The 2012 elections are a distant 21 months away, but Republicans are already eyeing the contest as a chance to take over the Senate, and their prospects just got better. Rep. Dennis Rehberg, a Montana Republican, announced plans to take on incumbent Sen. Jon Tester, a freshman Democrat, and political observers are rating their matchup as one of the top races to watch, given the state’s swing to the right in recent years. “Rehberg’s entry obviously puts his race on the front burner and makes it one of the premier races of the cycle,” said Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report.
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Democrats still control the Senate, though their majority was trimmed from 59 seats — including two Democratic-leaning independents — to 53 in the 2010 elections. Republicans, who took control of the House in those same elections, need to pick up just four seats to take over the Senate and Tester’s seat is one they are targeting.
In addition to Tester, vulnerable Democrats include Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the seat being vacated by Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
All five Democrats are moderates whose numbers have been diminishing in recent elections.
“Over the past few cycles, voters have used a partisan lens in evaluating candidates and that generally squeezes people in the middle,” Rothenberg said.
Political experts from Montana say Tester is indeed at risk of losing his seat, but for now is considered the front-runner. As a moderate Democrat, Tester isn’t such a bad fit for the state, given its political history. Only two Republican senators have ever served from Montana, and just one was elected to more than one term. Tester also holds the fundraising advantage, for now at least, for a contest that some estimate could cost as much as $10 million.
But Montana’s political winds have shifted in recent years and voters have followed a national trend of favoring Republican candidates and showing dissatisfaction with Democrats.
In November, Montana’s House of Representatives changed from a 50-50 split to 68 Republicans and 32 Democrats, while Obama’s approval rating in Montana sank to 40 percent, according to the most recent poll taken last fall.
Tester, a former state senator, rode to victory in a Democratic sweep in 2006, defeating Republican incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns by just a few thousand votes in contest that left many on the political right bitter over Tester’s attempt to paint Burns as a corrupt politician.
Pundits agree that Rehberg has the strongest chance of beating Tester. He’s a former lieutenant governor and the state’s most powerful and popular Republican. As the state’s lone congressman, he runs statewide and just won a sixth term with more than 60 percent of the vote. He came within 5 percentage points of beating Democratic Sen. Max Baucus in 1996.
“At the moment, he seems to be on the right side of the issues in that he’s conservative and basically respected by the Tea Party without being formally a Tea Party guy,” said Montana State University political science professor Craig Wilson.
