This piece is part of MTFP’s 2026 poll week, where we’re exploring data on how Montana voters feel about their elected officials, environmental concerns, immigration enforcement and other issues. None of Montana’s elected leaders won rave reviews from voters for their personal appeal in a Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll conducted in late December and early January. The most popular, President Donald Trump, was rated favorable by 50% of respondents — and unfavorable by 44%, a difference just within the poll’s 4.1 percentage point margin of error. Gov. Greg Gianforte, also a Republican, had a net favorability just outside the error margin, winning a thumbs-up rating from 46% of respondents and a thumbs down from 40%. In a few cases, many voters also appeared to be unfamiliar with their elected officials. For Eastern Montana U.S. Rep. Troy Downing, for example, 40% of voters polled statewide — and 41% in his congressional district — said they either didn’t know him or didn’t have an opinion of him. The same was true for 18% of western Montana voters when asked about their congressman, U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke. Downing, who is running for re-election to his second term representing the heavily Republican district without a GOP primary opponent, was elected to the U.S. House in 2024 with 66% of the vote after one term as state auditor. He advanced to that general election following a nine-way Republican primary, where he won 36% of the vote.  Without a strong Democratic opponent in the general election, Downing ran a comparatively cheap campaign, spending $1.2 million in the primary and only $18,137 in the general election. Downing’s Democratic opponent, John Driscoll, spent less than $5,000 on advertising — below the Federal Elections Commission’s reporting threshold. That meant far fewer campaign advertisements featuring Downing’s likeness, compared to the barrage of advertising around higher-profile races. Western district voters rated Zinke favorable/unfavorable on a 42%-41% margin. Eastern district voters did the same to Downing on a 28%-31% margin. Self-described conservatives, who represented 48% of respondents, typically gave stronger favorability marks to the state’s Republican-dominated leadership, while liberals, who comprised 21% of respondents, gave high responses of unfavorability. Moderates, who comprised almost 31% of respondents, never crossed 27% favorability for any candidate. For example, 87% of conservative respondents expressed a favorable view of Trump — compared to only 2% of liberals. The fraction of moderate voters who hold favorable views of candidates is often of particular interest to political observers because it can be a rough proxy for how those candidates appeal to swing voters.  While nearly half of voters polled identified as conservative rather than moderate or liberal, the poll indicated that self-identified moderates were typically sour on the personal charms of incumbent leaders. Moderates, for example, panned Gianforte on a 27%-54% favorable/unfavorable margin — compared to a 74%-11% split among conservatives. All four members of Montana’s federal delegation — Downing and Zinke as well as U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy — polled at least slightly worse with women than they did with men. With Zinke, for example, 45% of men expressed favorable views, compared with 29% of women. With Daines, the gender gap was 42% among men versus 34% among women. Favorability polls measure personal impressions and are not the same thing as job performance polls, which often produce different ratings than favorability questions in public opinion surveys. For example, voters have typically given U.S. presidents better ratings for their personal favorability than their job performance in Gallup polling. “I think of favorability as more of personal favorability and job performance as more of professional competence,” said Jeremy Johnson, political science department chair at Carroll College. For example, a respondent might dislike a politician’s personality but still consider them competent. Favorability polls are more common when comparing incumbents and challengers because challengers rarely have comparable job experience, Johnson said.  The MTFP-Eagleton poll surveyed 801 registered voters through telephone interviews and text-to-web questionnaires. Data was collected from Dec. 23, 2025, to Jan. 3, 2026. The poll, which was weighted to reflect the demographics of the state’s voters, has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. More information on the methodology is available here. The polling period came before several subsequent events that may influence Montana voters’ perception of their elected officials, including protests over federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, Sheehy’s March 4 involvement in an altercation with a protester at a congressional hearing and President Trump’s decision to launch attacks against Iran in late February. The poll was also conducted before Zinke and Daines announced in early March that they would not seek re-election this fall. This piece is part of the Montana Insights project, which is commissioning rounds of polling to help MTFP readers understand public sentiment on key Montana policy issues. Further findings from the Dec. 2025-Jan. 2026 poll are available here. 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