Talk Elections

Linke (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-zinke-idUSKBN1422R1?il=0)

This shakes things up a bit. Who runs in the special election, and who runs against Tester?

I heard a rumor the guy who shot Bin Laden might run.

I think Fox wants to be Governor

Zinke has said so himself (http://newstalkkgvo.com/ryan-zinke-hints-that-fellow-navy-seal-rob-oneill-may-run-for-senate/?trackback=tsmclip)

I like CMR, but maybe she should stay in the House, she'd be a great Speaker. I'm kind of worried about the Special, plus the best tTester challenger has been removed from the field.

Zinke hasn't accepted yet. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/ryan-zinke-interior-secretary-trump-232590

Denise Juneau might run again for MT-AL if Zinke leaves.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JDiamond1/status/808803016686129152

They are saying he could serve 18 months and then run for Senate.

Maybe Denny Rehberg will make a comeback and decide to run for his old house seat? 

I'm very happy Zinke is a cabinet pick, though. It likely eliminates Tester's toughest challenger.

Doubt it. He joined a lobbying firm IIRC.

Mike Cooney seems like he could be a good candidate for the Democrats. Currently serving as Bullock's Lt. Gov., and was formerly the Secretary of State. So he should have name recognition.

Reminds me of when Bush plucked Johanns for Agriculture when he was immensely popular in Nebraska removing him as a possible challenger to Ben Nelson.

So now I wonder who will run.

The GOP will find a good challenger for Tester and if everything goes normal, they will be the slightly favourite to win the seat.

I think it's pretty clear that nothing is going "normal" in American politics right now.

Not that that means Tester is definitely going to win. He could lose in a landslide for all I know.

Well, you definiteley have a point.

He'll lose. David Duke only got 3% in the LA Senate Jungle Primary, and Duke is much better-known and LA has a much longer history of racial tension to exploit. Open White Supremacy and Neo-Nazism still has a very small market.

This could be no big deal, and Republicans will hold MT-AL and still be very competitive in MT-SEN... or it could cost them dearly. A lot depends on how 2017 goes.

Republicans:
Neil Livingstone
Matthew Rosendale
Jon Sonju
Corey Stapleton

Democrats:
Linda McCulloch
John Morrison
Brian Schweitzer
John Walsh

John Walsh? You mean Mr. Plaigiarism? His career is over. Also, for Republicans, add Rob O'Neill, the SEAL who killed Osama.

I think that Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, West Virginia and Ohio are all better pickup opportunities for Republicans than Montana, even though the race should be quite competitive, even without Zinke. I'd rate it a Tossup for now. We'll just have to see, I guess. Neither party should feel too confident about this race at this point.


Haha, I see what you did there. Just noticed this now.

Rob O'Neill would be my preferred candidate.

Gianforte who underperformed Donald Trump by 27 points this year... yeah okay.

That's not how this works. Bullock is a popular incumbent who wasn't going to be beaten by any Republican. Fox MIGHT have done one or two points better, but that's about it. Popular Democratic incumbent governors in Montana don't lose reelection. Gianforte was not a perfect candidate, but he didn't really run a BAD campaign either. Had this been an open seat, Gianforte probably would have won the election.

Also try to find a better Republican candidate.... other than maybe Tim Fox, there really isn't one.

O'Neill is probably the republicans top recruit for senate, Tim Fox is another candidate though he seems much more interested in Governor. Corey Stapleton is ambitious but he just got elected to SOS and turning that quickly for either house or senate would look bad

O'Neill the most electable Republican? Come on, guys... he'd almost certainly lose, maybe even in a good year for Republicans.

Do we know anything about O'Neill's politics or political skills?

Zinke has been actively recruiting him and his appearances on Fox news suggests that he is fairly conservative. Also Tammy Duckworth shows that an inspiring military background can help overcome a lack of political skills

Gianforte lost b/c he ran a piss-poor campaign.

I don't think Duckworth proved that. She underperformed in her election to the House, and she only beat Kirk in a landslide because he made a racist comment and it's Illinois.

What does Duckworth have to do to prove herself, at this point?

I'm just saying that Duckworth didn't prove that having a cool military story automatically wins elections, which is what pandaguineapig implied.

I mean technically Zinke could still run. It's not unheard of for people to be in the cabinet for two years and then move on.

The fact that he's actively encouraging someone else to run makes me suspect he's not interested, though.

I love how Atlas thinks that every candidate who lost in a purple state must have run a terrible campaign. Again, Democratic incumbent governors in Montana don't lose reelection. Tim Fox wouldn't have beaten Bullock either.

Yeah, that's my read too...

Among the five most vulnerable Dems up for reelection in 2018 (Tester, McCaskill, Donnelly, Heitkamp, Manchin), Tester is by far the most skilled politically. His populism works incredibly well in Montana and lets him differentiate himself from Republicans while still being conservative enough on issues like guns rights and environmental protection to survive a statewide election. He's a very talented politician and I think running any candidate besides Zinke makes it very hard for the GOP to win this seat.

White Nationalist Richard Spencer thinking of running.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/richard-spencer-white-nationalist-congress_us_58540839e4b0b3ddfd8c2f4b?khc1yynjws7qr529

No no please please no.

With Trump winning the Presidency I won't discount anything, but it would be nice for Montana 2018 to become the Colorado of 2016.

Hopefully a non-Nazi Republican beats him, and then loses to a Democrat. We don't need to mainstream those views.

Zinke was trying to recruit that guy to run against Tester.  But he hasn't shown any interest (I doubt he's even a Republican).

O'Neill is a Republican, he shows up at Republican events, endorsed fellow SEAL Eric Greitens, and I also hear he appears on FOX News.

I read more about the guy and it sounds like it is disputed that he was the one who shot Bin Laden.  He has also been criticized as an attention seeker by many Navy SEALs for coming out and claiming he was the one who did it. 

Tim Fox or even Denny Rehberg would likely beat Spencer.

State Senator Ed Buttrey (R-Great Falls) has become the first contender to jump into the race for MT-AL.

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/politics/ed-buttrey-becomes-first-candidate-to-announce-for-replacing-zinke/article_1b37cd40-565e-58fc-b340-1f553c7aff4e.html

Nice. Certainly hope he gets the nomination.

Where does he fall along the MT GOP's spectrum?

I would like him to get the nomination too.

Senate President-elect Scott Sales (R-Bozeman) is also running:

http://www.krtv.com/story/34088260/state-sen-buttrey-of-great-falls-will-vie-for-zinke-seat

IIRC - Sales is much more conservative, and has extensive connections with Koch brother's political network...

Brian Schweitzer or Linda McCulloch could win this.

I know nothing about McCulloch. I bet Schweitzer could win, but I doubt he'll run.

Per DKE, Richard Spencer is not getting in, thank God. Hopefully Buttrey gets the GOP nod

Does anybody have an idea on who the GOP convention would pick? I really hope it's Buttrey, though Sales is my second choice.

Libertarian Rick Breckenridge will run again (http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/libertarian-breckenridge-interested-in-u-s-house-race/article_36745a8f-35d7-5739-a533-febcf0df2a7a.html)

Fagg not running (http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/district-judge-fagg-won-t-seek-u-s-house-seat/article_cb6a5439-2b23-5a05-b783-70d01e5a5a7e.html)

Also, here is a list of all the candidates that have thrown their name into the hat:

-Ed Buttrey (R): currently represents Great Falls, Senate District 13
-Scott Sales (R): current President of the Montana Senate
-Daniel Zolnikov (R): currently represents Billings, House District 45
-Eugene Graf IV (R): homebuilder, owner of E.G. Construction in Bozeman
-Gary Carlson (R): Publisher, White Hat Express
-Ken Miller (R): Former GOP chair and state senator
-Amanda Curtis (D): currently represents Montana District 74
-Casey Schreiner (D): currently represents Great Falls
-Kelly McCarthy (D): currently represents Billings
-Rob Quist (D): famed musician, poet, and producer
-John Meyer (D): Bozeman attorney
-Zeno Baucus (D): son of Max Baucus

http://www.kulr8.com/story/34198488/what-to-expect-in-montanas-special-election

the same Amanda Curtis that ran in 2014? huh

MT - who do you believe is the strongest Dem?

