How did Tester win? Big margins in cities – and some help from friends

HELENA — When the dust finally settled Wednesday morning on Montana’s epic U.S. Senate race, Sen. Jon Tester was the clear winner — despite having had a target on his back as a “most vulnerable” Democrat in a conservative state.

How did he do it?

It wasn’t because of any big mistakes by his chief opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, who ran a disciplined, focused campaign that cast Tester as a big-spending, tax-raising, regulation-loving acolyte of President Barack Obama, who isn’t the most popular guy in Montana.

For many reasons, the charges just didn’t stick — and Tester ran a pretty good campaign himself, rolling up huge margins in nearly all of Montana’s major cities and winning key groups of voters.

And while Tester was under relentless fire from TV ads by outside groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, he had a little help from his own friends – labor, environmentalists, women’s groups – who not only bought some TV but also ran an aggressive, widespread ground game on his behalf.



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