Even though Montana could be the state that determines which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2025, we haven’t seen a ton of polling from Big Sky Country this election cycle. But a new survey from Montana’s First Congressional District shows incumbent Senator Jon Tester struggling, holding just a one-point lead in the district over challenger Tim Sheehy. 

The survey also asked First District voters about the MT-1 congressional race between incumbent Ryan Zinke and his Democratic challenger Monica Tranel, as well as the gubernatorial race between Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and Democrat Ryan Busse. In both of those races, the Republicans hold a lead outside the margin of error, but Busse is underperforming compared to his fellow Democrats. 

MT-Gov
Gianforte (R-inc) 47
Busse (D) 37
Leib (L) 3

Abortion rights constitutional amendment
Yes 54
No 31https://t.co/Da6MHidns6

— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) September 19, 2024

Rubashkin noted that MT-1 is bluer than the state as a whole, pointing out that Tester would have won MT-1 by 10 points in 2018, even though he won statewide by just 3 points. According ot Rubashkin’s analysis, if Tester is leading MT-1 by a single point, he’s probably trailing Sheehy by mid-single digits statewide. 

If Rubashkin’s analysis is anywhere close to accurate, that means that Ryan Busse is likely trailing Gianforte by mid-double digits statewide. That would be in line with another recent poll of Montana voters; this one a statewide survey by AARP that showed Busse with just 38% support, compared to 54% for Gianforte. 

Though Busse has been an active participant in the gun control movement since leaving Kimber Firearms in 2020, including serving as an “expert” witness in support of gun and magazine bans whle a senior advisor to the gun control group Giffords, the Democrat has been doing his best to camouflage his anti-gun activism throughout his campaign. The image on his campaign’s website shows Busse with a gun in hand and a dog by his side, while the “Guns” section of his issues page fails to mention any of his efforts to defend California and Illinois gun laws. In fact, this is all it says:

Ryan spent more than 25 years as a senior sales executive of a major firearms company. He is a responsible gun owner and collector, and he believes in the Second Amendment right for all responsible Americans to own and protect their families with firearms. Ryan’s memoir, Gunfight, details his opposition to those who use guns to threaten or intimidate. His book also details his opposition to gun industry marketing practices which encourage violence and radicalization, because those actions put innocent people in danger and jeopardize all of our rights as Americans.

What Busse leaves out, of course, is that gun control groups like Giffords aren’t just interested in how gun companies are marketing their products. They want the federal government to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and possession of semi-automatic long guns, “large capacity” magazines, and even commonly-owned handguns like Glocks. 

The recent survey results indicate that Montanans are seeing through Busse’s attempt to hide his aid and support for bans on popular and commonly owned firearms and magazines. Gianforte and Busse have tentatively agreed to a debate on October 16th, and I’m curious to see if Busse will stick to his script, which clearly isn’t working to well, or if he’ll shed his camoflauge and lean into his anti-2A activism in an attempt to rally Democrats to his side.