:(

What a shame, given his name.

Gianforte is in, getting help from Daines. (https://twitter.com/PoliticoScott/status/819561305875107840)

Jesus, is everyone in Montana running for this seat?

Quist would be cool as hell in the house. How much of a campaign organization can he put together though?

... his son is named Zeno?

ugh the Baucus family sucks

You have more achievements? Or judge people by names, not deeds?

Well Baucus was a pretty worthless Senator when he was in office, even by "moderate hero" standards, and he tried to get his wife confirmed to an office she wasn't confirmed. I have little confidence "Zeno" is going to be much better.

yes i know your schtick is to defend every single conservative democrat or liberal republican regardless of how worthwhile they actually are because that's what you do. and then act superior about it.

And i know your - accuse anybody you dislike with rather worthless accusations, pretending to be a sort of Supreme Court judge at least.. A freedom of opinion and speech doesn't give anybody right to slander..... It's not for you to judge who is worthless and who is not. First - do something HIMSELF - get a degree in serious science, get elected to somewhere, or something like that. AFTER that your opinion will have some weight. Before - zero.

not gonna lie I think the name Zeno might actually hurt his chances to win a House seat.

That, and his father's association with the ACA.

How very Russian.

Anyway, Zeno is an amazing name. Does anyone know if it's biblical like Zebulon?

Zeno is a Greek name derived from Zeus.


I'm pretty sure Maxwell either has or is getting a degree. Not sure if it's in "serious science" or not.

so we only get to judge "very serious" politicians if we get elected anywhere? then what the  is this forum for?

Quite literally this forum would only be Muon talking in a vaccum if that were the case.

I wonder if this is about to be the 2018 Democratic equivalent to Scott Brown's special election upset of 2009.

I feel like this is spot on about many posters here.  Good comment smoltchanov, but I disagree with the rest of your comment starting at "slander." It's not slander to call someone "worthless" but it is usually a dumb thing to do say.

I can't say I was smitten by Max Baucus, but he was NOT a useless Senator and has proven to be a capable ambassador as well.

Nah, if Quist wins the general (which could easily happen), it will have nothing to do with Trump.

Is Quist still the Democrat you're most afraid of, TN?

Will Zeno's last name help him (in the primary and the general)?

Gianforte in. (http://missoulian.com/news/government-and-politics/gianforte-will-seek-republican-nomination-to-replace-rep-zinke/article_062e5dfb-15d9-56d9-b350-7d1ccb9b38d8.html)

Didn't he blow a winnable race for Gov?

I don't know whether it was truly winnable or not for him, especially since Trump's large win there got him a lot more support than he might have otherwise, but I wonder if his very-recent candidacy might be a liability or a benefit for him. On one hand, he just ran a gubernatorial campaign and surely has more name recognition and a lot of people who already voted for him for one office, so maybe that will boost his prospects. On the other hand, maybe the majority of people who already rejected him again reject him for any number of reasons. Though, I guess the electorate will be leagues smaller and more elderly-centric.

Nah, not really. Keep in mind that he isn't even in, he just said that he is considering entering the race. But I have my doubts that he will run - even the Baucus family (and yes, they are terrible) knows that Zeno would almost certainly lose this race in an embarrassing fashion.

And regarding Gianforte.. well, he's obviously the favorite to win the GOP nomination. He would have won in 2016 had this been an open governor's seat, but Montana isn't going to vote out an incumbent Democratic governor who is reasonably popular among his progressive base as well as moderates and who even many Republicans don't mind. Most posters here tend to forget that gubernatorial races aren't really that partisan and usually not affected by coattails (see VT, NH, and especially WV and MT as examples). Montana is very purple on the statewide level and Democrats not named Hillary Clinton have a relatively high floor in the state. While Trump's big win (which, more than anything else, really was a rejection of Hillary Clinton, who is the worst possible fit for this state) obviously didn't hurt Gianforte, it also didn't give him a boost on election day, and I disagree that it got him a lot more support than he would have had otherwise, especially given how polarized MT still is. Gianforte didn't run a perfect campaign, but it wasn't really that bad either. Maybe Fox would have done a bit better, but he wouldn't have beat Bullock either.

Anyway, take this with a grain of salt, but the general feeling among some party supporters and insiders here seems to be that the Democrats will either nominate Amanda Curtis or Rob Quist, but more likely the former. I don't see her winning the general, especially if her opponent is Gianforte or Buttrey, but who knows. A Quist vs. Gianforte race would be epic, though.

Well that would be because you don't believe in the idea of coattails, right?

Montana is a state that is generally not affected by "coattails". And yeah, like I said, the coattail effect was basically nonexistent in many states that had gubernatorial races in 2016 - Vermont, New Hampshire, Montana, West Virginia, etc. I guess you could argue about Indiana, I don't know what happened there (then again, Gregg was - just like Bayh - quite overhyped). It's a different story in the Senate races, but I wasn't even talking about them.

But this typical Atlas idea that Gianforte must have run a terrible campaign just because he lost by 4 points to a popular incumbent Democrat in a purple state is ridiculous.

Buttrey should just defer to Gianforte and run for U.S. Senate next year.

I beg to differ. Gianforte comes across to me as the sort of candidate very likely to spontaneously combust - a regular "Akin-in-the-makin'", in other words. I don't claim to know anything about Montana politics, but Gianforte strikes me as just about the best candidate we could face this side of Punching Bag Spencer.

Stunning commentary, pardner. Care to elaborate at all?

I won't disagree on that last point, but I always have to give the side-eye to candidates as far-right as Gianforte, knowing the tendencies of those esteemed far-righties who came before him (Akin, Mourdock, Angle, et al).

That being said, I'm no Montanan, so maybe I'm talking out my ass.

Straw poll of MT Democrats shows close race, Quist leading Curtis by 7 votes (http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/politics/poll-insiders-show-stronger-support-for-dems-with-name-recognition/article_6ae95d36-81e8-53ef-b520-530d59ceb41d.html)

()

I'm thinking we're gonna end up with a Quist v. Buttrey race. Lean R in that case.

Grain of salt, but good news!

Scott Sales (R) out (http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2017/02/21/sales-decides-run-congress/98224536/)

Reasons two Republican legislators opposes making this special election vote by mail:

At the Senate Republican caucus meeting, state GOP Chair and Rep. Jeff Essmann of Billings and Secretary of State Corey Stapleton both spoke against Senate Bill 305, by Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls.

Essmann, a former state senator, said SB 305 was brought with good intentions, but he warned it could hurt Republicans.

The GOP chairman repeated comments he made in an “Emergency Chairman’s Report” email he sent this week with an analysis contending that the bill would disadvantage Republicans in the special election. Essmann predicted a mail-ballot election could increase the turnout of “low-propensity voters” and give Democrats an edge in the special election.

“All mail ballots give the Democrats an inherent advantage in close elections due to their ability to organize large numbers of unpaid college students and members of public employee unions to gather ballots by going door to door,” Essmann’s letter said.

