Republican Tim Sheehy shaved Democratic Sen. Jon Tester's margins in Montana's populous counties and ran up his lead in the state's more rural regions building a cushion the incumbent couldn't catch when The Associated Press called the race.
Sheehy cut into Tester's margins from six years ago in the counties where most of the state's people live. In Bozeman's Gallatin County, Sheehy was doing about 5 percentage points better than his Republican counterpart in the 2018 race. In Lewis and Clark and Yellowstone counties - home to the capital Helena and the state's most populous city, Billings - Sheehy similarly sliced into Tester's lead.
Those gains and dominance in the state's less populous, rural counties, allowed Sheehy to build a lead Tester couldn't catch, even if he won the remaining votes overwhelmingly, at the time the race was called at 626 a.m. ET.
CANDIDATES Tester D vs. Sheehy R and two others.
WINNER Sheehy
