

The shape of the field in this poll differs from what we published a week ago, when a survey showed the three candidates closer together. Here the contest is between Alme and Bodnar, with Bankhead running third in the mid-teens. Our average already carried a double-digit Republican margin, so a poll with Alme twelve points clear of his nearest rival lands close to where the model was.

Nationally, our numbers as of 10:02 AM ET give Democrats a 51% chance of winning Senate control and Republicans 48%, with a mean of 50.5 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to them. Our generic-ballot average stands at D+8.3 across 30 polls in a 45-day window. Montana is not where that margin shows up: our model treats the seat as close to safely Republican, and this poll gave it no reason to reconsider.