Democrats, Essmann said, have “perfected the mechanics of using mail ballots” in recent elections. Essmann said he fears “the long-term viability of our Republican Party” if Montana switches to all-mail ballots.

Stapleton, the state’s chief election official, said he wasn’t there to tell Senate Republicans how to vote, but told senators they were the protectors of the Republican form of government. He urged them to think twice about “an all-mail-in ballot.”

“If you look at the three states that have done it, you can see that populism and direct democracy at its best, all three states — Oregon, Washington and Colorado — they do all-mail-in ballots and they’re all marijuana-all-the-time states too,” Stapleton said. “Is that what you want? Because that’s what you’re going to get.”

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/mtleg/republicans-divided-over-letting-counties-use-all-mail-ballots-in/article_26defd9f-cda3-5e42-adaf-66bb2ed139e1.html
It passed the legislative committee vote though 6-2

Too many undecided to be reliable.

Seeing a young guy named Dan West all over (my) social media. Running as a Democrat, he worked for NASA under Obama as a political appointee after teaching Physics in Missoula. He's also the grandson of the Heifer International founder.

"Implement all-mail voting and Montana will be flooded with marijuana."

That's a first. At least it's a nice break from the usual whining about non-existent voter fraud.

Yeah, Obama appointee Dan West officially in (http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/obama-appointee-joins-field-of-montana-democrats-hoping-to-replace/article_89b0c736-d4c2-55e1-a029-18b7cdfbe92f.html)

Your risk assessment as a MT Republican?

I hope Curtis wins the primary, she seems like the most formidable Democrat in the field.

Republicans hope she wins too. Just sayin'

As a Republican, she's the one that scares me the least, for sure. Either Quist tor West could run a strong insurgent campaign and keep it very close, or even win.

Why is Gianforte weaker than Buttrey?

I think it has to do with:
a. He lost statewide last year (yes, he ran against a super popular incumbent, and was pretty close, but still, having a recent statewide loss on your plate is not something you want when trying so soon after)
b. His Young Earth views, and promotion of a creationist museum and his creationist private school agenda. It would work in Alabama, but probably not Montana.

What Heisenberg said. Gianforte is not a terrible candidate, but a Democratic populist, progressive campaign would work much better against him than against a relatively moderate Republican like Buttrey. Buttrey would still be a solid conservative in Congress, though. The Democrat would just use the same attack ads against Gianforte, it was already pretty ugly in 2016.

Well then, I hope Gianforte wins the GOP primary. Especially if it makes him come off as an even bigger opportunist.

Special Election May 25th
Democratic Convention March 5th
http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/zinke-confirmed-as-interior-secretary-montana-prepares-for-special-election/article_0a0b705b-2f91-5bc5-8ffb-aa7e666c47aa.html (http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/zinke-confirmed-as-interior-secretary-montana-prepares-for-special-election/article_0a0b705b-2f91-5bc5-8ffb-aa7e666c47aa.html)

I feel better about this race because the MT Dems are a lot more competent than GA Dems.

At the convention to replace Walsh they chose Curtis, not exactly "competent"

Just like Democrats wanted Trump to win last year or Reagan in 1980.

It's not like they were going to win that seat anyway.

Question: why is Curtis considered such a bad candidate?

She got like the worst possible performance for a MT Dem in her last run for Senate.

But it was 2014 and she was thrown in halfway through after a scandal, and she was running against a strong opponent.

I still think Quist would be better though.

I don't see anything about the convention having happened?

How good of a canidate would Quist be?

I think he means Zinke is gone and the election has a date.

Another Republican is running, a veteran named Samuel Pascal Redfern.

I'm hoping Quist gets the nomination. Curtis is OK but I think Quist could run a better GE campaign against Gianforte or whoever Republicans nominate.

Does anyone know here MT Treasurer/TN Volunteer went? He's been inactive for 4 days now, I'd like to hear more of his thoughts.

Also, this forum is really boring without him TBH.

First round of voting for Dem nominee:

Quist 36.31% 57 votes
Amanda Curtis 24.84% 39 votes
Kelly McCarthy 24.20% 38 votes
Dan West 10.83% 17 votes
Gary Stein 3.82% 6 votes

From RRH's liveblog:

"Second round results trickling in, Quist 62 Curtis 48. Others unknown but West has dropped out." (79 needed to win).

According to Twitter McCarthy got 42

Looks like Curtis has stronger second-choice appeal. Will be interesting to see how McCarthy's delegates fold.

Go Quist go!

Going to the 4th round of voting, just Quist and Curtis are left

From Twitter: "72 votes for Quist, 51 for Curtis and 37 for McCarthy, meaning McCarthy is out"

This is intense. I hope Quist pulls it out.

Sadly, I think Quist has this.

Quist is the strongest they could nominate

Honestly, we could use some of this in the House:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzPaI5bTP48

Pretty cool stuff

I think that Quist has a slightly stronger chance of winning, but I would rather have a 39 year old as the Representative than a 69 yea told, because Quist can probably count the number of terms he could win on one hand, meanwhile Curtis can get entrenched and serve for decades if she played her cards right. Curtis got 40% of the vote in a Republican wave year, I don't see why she'd have no shot in this election.

Quist wins https://twitter.com/jorgeinmontana/status/838521244572004352

FF.

Quist wins 90-69.

Excellent. Full support behind him.

Quist wins!!!!! Now onto the general election.

With Quist in the GE, I have a feeling we can win this.

Seems like a good choice!

I wonder if he'll get the grassroots fundraising boost that Ossoff did.

It's winnable but Quist would have to work. It seems like he's willing considering he toured the state shoring up support for this win.

What appeal does quist have that gives him a chance to win?

He looks and sounds like every other Democrat that's won statewide in recent times.

Curtis' nomination in the 2014 SEN election after Walsh dropped out was a good example of the 'women come to power in crisis' (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/07/07/how_female_politicians_come_to_power.html) theory. Theory predicts a Curtis loss since today was just a normal convention, not a crisis.

Congratulations to Rob Quist. Hope he wins, we need as many seats as possible.

He's a local hero/celebrity with name recognition and a general likeability

Outsider (though I guess Gianforte has that too), populist style, likeable as a person, ability to connect with the grassroots, and Gianforte seems pretty flawed, and just lost a statewide race three months ago, and seems to be using this election to stay relevant and probably as a stepping stone to another gubernatorial run in 2020.

I'm far more hopeful about this race than GA-06.

Why? Montana swung 6 points to the right in 2016 giving Trump a 20 point win while GA-06 swung 21 points to the left, with Trump winning only by 1.5%. I realize that Democrats have won statewide in Montana many times and even just last election, but fighting the fundamentals of the state seems harder than in an individual district that trended largely in the positive direction.

Quist and Curtis are both lefty - Curtis was accused of being a psuedo-commie when she ran for Senate.

It didn't help that she had a video blog in which she mocked gun owners, talked sorta vulgarly about her "pansexuality" (the most white-girl thing I might have heard), and basically acted like an out an out caricature of a SJW.

He's basically the perfect candidate for the state and Montana Dems have had a very resilient Blue Dog streak through the Obama era and still managed multiple statewide wins.  Downballot Dem strength in MT can't be called a fluke anymore after Bullock cleared 50% running with Trump last November, and unlike in WV, they didn't have to practically run a 3rd party campaign to do it.  Gianforte is still favored, no doubt, but with Quist, Democratic odds just rose to 20-25% here.

Democrats have always done badly at the presidential level in Montana but well at the Congressional level. This is more true with the Senate than that House, but there's no reason why it needs to be.

