I may be wrong but I believe that Conrad Burns was the only GOP Senator elected and re-elected in many decades. Montana is an eccentric state with a lot of really hard-core left-wingers (ever since the communist International Workers of the World or Wobblies were running shooting wars nearly a century ago in the mining areas which is an experience shared by few states) who are verrrrrry well organized and some (apparently fewer) really solid right-wingers who are not anywhere near as well organized. And then there is the bitter cold of the Big Sky Country concededly offset by a tremendous lot of breathtaking geographical beauty.
Our problems are more rooted in the nomination of RINOs elsewhere like Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker in Tennessee, Giddy Dole in North Carolina (leading to an inevitable Demonrat takeover of the seat once held by Jesse Helms), an unbelievable set of circumstances here in Illinois with the tax-cash soaked RINOs allied with the Chicago Demonrat Machine driving Senator Peter Fitzgerald from office in 2004 which resulted in the ultimate nomination of Alan Keyes (whatever his issue virtues an absolutely abysmal candidate) to yell and scream at voters until he drew a mere 25% against the Obamessiah which, in turn, led to the Obamanation created in the 2008 election. As Casey Stengel used to ask during his years managing the Mets: "Doesn't anyone here know how to play this game???"
So we are now split among designer conservatives who must have each of 275 litmus tests successfully passed by any candidate expecting their votes, RINOs who exist to loot the taxpayers along with their Demonratic second cousins, those who want to form a third or eighth or twelfth party to flatter their particular 275 litmus tests, single issue voters, lazy folks who always have a "principled" excuse not to play, and people (like me who are therefore correct) with a few (pro-life, pro-gun, pro-marriage, pro-military, anti-gummint edjamakshun and, after those, cutting the gummint's allowance and hamstringing its regulatory powers) well-considered priorities. I forgive me for not caring that much about selling the streets and closing the lighthouses and for not voting for rank traitors and moonbat morons and uberphonies like Ron (paleotreasonweasel)Paulie.
If that makes me (and it does) part of a chorus of those who believe that "third parties are for losers," make the most of it.
The GOP's record with electing Senators in MT has been horrible and full of narrow, heartbreaking losses. Prior to the popular vote era, there were 4 Republicans elected. One, Thomas Carter, won two separate terms (1895-1901; 1905-11). But after his seatmate, Joseph Dixon, lost reelection once the popular vote was instituted (after he ran as the Progressive Bull Mooser) in 1912, splitting the vote between himself and the regular GOP nominee, not until 1946 did the people elect its first GOP Senator, Zales Ecton.
Ecton, however, was a fluke winner in the first place because the Dems launched an ugly putsch of the legendary Burton Wheeler, replacing him with Leif Erickson. The Wheeler Dems cast their protest votes for Ecton. But by 1952, a year in which Ecton should've been carried to a second term, he was defeated by then-Congressman Mike Mansfield by a 51-49% margin. When Conrad Burns won Ecton's seat 36 years later, defeating the weak John Melcher, he indeed would become (in 1994) the first Republican ever reelected to the Senate for a second consecutive term. The seat in which Max Baucus occupies has never elected a Republican in the popular era (now closing in on a century), but on several occasions, the GOP challenger got over 43% and on three occasions between 1954-72, got 50% (rounded), 49%, 47% & 48% respectively (and if any of those men had won, they might've held it for the long term, as at least two of those men, ex-Congressman Orvin Fjare and ex-Gov. Tim Babcock, are both still alive).