Lee Newspapers recently commissioned a poll done by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research that showed incumbent U.S. Senator Jon Tester leading Congressman Denny Rehberg, 46-45%, with 9% undecided.

In case Montana political races are not on your front-burner, here’s a primer: Tester is a first-term U.S. Senator (D) and Rehberg (R) has been Montana’s only U.S. Representative since 2000. Rehberg has announced that he is running against Tester for the U.S. Senate seat.

The poll was conducted by telephone with 625 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points, so this race is basically tied. You can read Lee Newspapers’ story about the poll HERE and then come back here for my independent analysis.

Historical:

Although each candidate in this race has his own internal polling going on, we have seen a couple of other polls released about this race before the Mason-Dixon poll. In February, Rehberg lead Tester 47-43 in a survey conducted by NSON Opinion Strategy. Back in November, Rehberg lead Tester 48-46 in survey done by Public Policy Polling.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

If you are in the Rehberg or Tester camp, you see good and bad things from the latest polling. The undecided voters come in at 9%, and there is still plenty of time to lure them into your camp. I believe this is the first poll that showed Rehberg trailing Tester. In regards to each candidate’s party, Tester draws 94% from his fellow Democrats and Rehberg gets 89% from his fellow Republicans, which is pretty darn good for each.

The Very Valuable Independent Voters:

Montana has a lot of independent voters. According to the poll, Tester leads Rehberg 49-37 with the independents. There were 12% of the independents who were undecided. This was probably the most interesting part of the poll to me as Rehberg has aligned himself with the Tea Party and it appears it may be hindering his chances with the independent voters. Will Rehberg move to the center some to get his independent numbers up and maybe run a commercial or two saying the word “independent” and “Rehberg” in the same sentence? Time will tell, but these voters will be on the battleground for both Tester and Rehberg to lure as we approach November 2012.

This will be a long one!

In the past, many candidates and incumbents waited until the year of the election to start publicly campaigning. We are a little over 20 months out from Election Day 2012 and already we are seeing both candidates campaigning and hiring staff for the race and their websites are up and running – and they are raising money. It will take a lot of money to pay for the staffers, equipment, and offices for what will be a long senate race – and most of that money will come from outside Montana – as this race has national attention and control of the U.S. Senate is at stake – so it will be ugly…and entertaining!

The Future:

The biggest thing that Rehberg and his team need to remember is that they should not be measuring for the drapes just yet – this race is shaping up to be the toughest race for Rehberg in a decade.

And to be fair, the biggest thing that Tester and his team need to remember is that he won his last race by only 3562 votes and failed to carry his home county – where people know him best…

Here at The Western Word I am currently working on a column about this senate race and the future of Montana’s military missions. If you have any input about this or any other issue, contact me at western_word@yahoo.com