The GOP "must have" Montana's second Senate seat.

It looks very much like the GOP will.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln is said to have quipped, “I hope to have God on my side but I must have Kentucky.” These days, Republicans might be thinking the same thing about Montana.

Without winning Montana’s Senate race, Republicans probably won’t get the 51 seats they’ll need to control the Senate if Kamala Harris wins the presidency. And if the Democrats also win control of the House, which seems a little more likely than not, they will be able to accomplish the following: abolish the Senate filibuster, add one or two new hardcore Democrat-run jurisdictions to the Union (i.e., 2-4 Senate seats), pack the Supreme Court, and enact just about any leftist legislation they desire.

Fortunately, it looks like the Republicans will “have” Montana. The polls point firmly in this direction.

A fresh survey by the New York Times/Siena has Republican Tim Sheehy leading Democratic incumbent Jon Tester by 8 points. No poll reported by Real Clear Politics taken since early-to-mid August has Tester closer than six points.

Last week, Sheehy and Tester debated for what I understand to be the final time. I caught part of it on C-SPAN.

Sheehy sure looked like he was on the road to victory. He was smooth, assured, and fresh. Tester looked old, weary, and stale.

The highlight of the portion I saw came after Tester kept accusing Sheehy of wanting to sell public lands in Montana to his “billionaire” friends and supporters. Sheehy challenged Tester to name one billionaire Sheehy supporter who wants to buy public land in Montana.

Tester couldn’t. Instead, he promised to provide a list.

The debate reminded me of Tom Cotton’s debate with incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor in 2014. It seemed like every third word out of Pryor’s mouth was “billionaire.”

I worried that Pryor had focus group data showing that attaching Tom to billionaires was a winning strategy. Actually, it was a sign of desperation. Tom won that race by 17 points.

Tester has won three times in Montana, albeit each time in good years for the Dems. But the Pryor name in Arkansas meant more in Arkansas than Tester’s does in Montana. Still, Pryor lost and lost big.

Apart from incanting “billionaires,” Tester’s main talking point was a recording of Sheehy making derogatory jokes about the Crow Indian tribe. Sheehy admitted to making “insensitive jokes” that were “off color,” but declined Tester’s invitation to apologize.

I don’t know much about Montana politics, but it seems unlikely that off-color jokes about an Indian tribe will derail Sheehy. The New York Times/Siena poll, taken after the debate, suggests that, if anything, Sheehy has increased his lead.

Donald Trump leads Harris by 17 points in Montana. As skillful as Tester has been in distancing himself from his party in tone — but not in his Senate votes — it’s difficult to envisage him overcoming that headwind, especially running against a candidate as attractive as Sheehy. The polls suggest he won’t pull it off.

I should also note that Republican Steve Daines defeated Montana’s Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, by 10 points in 2020. Trump carried the state by 16 points. Like all of the other evidence, these results point to an overdue defeat for Jon Tester, Montana’s liberal Senator.