Montana is IMO a lot more interesting than WV.  LBJ was the last Dem nominee to win a majority there and yet the senate seat currently occupied by Steve Daines was held by Democrats for over a century.  The Tester seat was held by Republicans for only 2 terms in the past century.  The state has also only ever had a handful of Republican governors, and yet this was all while Republicans were winning presidential elections there for 50 years, save for a 38% Clinton win in 1992!

Also going to note that Trump actually got a lower percentage of the vote there than Romney -- the increased margin is more reflective of Hillary's six-point dip than any significant Republican gains.

Quist is precisely the kind of Democrat who can win in Montana, so I really hope he wins. I'd be curious to see how this could effect the GA-6 race, since that runoff will happen a few weeks after this election.

If Quist wins, are Democrats going to be energized and feel they can win in GA, or will Republicans panic and invest heavily in GA-6 in order to save face?

I think more reps panic but it could go the other way

Hell of a lot better than O'Malley.

Glad to see Quist won, hope he can pull this off.

Well, he beat another Berniecrat, Curtis. So many races without a Berniecrat, and here we had one beat another.

+1. At least - Democrats nominated their best candidate here.

Woot! I signed up for his campaign tonight.

I'm not terribly optimistic about this election, but it'll definitely be interesting to see how a political novice like Quist does in this environment.  He needs a lot of outside help.

I hope Dan West has a future of some kind in MT politics, but I'm excited for Quist.

He's super young, so he's got plenty of opportunities. Even if he doesn't go statewide, I can see him as a Democratic State House/Senate leader.

So?

The NRCC is already attacking Quist (https://www.nrcc.org/2017/03/05/rob-quist-montanas-bernie-sanders/):


The bolded part is kind of funny considering that Trump said the exact same thing.

I haven't seen Curtis's video so I won't comment on it, but calling things "white-girl" is a thing that misogynists often do to disguise their misogyny as social awareness.

Losing a statewide race in a rural 85%+ white state that swung massively to Trump would and should be a lot scarier for Republicans than losing GA-06.  The latter could just be a situation where the incumbent party is on demographic borrowed time without national implications.

Honestly either of them would be scary for Republicans on their own.

lmao

Not true- Trump received 55.65%, while Romney received 55.30% in Montana.

Me too. IMHO - his chances are, at most, 20%. Even against very socially conservative Gianforte, who is the best opponent for him in not so socially conservative Montana. Still - it will be interesting.

I'd rate this as Lean R for now.

Somewhat optimistic, IMHO. Somewhere between Lean and Likely..

Rolling my eyes so hard right now.

Ah, I see -- the Wikipedia infoboxes lie once again :P

In any case, that's such an absurdly small difference between the two performances that it's likely meaningless

I disagree because if dems win here and/or Georgia that would more likely mean that "dems don't vote in midterms" is not true but rather "the power in power doesn't show up for midterms" which should scare the GOP for 2018

Serious question: what does pan sexual even mean? Is it just a fancier buzzword for bisexuality or is it honestly something different?

Pansexuals say that "bisexual" implies being attracted only to people who fit within one of the two traditionally defined sexes, but they are attracted to all people, including people who do not conform to traditional sex stereotypes. Some bisexual people will say, for example, that they are not attracted to feminine men even though they are attracted to feminine women and to masculine men, but a pansexual person by definition is attracted to feminine men as much as masculine men.

I think it is sort of silly, but you can definitely watch a bisexual person and a pansexual person have a serious argument about it.

I think there are some people who identify as bisexual but will tell you that they're really pansexual.

Hmm. I mean that sort of makes sense, but I agree it's a bit silly. Sounds to me more like picky bi people versus less picky bi people. Which is no problem - different strokes, etc, but I don't know if that warrants a completely different sexual categorization

Went to Quist's website and it is.. worryingly unprofessional. I get that is part of his charm but hopefully the party can lend him someone to clean it up now that he's the candidate.

update: Went to the site on my laptop and it is much clearer. When I made this post I was on my phone.

The key difference is that pan-sexuals are trans-inclusive. The term "pansexual" rejects the gender binary that is implied by the term "bi-sexual."

socaldem has it right.

I'm sure someone will bite my head off for saying this, but it really sounds like an inanely PC term for bisexuals that some teenage limousine liberal came up with when they were bored.

Basically. I'm not one to judge anyone's sexuality obviously, but pansexuality really doesn't sound like a thing. People are attracted to individuals. If an otherwise hetero-female has an attraction to another (purely biologically speaking) female who identifies as non-binary, isn't easier just to call that attraction a lesbian attraction?

I'm all for respecting people's natural identity, but taking all of the "none of the above" aspects of sexuality and putting them into one broad batch sounds like a terrible idea. 

I'm honestly inclined to agree. Including transpersons seems like splitting hairs, at least based on my (rather limited) understanding of both bisexuality and transgenderism. I don't think you cease being bi just because one of the people you find attractive has transitioned

What a weird turn this thread made...

Anyway,  the NRCC posted a preview of what kind of rhetoric we should expect in this race. (https://www.nrcc.org/2017/03/05/rob-quist-montanas-bernie-sanders/) About what I expected.

Congressional Leadership Fund (R) has an ad out attacking Quist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUy4ZjYLUPw

yes Republicans please keep calling him Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in the country.

How big of a deal is this?

Sounds like it's gonna be Rich Dude (R) vs. Music Dude (D)

Gianforte says he has enough commitments from voting delegates for the nomination.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article136733178.html

Ken Miller has claimed the same thing, one of them is lying

You mean Buttrey, right? Because Miller isn't going anywhere.

No, Miller. He might have connections from when he was state gop chair but I think he is more likely to be bluffing

I was kind of optimistic about Quist but then I read about his gun registry stance and lost all hope.

Well, yesterday the Democrats chose Rob Quist (somewhat famous songwriter, singer and guitarist) to be their nominee for the special election. Today the Republicans will chose their nominee at the convention, it looks like it will be Greg Gianforte (businessman and candidate for governor in 2016). The general election should be quite competitive, this is definitely a race to watch.

The special election will be held on May 25.

The Republican SuperPACs are definitely treating Quist like someone with a 30% chance, not someone with a 3% chance.  It surprises me that they would tip their hands this early.

What I've heard is that both party's polling shows this race is much more competitive than ga-6. Quist also the folksy populist who could play well here, which explains why the gop has acted quickly to reveal his ties to the far-left in the democratic party

Always told you so. The problem is that the GOP can't tie Quist to President Clinton. I'd be surprised if the election was decided by more than 5 points. Honestly, I'm really not feeling optimistic about this race - Tossup/Tilt D seems like the most appropriate rating at this point. And tying Quist to Bernie Sanders and the far left isn't going to work here, this is such a stupid strategy.

Agreed on your points about GOP problems, but calling this any more than Tilt R feels very generous to Democrats.

Sanders only won MT 52-44. It's not the south, but it's not KS or UT either.

That's not exactly a fair comparison. KS and UT were caucus states, while MT had a primary after AP declared Clinton had clinched the nomination.

TN Vol, any reason why you think Quist is favored? I don't doubt that he'll make it competitive, but it seems like Montana hasn't had a Democratic House representative in a long time.

Not to mention that every single Sanders staffer not a victim of the April 27th downsizing was in California at the time.


@MT Treasurer/TNVol - thoughts on Quist's gun control policy? Is anyone going to pay enough attention to policy positions for it to matter?

Anyone know what time voting starts for GOP convention?

First round ballots are being counted right now.

MT in your opinion is the reason you think Quist could win is Gianforte comes off as a bit phony an just wanting this seat to pad his resume for another shot at Bullock? Cause he kinda rubs me that way an I want to see if that is a general prescription

BTW, anywhere I can watch/stream this?

