Brian Schweitzer atop the polls in Montana

According to the The Missoulian newspaper, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is #1 in the Big Sky state.

Schweitzer scores highly in job approval
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON
Missoulian State Bureau
December 25, 2005

HELENA - Montana voters gave Gov. Brian Schweitzer the highest job approval rating of top elected officials, a new Lee Newspapers poll found.

Sixty-four percent of voters gave Schweitzer a positive job performance score in his first year in office. U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was next with 59 percent.

A trio of Republicans followed. Rep. Denny Rehberg was at 58 percent, Sen. Conrad Burns at 51 percent and President Bush at 48 percent, falling below 50 percent for the first time in a Lee poll. All three Republicans saw their job performance scores drop since the last Lee poll in May.

Schweitzer's positive score jumped from 57 percent in the Lee Newspapers' poll in May to 64 percent in December.

In comparison, former Gov. Judy Martz, a Republican, had identical 44 percent job approval scores in May and December of her first year of office in 2001. Republican Gov. Marc Racicot was at 47 percent in May of his first year of office in 1993 and rose to 56 percent in May 1994. There was no Lee poll in December of Racicot's first year in office...

...Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., the Washington, D.C., firm that has polled for Lee Newspapers since 1990, conducted the telephone survey Dec. 13-15. Pollsters interviewed 625 Montana registered voters who said they regularly vote in state elections. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Schweitzer's numbers “look pretty good,” said the pollster, Brad Coker. “People that were undecided about him moved to supportive.”

...Schweitzer: 64 percent positive (12 percent “excellent” and 52 percent “pretty good”) and 32 percent negative (26 percent “only fair” and 6 percent “poor”) with 4 percent undecided.

By gender, Schweitzer received a 66 percent positive job approval mark from women and 28 percent negative score, while men gave him a 62 percent positive score and a 36 percent negative. The rest were undecided.