Jon Tester Wins Over Denny Rehberg in Montana’s 2012 U.S. Senate Race

Update 9:50 a.m. Nov. 7

Jon Tester has given his acceptance speech. After being introduced by his daughter Christine, Tester opened his address by saying "I've been waiting for a long time to say this… It is over!"

He went on to thank his family, his staff and all of his supporters before twice commenting on campaign financing, including this initial reference.

"This victory is our victory because it proves that neither corporations nor billionaires can buy the state of Montana and buy elections. In Montana, we believe that people, and their ideas and their values are what govern us. Despite a irresponsible bad decision by the United States Supreme Court, Montanans proved that tonight and today. Today, we leave this record campaign behind and we start marching ahead together, because as Montanans it doesn’t matter which party we belong to, what matters is the values that we share."

Jon Tester's Acceptance Speech

Update 7:00 a.m. Nov. 7

With 542/794 precincts reporting and 216 precincts partially reporting it appears that Jon Tester is in the lead with 48.71% of the vote to Rehberg's 44.72%. Dan Cox has 6.44% of the vote.

Rehberg has 192,440 votes, Tester has 209,615 votes, and Cox has 27,734.

10:00 - With 15 out of 794 precincts fully reporting, Tester is leading Rehberg by about 15%

Tester currently has 44,844 votes, Rehberg has 32,859, and Dan Cox has 4,706.

The Senate race between Denny Rehberg (R), Jon Tester (D) and Dan Cox (L) has been hard fought. Many expect this race to end as it has polled over the past year, with a dead heat.

If the final ballot results are as close as many people expect them to be, there could be multiple recounts and a winner may not be determined until the morning of the November 7th or perhaps even later.