MT-Sen: Tester leading big in early voting (according to his campaign)

Early voting results and exit polling both conspired to give us big hope in 2004. We'd be well advised to take everything with a grain of salt and realize that nothing is over until it's over.

But we also can't stick our head in the sand and ignore things because we don't want to get our hopes up, right? And right now, Tester's camp is feeling really good about the early numbers.

As President Bush lands in Montana to plead for support for Sen. Conrad Burns, a new poll released Thursday shows challenger Jon Tester with a commanding 21% lead among early voters.

The poll, conducted by Lake Snell Perry Mermin this week, shows Tester leading Burns 58% to 37% among Montanans who have already voted. According to the Montana Secretary of State's office, 56,453 Montanans have cast early ballots as of this morning.

I went hunting for the 2002 results, when Max Baucus easily defeated his Republican opponent. About 325,000 votes were cast in that non-presidential year.

Assuming similar turnout this year (never a good idea), that would mean that about 17 percent of ballots have already been cast. It'd be nice to see a comparison of early ballots this year compared to 2002, but alas, I haven't seen anything like that anywhere.