IMO, his problems are:

1. Technocratic software executive with CA and NJ connections running in a very rural, populist state.
2. Too socially conservative for the Mountain West.

Quist vs. Gianforte is basically a test case of what Democratic Trump vs. Republican Clinton would look like.

If you're the platonic ideal of the opposition party, so much so that a loyal opposition party member would vote for you eagerly, you're not a good candidate for your party. (Which is to say I'm glad Quist wouldn't make you jump for joy.)

And the MT GOP is nominating the worst of the bunch?

Gianforte wins on the 1st ballot.

What is your take on the race now?

@TNVOL: Saying Tester isn't a moderate is just stupid.

When did he say that in this thread?

Gianforte would be one of the richest people in Congress if elected, I believe (Still nowhere close to Issa)

::)

Anyway...

Libertarians nominated cattle rancher and writer Mark Wicks today (http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/montana/libertarians-pick-inverness-rancher-for-congressional-race/article_b2ec4e16-1a76-505d-9067-63e8de965ed4.html)

So it's Gianforte (R) vs. Quist (D) vs. Wicks (L)

FYI - I just decided to run a Google Surveys poll for this race.

I have no idea how to weight the results, though.  Weighting to the 2012 GE electorate wouldn't make much sense, since turnout will be lower.  Does anyone have any ideas?  Weight to 2014 mid-terms (if there were any in MT), perhaps?  Last I checked, the 2016 CPS voter survey results weren't available yet, so that's not an option.

Weigh it to 2014 House/Senate turnout. That's the best.

The 2014 November CPS seems to have data for Montana.  I guess that's the way I'll go.  As usual, I'll report both the weighted and unweighted numbers.

Google accepted the survey, so we're in the field right now.

Wow, thanks for doing this! Really looking forward to the results. I wouldn't underestimate Democratic turnout here, though. Generally, the difference between the composition of a midterm and presidential year electorate isn't that significant in Montana, but still...

None of my weighting will be by party.  It will only be by sex and age.  As you may remember, my Google Survey polls are one-question affairs with no screening questions.  The question asked this time is:

"Montanans will go to the polls on May 25 to vote for a new U.S. Congressman. If this special election were held today, for whom would you vote?"

The choices are (in random order, except the last option):
"-Democrat Rob Quist
-Republican Greg Gianforte
-Libertarian Mark Wicks
-I am not likely to vote in this election"

I'm going to have to recreate how I created the 2012 weights to do them for 2014 - that's a bit of a project for the next few days.  Hopefully, I'll figure it out before the poll ends.  I don't remember exactly what I did the last time.  But we're going to need the 2014 weights for the 2018 midterms, anyway.  Now is as good a time to start that as any.

^Do they allow two questions? I'm interested in a hypothetical Tester vs. Fox Senate matchup, but that should probably wait until after May 25.

Yes, Google Surveys allows 2-10 questions, but the cost is 10x as much as asking 1 question. 

There was a coupon offer for people conducting their first poll ($50 off your first poll), at least as of a few weeks ago.  I'm not sure if the offer is still ongoing.

How much does it cost to put a 1 question poll out in the field?

For a state poll, $0.15 per respondent, so $75 for my 500-respondent poll.  Past practice shows that a good number of people will choose the "I'm not likely to vote option" (however worded), so I'll probably end up with 300-400 decided voters to weight.

On the topic of turnout, doesn't the outcome of the mail-in ballot scandal affect that partially. If they do choose to use them that might give Democrats a better turnout edge.

I'm weighting the results to 2014 Montana actual voters and 2014 Montana registered voters, as reported by the November 2014 Census Population Survey.  So far, there isn't much of difference between using either metric - about two points in the most recent data dump.  167 of the expected 500+ respondents have responded so far.  105 of them didn't choose the "I'm not likely to vote" option.  The overall results so far are... interesting.

Completely random guess: Wicks the Libertarian is doing unusually well and Quist is leading.

I wouldn't be surprised. It doesn't seem like Montanans particularly like Gianforte. Running in two back to back elections just seems desperate. The public lands issue might have even caused a major backlash there against Republicans.

What would be the county map for a 3-point Quist win? Where would he over and underperform the generic winning D in the state?

I would imagine it would be almost identical to Bullock's victory map.

My Google Surveys poll is about half done (274/500).  Without spoiling the results, which still can change, there are some trends:

-Right now, "I am not likely to vote in this election" is "winning".  Out of the 274 respondents polled so far, only 176 chose a candidate.  Hopefully, we'll get up to 300 usable respondents by the final tally.
-There is a definite regional divide between Western Montana and Eastern Montana, which is not terribly surprising, though the magnitude of the divide may be.
-Some people are going to be very, very happy with the results, if they hold.  Others, not so much.

Google Surveys hasn't broken down my results by imputed rural/suburban/urban status or imputed income yet, which is disappointing.  They've only given me sex, age and town location data to break down.

cinyc, how would you grade Google Surveys for the presidential election?  It was fairly off generally, if memory serves.

I'd give the one-question Google Surveys polls that Atlas Users conducted a D+.

A lot were wrong, but most were taken a week or more before the election.  IIRC, the TN poll was right on, and my last-minute NM poll wasn't terrible, when properly weighted.  But we had a lot of stinkers.  Perhaps this is because the one-question methodology just doesn't work.

RRH partially used a one-question Google Survey poll when it polled the VT Governor's race (in order to reach more 18-45s) - and their overall poll ended up okay.  I'm not sure how well Google's in-house, poorly weighted, multi-question, multi-state polls performed.  They were all over the place, but some had very small sample sizes and you'd expect that.

Google Surveys uses different methods to reach users.  They tell you the type of website (News, Reference, etc.) or mobile app used to reach each respondent.  Unfortunately, the different methodologies often lead to different results, and it's not clear that, for example, respondents reading News websites are a better reflection of the electorate than those using Google's mobile app.  I'm not sure that there is a rhyme or reason to which method Google uses more of to reach users except that they can - and I don't know whether any type should be given more weight.  Probably not.

I think Tester is in the best position of the 5 Romney state Dems up in 2018.  It's a close call with Manchin, but WV is just so far gone now.  If Tester doesn't win, none of them do IMO.  Sherrod Brown might even be more likely to lose, as he seems eerily similar to Feingold's position in 2010.

Tester already has a significant advantage.

Yeah, if Tester goes down, this is a 2002 style minor R wave.

Brown's position isn't even remotely close to Feingold's; the Ohio Senate race (assuming Mandel is the Republican nominee) starts off lean D and could conceivably enter solid likely D territory by Election Day.

Every election carries forward forever. At least Gianforte losing won't spawn 100,000 thinkpieces on how the Republican Party needs to change every single thing about themselves if they want to ever win again.

The way Feingold was viewed in 2009 was "Well maybe he could be beaten, but not with this crop of candidates". Then he lost the next year. People saying Brown is okay because Mandel does seem similar.

^ It doesn't mean Tester is safe, but it's going to be hard to find a good attack line against the guy. He's pro-coal and pro-gun.

For the record, there's a solid case that Brown is okay because Brown. He's a solid fundraiser, a pretty good tactician (or at least knows to hire good campaign managers), and a good fit for his state going into a D favored year. Plus, as a "less" vulnerable incumbent, I'd imagine a lot of money is going to go towards taking down Donnelly and McCaskill, as opposed to the tidal wave of GOP money that came down on OH in 2016.

Add in Mandel, and that just adds to the case that Brown might be okay.  

