None of the leading candidates in the open Montana House race have greater than 21% name recognition and as a result the Republicans start out with modest leads over the Democrats, based largely on the overall partisan orientation of the state.
The field hoping to replace Denny Rehberg is pretty unknown at this point. Republican Steve Daines is the 'best' known, but only 21% of voters are familiar with him. That goes down to 16% for Democrat Kim Gillan, and 14% for Republican John Abarr and Democrat Franke Wilmer.
Daines leads Wilmer by 10 points at 35-25 and Gillan by 8 points at 35-27. Abarr leads Wilmer by 8 points at 33-25 and Gillan by 4 points at 30-26. With the candidates so little known you're basically not going to see any crossover support. The Republicans get on average only 7% of the Democratic vote and the Democrats get on average only 5% of the Republican vote. Combine the lack of bleeding across party lines with the state's overall GOP orientation and the Republicans also leading by 5-11 points with independent voters and it's the formula for an early GOP advantage.
There's obviously a ton of room for this race to shift as the candidates get better known but with Obama unpopular in the state you would certainly expect Republicans to be favored to keep this seat.
Full results here
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