Will eventually resolve to the party which won the popular vote for the race, as determined by the local, state, and ultimately federal governments.
In the case the race is called by the major news organizations, the market may optionally resolve early.
This market covers events up to and including Election Day, November 5: if Party A's candidate X wins the popular vote that day, but intervening events cause the next inaugurated Senator to be from Party B, the market will resolve to Party A.
If candidate X switches party affiliations, the switch will not affect the outcome if it is after the beginning of Election Day, local time.
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3.00Analysis from the Manifold newsletter:
Montana: Sen. Jon Tester (D) vs. Tim Sheehy (R)
Democrat win chances per models: 21% (The Hill), 10% (538), 23% (Split Ticket)
Expert forecasts: Lean R (flip) (Cook), Lean R (flip) (Sabato), Tilt R (flip) (Inside Elections)
Polling average (538): Sheehy+5
Election result in 2018, a Democratic wave year: D+3 (Tester vs. Rosendale)
Election result in 2012, amid Obama's reelection: D+4 (Tester vs. Rehberg vs. Cox)
Recent Montana presidential election results: Trump+16 (2020), Trump+20 (2016), Romney+14 (2012)
Manifolder commentary:
SemioticRivalry: every candidate says they're doing fine. what's telling is when they fail to publicly release polls that show that to be the case.
Jesse: Reminds me of Heitkamp in North Dakota
Chris Lloyd: 1/3 seems like a little too optimistic for Tester.
Conflux commentary:
In contrast to Joe Manchin, Jon Tester chose to fight his uphill battle. First elected in 2006 by 1% against a scandal-tarnished opponent, Tester’s 4% reelection margin in 2012 was less than the 6% achieved by a Libertarian candidate. With a 3% margin in 2018, Tester’s victories have been impressive, and have come in spite of other Republicans winning Montana — but they’ve all been narrow.
His 2024 opponent, Tim Sheehy, is “a former Navy SEAL, aerial firefighter and businessman.” He’s lied a bit about his military history, and has been accused of plagiarism and racial stereotypes against Native Americans. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Tester seemed to lead early polls, but Sheehy is now leading by 5 points in the polling average. (Perhaps this is due to Republicans “coming home” to vote for their party’s nominee once pressured to do so.) Still, polling error is typically bigger in Senate races than in presidential ones, so Tester has a chance — although Manifold thinks he probably won’t even outperform Harris by double digits, essentially necessary to win.
This race might be critical to which party controls the senate in 2024!
I've added a large subsidy here, and edited in the presumptive nominees for each party.
For more information and arbitrage, you can also check out the new Key Races dashboard!
Note that if those are not the nominees, this market still resolves to the party of the winning candidate.