Brown would've beaten Tiberi and Stivers too, it'd just be closer.  Brown's also a very strong incumbent and far more skilled politician than Feingold.  And then there's the fact that Feingold was running in a huge Republican wave year.

I'm gonna guess a very slight Quist lead if there's a really sharp regional divide and western Montana is coming through for him.

Not to mention not to mention Hillary had people on the ground there and won the same-day primary of a neighboring state (SD).

I think that there's probably a 45% floor for both candidates when a representative sample of the state shows up to the polls. I think it's an open question whether that will happen or not.

I was suggesting more that it could swing either way a bit more dramatically, not just towards the GOP.

In fact, given that Gianforte was already a loser in the past 6 months, and appears to not have learned a lesson about negative campaigning with lots of out of state money, I could easily imagine dissatisfied or unmotivated GOP voters staying home.

My Google Survey Poll (https://surveys.google.com/reporting/survey?survey=rk5lck4rpysnab4pcv7wdqa6n4) is complete.  It is either the canary in the coal mine or a huge outlier.

The question:
"Montanans will go to the polls on May 25 to vote for a new U.S. Congressman. If this special election were held today, for whom would you vote?"

The choices were (in random order, except the last option):
"-Democrat Rob Quist
-Republican Greg Gianforte
-Libertarian Mark Wicks
-I am not likely to vote in this election"

502 people were polled.  173 of those 502 chose the "I am not likely to vote in this election" option - 2 fewer than those who chose Democrat Quist.  When weighted for age and sex to 2014 CPS LV weights (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yQEGtHjrBcNshlVvy-FWKNRs0RKKuf3AJVSX9Fmcdj0/edit?usp=sharing), the 329 decided likely voters chose Quist by a large margin:

Quist (D) 55%
Gianforte (R) 38%
Wicks (L) 6%
i.e. Quist +17

Unweighted, it's Quist +14 (53/39/8).  Google weighted to the Internet audience is Quist +15 (54/39/8).  The poll was taken from 3/11-14 Mountain Time.

As I hinted, there is a huge regional divide in the results.  Quist has a 33-point 2014 LV weighted lead in Western Montana (which usually comprises about 59% of the vote in a typical election) (64/31/5; N=209).  Gianforte leads by 9 in Eastern Montana (50/41/9; N=116).  Unweighted, it's Quist +29 in Western Montana, and Gianforte +10 in Eastern Montana.

I divided Eastern and Western Montana this way:
()
It is based on Montana's Area Health Education Regions (http://healthinfo.montana.edu/images/AHEC%20Regions%20Map%202014_press.jpg).

There's not much of a gender gap, at least in the unweighted numbers (women: Quist+16; men Quist +12).  There is a bit of an age gap, with the 18-24 (+18), 25-34 (+34), 55-64 (+34) and 65+ (+15) sets going for Quist, the 35-44 (-9) set going for Gianforte, and the 45-54 set tied, but sample sizes are small.

Google gave me a rural/suburban/urban and imputed income breakdown in their final e-mailed spreadsheet.  I didn't weight them.  Gianforte runs better in rural areas (Quist+4) than suburban areas (Quist+22).  The few urban voters actually broke for Gianforte, but the sample size is really small (N=7).  There's nothing notable about the income numbers except that the overwhelming majority of Montanans polled were $25,000-$49,999 bracket.

:o

I want to get excited but I remember that this is the same polling method that gave Hillary large leads in Kansas. Grain of salt, but this is definitely a race to watch.

The real question might be whether Gianforte is that well-known and hated statewide.  Quist could be performing as a generic Democrat against a despised Republican.


Definitely take this with a grain of salt.  As I said above, our one-question Google Surveys polls didn't do so well in the 2016 general election.

What the f**k.

I'm sorry, but that's just unbelievable. If Quist won by anywhere close to that margin, the GOP is staring into the abyss if things don't improve.

I think Quist winning big would be a result of the combination of Montana oddities (people love Quist, hate Gianforte, etc.) and national discontent with the Republicans.

Thanks for doing this cinyc, even though in all likelihood, that's a huge outlier.

I could buy the idea that Gianforte is the Montana GOP's Martha Coakley though. Running twice within 6 months probably leaves a bad taste in voter's mouths.

Hopefully a legit pollster comes through sometime soon.

Quist is probably up, but not by that much. If this poll turns out to be accurate, then the Republicans are doing something wrong. I would expect that his ceiling for this particular election to be Quist+10, barring Gianforte pulling an Akin. As an incumbent going into 2018, I could see a +17 type margin, though.

Quist's lead in the survey was always double digits once more than 10 respondents were polled.  His smallest lead in the raw data was about 10.5 points.  It bounced around between 10-15 points most of the time.

Methodology issues are more likely to be an issue than sample size, in my view.

Seconded. Thanks for doing this, and I think Quist is narrowly favored

If Quist wins by a lot, this will probably happen on Atlas for a few days, maybe a week or two tops. Because we wont have real 2018 data, it'll be easy to extrapolate from this. But it'll die down soon.

That same meme will probably get a few days of news cycle too.

Tester will be pretty secure should Quist win big league, though. That's unlikely, but still.

The regional divide is so large as to be unbelievable.  In the 2008 presidential election, the difference between the West and East was about 10 points.  In the 2012 presidential election, it was 12.  A 36 (raw) or 44 (weighted) point difference is way too large.  Small sample sizes leading to large MoEs, terrible Google Surveys methodology or whatever.

hory shet

Well, thanks for compiling all of this, cinyc - and ordering the poll, of course.  Hopefully you didn't piss away $75. :P

Wow. I highly doubt Quist will win by that much, but he is probably ahead at the moment.

The dem isn't going to win lol

What was the sample size of Western vs. Eastern Montana in your poll?

209/116. 

The West/East divide persisted from the start.  And it always was that stark or very close to it.

I would say this poll shows just that Quist does indeed have a realistic chance of winning this.

I'll definitely keep a close eye on this race. I'll get too complacent like last year and Ross, Feinstein, Kander (the result was not very surprising though), and Bayh all ended up getting beaten.

So are a good number of Montanans getting fed up with the "establishment or the usual" or could it be something else?

BTW, thanks ciync.

Here is an interesting thought.  If Quist wins and holds the seat until redistricting, he may thereafter have an easier time keeping his seat, since Montana is expected to gain a congressional district.  Assuming the states districts are drawn so that one takes up the west half of the state, and another takes up the east half, he would be competing for a seat that I think would be either a tossup or Democrat leaning, since Quist is from the western half of the state. 

Good point made.

That would probably require a Democratic governor to get elected in 2020, because in the hypothetical scenario of Montana getting a second district, a Republican could just force him out East and draw a new Western district. I'm skeptical of a Democrat keeping the mansion for 20 straight years, and assuming Bullock challenges Daines and Quist is still in office, that'd be asking to send 2 Democrats to Washington and 1 to Helena. That's a tough sell to a state that voted for Trump by 20%.

Congressmen don't technically need to live in the district they represent, just the state.  And he could always move into the new district, anyway. 

I suppose that a Republican could gerrymander two clear Republican-leaning districts, though.  But the power of incumbency is sometimes stronger than district lines, anyway.

Montana actually has an independent redistricting commission by constitutional amendment, so a clean east-west split is basically assured if the state ever gets MT-02 back.  I think an all western MT-02 would reliably go for someone like Quist and be competitive between the parties in general.

I'll believe Quist winning by double digits when I see it, but Democrats definitely made the right choice picking him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that while Democrats have had a lot of success in Montana, their victories are often pluralities or very slim majorities. I have to wonder if Wicks is going to end up being somewhat of a spoiler, and if Quist will win with 47-49% of the vote...

