Lee Newspapers poll: State leaders get high ratings
2007-07-02
Source: Missoula Missoulian
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, Rep. Denny Rehberg and Gov. Brian Schweitzer enjoy high job-approval ratings and are strong favorites to be re-elected if the ballots were cast now, a Lee Newspapers poll shows.
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rss feed“The numbers are good for the governor, senator and representative,” said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, which conducted the poll. “I don't see any endangered incumbents right now in these offices.”
The telephone poll, taken June 25-27, surveyed 625 Montanans who are registered to vote and said they regularly vote in elections. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points.
Baucus, a Democrat, leads the pack with a positive job-approval score of 67 percent, followed by Schweitzer, also a Democrat, at 64 percent and Rehberg, a Republican, at 61 percent.
Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat who unseated three-time Republican incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns in November, had the lowest job-approval of Montana's top elected officials with 46 percent.
The poll also asked if the 2008 election were held today, whether Montana voters would vote to re-elect Baucus, Rehberg and Schweitzer or whether they would vote to replace them with someone from the opposite party.
All three men are up for re-election next year.
Sixty-two percent of voters favored re-electing Rehberg to a fifth two-year term in Congress, while 30 percent would vote to replace him with a Democrat, with 8 percent undecided. Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy, a Democrat, is Rehberg's only announced opponent so far.
The poll showed 60 percent favored re-electing Baucus to a sixth six-year term in the Senate, while 31 percent favored replacing him with a Republican. Nine percent were undecided. Baucus' lone opponent so far is former state House Majority Leader Michael Lange, R-Billings.
