Incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is tied with her Republican opponent as she vies for a third term in office, according to the results of a poll released Sunday.
McCaskill and GOP candidate Josh Hawley each have 45 percent support among likely voters, CBS News’ Battleground Tracker survey reported. McCaskill and Hawley, the state’s attorney general, were similarly found to be in a dead heat on Sept. 4 by NBC News and the Marist Institute of Public Opinion.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is another Democrat in the throes of a tough re-election bid ahead of November’s elections, according to the same CBS News poll.
Tester has 47 percent support among likely voters, giving him a 2 percentage point advantage on Republican challenger Matt Rosendale, Montana’s auditor. Fewer surveys have been conducted in Montana, but RealClearPolitics’ poll aggregator shows Tester with a more comfortable lead of 5.5 percentage points.
Democrats need to gain two seats in the Senate to seize control of the upper chamber, but that path to victory becomes slimmer if they lose seats already in their possession.
The CBS News surveyed 1104 registered voters in Missouri and 543 registered voters in Montana between Sept. 10 and Sept. 14 as part of a series of panel studies put in the field in conjunction with YouGov. The poll’s findings for Missouri have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, while the results for Montana have a margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.