FWIW, since it's been questioned in the thread, Quist really DOES appear to be very well known in MT. Apparently he played this thing that became known as MT's Woodstock in 1974? There was apparently a LOT of beer.

This comes from reading local press + asking around with some relatives from Butte.

Fox is going to run. There is no way that he's not a favorite for this election.

Unless the RSCC successfully convinces him to go for Senate...

Buttrey would be better. Fox getting the Senate seat requires him to resign as AG, and then Bullock appoints a Democrat, creating a new rising star in the Montana Democratic Party.

Oh that would be so devastating, by 0.3%, especially if the LP candidate got 3% or more (that's happened many times).
I am frightened by the prospect of Bullock appointing a young, progressive AG who wins the Governorship in 2020 and 2024, then wins a Senate seat in 2026 or 2030 and becomes a lifer.

Treasurer in your opinion if Bullock ran for the nom in 2020 an won it vs a  unpopular Trump that MT going for Bullock due to some state pride/him being a liked governor?

I thought I would poll Montana for this race as well to see if these results could be recreated, and what I ended up with was very interesting. All of the information on analyzing raw data came from cinyc, who was a huge help in making all of this. Links to the Google Survey and cinyc's spreadsheet with all the information are at the bottom.

"Montanans will go to the polls on May 25 to vote for a new U.S. Congressman. If this special election were held today, who would you vote for?"

Rob Quist (Democratic Party)
Greg Gianforte (Republican Party)
Mark Wicks (Libertarian Party)
I will not be voting in this election

334 people were polled, with 104 of the 334 selecting "I will not be voting in this election". Following the same weights as in the previous poll posted, the weighted results were: TIE

Rob Quist (DemocraticParty) - 47%
Greg Gianforte (Republican Party) - 47%
Mark Wicks (Libertarian Party) - 6%

Unweighted, it was also tied 47-47-7 (rounding errors led to a sum of greater than 100%). Quist actually led in raw numbers by exactly one single vote (107-108). Gianforte led for most of the duration of the poll, with the results becoming narrower at the end. The poll ran from 3/14-16 Mountain Time.

East (Weighted; N=85): Gianforte +20 (Unweighted: Gianforte +18)
Gianforte 58%
Quist 38%
Wicks 4%

West (Weighted; N=141): Quist +16 (Unweighted: Quist +11)
Quist 55%   
Gianforte 39%   
Wicks 6%

https://surveys.google.com/reporting/survey?survey=73vzmhbs6xqze7qc4a6qifsigq

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XUxjxg70OhTrVtm6K2HulJHaRDVbuD_VN_gPUxrNIUc/edit?usp=sharing

The spreadsheet at the link is to the full spreadsheet I usually use to sift through the raw data for the nuggets like age, sex, time, date, urban/suburban/rural status, income, response type and geographical region.

There were some other trends compared to my poll:

The 55-65s and 65+s in this poll went to Gianforte, unlike in my poll, where the 55-65s were one of Quist's best groups.

The suburban/rural divide persists, with Quist winning suburbanites by 10 and Gianforte leading among rural residents by 15 (both, unweighted).  Again, there were too few urbanites for any meaningful analysis.

The poll again shows that most Montanans are solidly middle class, in the $25K-$50K range.  Higher incomes tended to be more Gianforte, but there are far too few respondents to be sure.

I also break things down by time on the spreadsheet.  As Castro said, Gianforte had a large lead in the beginning, which dwindled at the end.

This poll makes more intuitive sense than mine, even with the lower sample size.

Very interesting. I obviously think Castro's poll is going to be closer to the actual results, not that Google can tell you much.

Donald fing Trump is president so I don't see why Bullock couldn't

I'm sure there's a reason for this that I've missed, but why wouldn't Schweitzer run for Senate? Sure, he will have been out of office for six years at that point, but one doesn't just waste a politician who got 65% of the vote last time they stood for election...

Presumably the same reason he didn't run in 2014?

I always thought that was because he was eyeing the Presidency in 2016 (before he got caught up in the Eric Cantor 'gaydar' comment etc. etc.) and didn't want to announce for another office six-to-eight months after his election.

Surely he's not running for President in 2020...?

EDIT: Upon further research looks like there was some campaign finance kerfuffle that was about to blow up.

At this point, provided he isn't continuing to engage in shady practices, can't he just say "no one came forward with anything," and move on?

In other news, Gianforte gave 1.1 million to a Billings affordable housing project in Dec. 2016. (http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/gianforte-family-foundation-gives-m-to-south-side-affordable-housing/article_327265c0-ece7-5bb9-b178-c4839d9172ad.html?utm_content=buffer0fa80&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=LEEDCC+)

In case anyone's keeping score, that timeline means that he did it basically as soon as he knew Zinke was being appointed Interior Secretary.

In other other news, 800k in TV ads have already been spent on the race. (http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/more-than-k-already-spent-on-montana-s-special-election/article_94a30192-6a58-523d-8068-23ab24a4d2cc.html?utm_content=buffer71de1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=LEEDCC+)

All of them on the GOP side.

God dammit Perez

That would actually be the DCCC's decision rather than Perez's, but thanks for playing :)

God dammit Luján then. I hope Democrats get in this.

Figures. D's probably won't spend a cent there until GA-06 is over.

Ideally they'd be reserving the ad space now though, while it's cheaper. Do we know how much they're spending on the GA 6?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Lujan, but the alternative (Sean Patrick Baloney) would've been infinitely worse, if you can believe it :(

Like, he even has the benefit of incumbency. I assume there's no major staff turnover at DCCC, they knew they weren't going to be challenged as of December (before Zinke got picked) so it's not like they were holding their collective breath waiting to get replaced...

I'm guessing that this quote is probably pretty representative of their attitude. Which is deeply disappointing, to say the least. (http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/special-elections-are-only-limited-barometer-of-trump-and-2018)

"None of the five contests pose a threat to the Republicans’ majority in the House. Four of the five seats have been under GOP control, and save for Georgia and to a lesser extent, Montana, they’re all but guaranteed to remain red districts in 2017 and beyond.

“It’s not like we lost these districts by 5 points last time,” one Democratic strategist said of Georgia’s 6th District and Montana’s at-large House seat."

Goddamn this party how can a group that made Obama president be so out of touch with the ground noise

To be fair, I'd be shocked if they don't jump in here by mid-to-late April/early May.  At least Quist seems to be winning so far.

To be honest, campaigning doesn't matter a lot. If they jump later, it wouldn't be catastrophic at all

We'll see but nothing they do as a party right now inspires confidence

http://isps.yale.edu/node/16698 (http://isps.yale.edu/node/16698)

http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mfranz/final_published_FranzRidout.pdf (http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mfranz/final_published_FranzRidout.pdf)

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dhX9TgUdsQ)

All due respect, but you're objectively wrong about this (especially when we're talking about a state like Montana). 

I mean Windjammer is wrong about this either way; in small states candidate campaigning and field is crucial, in big states ad buys are basically the only way to reach semi-apathetic voters that swing elections.

Well, I maintain my words. The results of this election will be driven by the political climate at national elvel. He won't win or lose by spending 20 millions or 2 millions.

Please look at the links I posted. All due respect but you're just wrong.

So I see this thread is going well... Anyway, campaign mailings and internet ads on the Quist side aren't being reported, so it's not as if he's spending nothing. I'm highly skeptical that money will make a big difference in this race anyway.

That's definitely true. In fact, _(not)Gov. Gianforte can tell you that money isn't everything.

TNVol: You're obviously on the other side of the aisle, but do you have any idea what Quist's campaign infrastructure looks like? I'm not sure I trust a 70yo first time politician to be a champion organizer, but the party could have put him in good hands.

