New poll--but same story in the Montana Senate Race

Montana Republicans and the Rehberg campaign are touting a poll showing their man leading in the Montana Senate race. The poll was done by Rasmussen and shows Congressman Rehberg with 47% of the vote and Senator Tester with 44%. The poll was of 500 likely Montana voters conducted on February 22, 2012. The margin of error is 4.5 percent, so really, the race is too close to call. I generally do not like to say a candidate is in the lead unless the candidate has a lead outside the margin of error. You can read about the particulars here.

I should note that in 2010, Rasmussen's polling consistently showed a considerable Republican bias as noted by Nate Silver who blogs about survey methodology and statistics over at The New York Times. Read his analysis here. That said, I have less of a reason to believe that any bias--should it remain in Rasmussen's methodology during this election cycle--is reflective in THESE results given that they show us pretty much what we've seen since March of 2011: the race is...too close to call.