Big Sky Country has a reputation. People think of it as a monolith of red paint on a map, but if you actually looked at the montana presidential polls 2024 leading up to November, the story was way more layered than a simple "Trump wins" headline. Honestly, the data was screaming things about the state's changing identity that a lot of national pundits just flat-out missed.
It wasn't just about who would take the four electoral votes. Everyone knew Donald Trump was the favorite. The real drama was in the margins. You've got these pockets of deep blue in Missoula and Bozeman clashing with the vast, conservative stretches of the Eastern Plains.
Basically, the polls were a tug-of-law between a growing urban population and the traditional rural base.
Why Montana Presidential Polls 2024 Kept Experts Guessing
Early on, some folks thought Montana might be tighter than usual. Why? Because of the Senate race. Jon Tester, the flat-topped Democrat who has held on to his seat for years by leaning into his "dirt under the fingernails" brand, was on the ballot.
Pollsters like Emerson College and Montana State University Billings were watching to see if Tester’s popularity would pull Kamala Harris upward, or if Trump’s massive gravity would drag Tester down.
Most of the final montana presidential polls 2024 showed Trump with a lead anywhere from 15 to 20 points. For example, an AtlasIntel poll right before the election had Trump at 59% and Harris at 39%. That’s a massive gap. But it’s actually right in line with how things shook out.
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Trump ended up winning the state with roughly 58.4% of the vote. Harris took about 38.5%. It was a dominating performance that actually saw Trump improve his margin from 2020, where he won by about 16 points.
The Urban-Rural Divide is Getting Intense
If you looked at a map of the results, it looked like a sea of red with a few blue islands.
- Missoula County: Harris crushed it here with about 59%.
- Gallatin County (Bozeman): This was a nail-biter, but Harris edged it out by about 3 points.
- Silver Bow (Butte): Traditional Democratic stronghold, though the margins are tightening.
Then you look at places like Garfield County or Carter County. In Carter County, Trump took a staggering 89% of the vote. That is not a typo. It’s hard to find that kind of lopsidedness anywhere else in the country. This divide is why the montana presidential polls 2024 are so tricky to conduct; if you don’t get the balance of "New Montana" (tech workers in Bozeman) and "Old Montana" (ranchers in Custer County) exactly right, your numbers are garbage.
The "Tester Effect" That Didn't Happen
There was a lot of talk about ticket-splitting. Montana has a long history of it. You’ll find people who vote for a Republican president but want a Democrat in the Senate because they like the person.
The polls suggested it was possible.
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In the end, Tim Sheehy, the Republican challenger, managed to unseat Jon Tester. Sheehy won with about 52.6% to Tester's 45.5%.
While Tester significantly overperformed Harris—he got about 44,000 more votes than she did—it wasn't enough to overcome the red wave. The montana presidential polls 2024 accurately captured that the state was moving away from its ticket-splitting roots. Nationalization of politics is a real thing. People are voting for the jersey now, not just the player.
Third Parties and the "Wait, Who?" Candidates
We can't ignore the fringe. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was on the ballot and actually pulled about 2% of the vote despite dropping out and endorsing Trump. Chase Oliver, the Libertarian, took less than 1%.
In a state where every vote counts for local races, these small percentages matter. They represent a "none of the above" sentiment that survives in the mountain west.
What the Economy Taught Pollsters
When you ask Montanans what they care about, the answer is almost always "the cost of living."
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According to AP VoteCast data, about 35% of Montana voters cited the economy as their top issue. Another 25% pointed to immigration. These are winning issues for the GOP in this region.
You’ve got a state where housing prices have absolutely exploded. People who have lived in Missoula or Kalispell for generations are being priced out by remote workers. Paradoxically, the polls showed that many voters blamed the current administration for this, even though much of it is driven by internal migration.
Actionable Takeaways for Following Montana Politics
If you're trying to make sense of the 2024 data for future cycles, keep these things in mind:
- Watch the "Blue Islands": If Gallatin County starts moving toward the GOP, or if Lewis and Clark County (Helena) flips back and forth, the state's competitiveness changes.
- Ignore the "Solid Red" Label: Montana is red at the top, but it's "purple-ish" in the details. Local ballot measures, like the one for abortion rights (CI-128) which passed with 58% of the vote, show that Montana voters don't always follow the party line.
- Poll Timing Matters: In a state with high mail-in voting, the "early" polls often miss the late-breaking shifts in rural enthusiasm.
The final word on the montana presidential polls 2024 is that they weren't wrong about the winner, but they struggled to capture the nuance of a state in the middle of an identity crisis. Montana isn't just a cowboy state anymore. It's a tech state, a tourism state, and a retirement state, all wrapped into one very large, very complicated geographic area.
To stay ahead of the next cycle, start by tracking the voter registration shifts in the fastest-growing counties like Flathead and Gallatin. These areas are the "canaries in the coal mine" for whether Montana stays a GOP stronghold or starts to mirror its neighbor, Colorado, over the next decade.