DEMS/ELECTION/GOP/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Jon Tester would be a near lock for reelection if Montana’s Senate race came down to the classic test of which candidate voters would rather have a beer with. In fact, devouring a slice of carrot cake at a diner last week, the burly farmer-turned-Democratic senator says he could use a cold one right then…Unfortunately for him, Republicans and President Donald Trump are determined to make the race anything but a beer test between Tester and Matt Rosendale, the intense and buttoned-up Republican candidate, who hails from Maryland. To the extent it’s a popularity contest, they want it to be Tester vs. Trump, who carried the state by 20 points in 2016 and remains popular there today.But Tester has long infuriated the GOP, which has tagged him as a liberal out of step with Montana. The difference now is that they have a president willing to go all out to defeat him. Trump is out for revenge after Tester helped derail his pick to run the Veterans Affairs department, Ronny Jackson, earlier this year. And now a deluge of money from outside groups and visits from anti-Tester surrogates, including Trump himself, threaten to tip a race that everyone agrees is tightening.”
-Burgess Everett, “Jon Tester in danger as Trump seeks vengeance,” Politico, October 31, 2018 5:09 am