I don't know much about it, but he's holding many campaign rallies and obviously has a sizable number of volunteers. The MDP is 100% united behind Quist, so that's not an issue. I'd be really surprised if the DCCC didn't get in here soon as well.

I think you severely underestimate the stupidity of our national party. There were multiple Texas districts that Hillary won where we didn't even field a candidate. If there's anything I have faith in it's they're ability to completely screw up our congressional power.

But Montana is rural so we can never win despite the fact we have the perfect match-up no GA-6 needs all our resources because district trending an suburban an stuff like that 

Only one Texas district.

IIRC, he had 100 volunteers for the day of his launch?

I mean the TX-32 should've also had a candidate. It's a majority minority district and we let the Republicans have it for free. Even Green party got 10% of the vote there. It's utterly embarassing.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with investing in GA-6; we should be competing in both districts.  That said, I obviously agree that it is ridiculous to ignore a seat like the open one in MT.  Fortunately, I expect the Democrats to jump in there soon enough, but a strong DCCC would've already had this on their radar.  That said, I can't stress enough how much worse it would've been with Sean Patrick Baloney as chair instead of Lujan.  The former has argued that you can use data metrics to successfully predict how every house seat will vote without fail months before the election and that the DCCC should be more reliant on a #Data is King strategy.  Maloney is a good fit for his district and I don't really mind him or anything, but he'd have been an absolute disaster as DCCC chairman.  

Rahm Emanuel may've been an awful, third-way corporatist with no understanding of why a 50 state strategy is so vital, but the man was also a pretty dam* competent DCCC chair (much as I hate to admit it) who understood that data metrics weren't the only factor that should be considered when deciding where to compete.  I'd have preferred to see Lujan replaced with someone who excelled in the two areas where Emanuel made his greatest contribution to Democratic efforts to take back the House in 2006: candidate recruitment and being ruthlessly aggressive about seizing every opportunity to expand the playing field.  Overall, House Democrats have had absolutely awful candidate recruitment.  It is embarrassing that Jay Sidie (KS-3), LuAnn Bennett (VA-10 where a strong candidate clearly would've won in 2016), Mike Parrish (PA-6), Shaun Brown (VA-2), Michael Wager (OH-14), Michael Eggman (CA-10 where once again, a solid recruit clearly would've won in 2016), Emilio Huerta (CA-21), Scott Fuhrman (FL-27), Joe Garcia (FL-26 although Annette Taddeo wasn't a strong candidate either), etc, etc, etc were the folks we ended up nominating in their respective districts.  

And then you have folks who were either obviously a terrible fit for their districts (ex: Emily Cain) or blew winnable races by running horrible campaigns (ex: Monica Vernon).  The DCCC has also constantly knee-capped their efforts to retake the house by ignoring opportunities to compete in Republican leaning districts and even moderate/Democratic-leaning seats with popular/entrenched incumbents.  Democrats won't win back the House unless they can put a massive number of seats on the board.  Recruiting top-tier candidates such a small number of districts that the Democrats need to essentially run the board to have a shot at a narrow majority is a surefire way to keep the House in Republican hands.

Data can be extremely useful in a whole host of ways, but it isn't the only important thing to look at when deciding where to compete either, especially when there are the potential conditions for a wave election.   One would've hoped the DCCC would have learned this after 2016 (or better still not needed to be taught this lesson in the first place).  That said, the fact that Perez and Ellison (admittedly DNC leaders rather than DCCC folks) seem to be pretty open to a return to a 50 state strategy is cause for cautious optimism and I'm going to reserve judgment for now as I suspect national Democrats are going to get involved here sooner rather than later.

That all being said, I can understand districts like TX-32 not having a candidate in 2016.  There was literally no reason to think Sessions could even theoretically be vulnerable.  It's a very conservative *and* partisan district that probably had PVI of at least R +10 and a weak-to-nonexistent Democratic bench at best.  Furthermore, it has a strong incumbent in House leadership who won his closest election by double-digits and isn't wildly to the right of most of folks in the district who actually vote.  It's a majority-minority district on paper, but that's about it.  I'm still not convinced we can win here even if it were an open seat in a huge Democratic wave, but I do think we should at least try to run wave insurance candidates here (or at least the closest thing we have :P ) for the next two cycles and see what happens. 

It's also important to remember that in many ways, it's still far from clear whether or not 2016 was a massive fluke or a true re-aligning election.  Honestly, we may not even know until the 2020 election cycle is over, but we certainly don't know right now.  The thing about realigning elections though (if that's what 2016 even was) is that they tend to be pretty hard to predict.

I don't disagree with any of your points, in fact I agree that the "data is king" approach was pretty discredited last year and we can't write off anything, but it still kind of stings every time my congressman gets dragged through the mud :P

If Lujan is still a bit of a downer though, who do you think would have been the best possible DCCC chair?

I agree completely. Plus, running retreads doesn't often work; Doug Owens in UT-04 can tell you that.

Whatever happened to the 50-state strategy? I don't care if they're "unwinnable", you should be putting time into every single race, even ones that you know you're not going to win. And MT-AL and GA-6 are both winnable.

Shocker, Democratic "Strategists" don't want money going out of their pockets to competitive elections. This may explain why MILLIONS were given to strategists, while the NH State Party, which included competitive Presidential, Senatorial, Congressional, Gubernatorial, AND state legislative elections, were given only $75,000.

Thankfully, actual leadership under Perez will help end the cronyism of the Democratic Party (not sarcastic or ironic).

Honestly I think Quist could pull this off without outside help. What'll make a difference is turnout.

Still, I think Gianforte is favored at this point, unless the race changes.

This, so much.

Also, Gianforte has launched his second ad. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjwwrsLwul0)

It's my impression that Gianforte spent a ton in the 2016 MT-GOV race, so won't his ads be much less effective because Montana has seen so much of him so recently?

So much so that it appears that he was only briefly off the air (if at all) before announcing for the House seat.

People never learn their lessons about saturation, it seems.


I agree, and I think that to a certain extent it's beneficial to keep the race between a New Jersey-ite tech billionaire and the front man of the Mission Mountain Wood Band from being nationalized.

But it's also so dispiriting to see a winnable race get ignored by the DCCC (so far) because it doesn't fit their idea of a 'winnable race' (aka, in the moderate suburbs outside a major metro).

Has a date for the election been set?

May 25.

I decided to run a GCS for this race as well and I got results in between Castro's and Cinyc's. They were,

Rob Quist - 48.4%
Greg Gianforte - 40.5%
Mark Wicks - 11.1%

I left out an "I won't be voting" option to maximize the amount of responses, so take this with an (extra) grain of salt. Here is the link to the actual survey. (https://surveys.google.com/reporting/survey?org=personal&survey=4efgc36mb5zoiex4h3f3zpn5ni)

Fascinating.  Thank you, anthony!

Man, I'm tempted to donate a few bucks to Quist.  The investment might well be worth it.

EDIT: Put my money where my mouth was.  Let's hope it pays off!

Yeah, I actually have a weird amount of emotional investment in the race.

Fairly boilerplate positions, I'm not sure why he emphasized protectionism at the end. Is that a major issue in Montana?

It's definitely heartening that all three polls so far show Quist in the lead.

I want Quist to win not only because he could be a great populist, but because I wanna see Gianforte get his young-Earth Creationist ass kicked to the curb.

Thanks.

Simple weighted to the 2014 November CPS actual voter percentages by age and sex, it's also Quist +8, 49/41/9.  I don't heart decimals.

The regional divide is there, but not as strong as in other polls.  Quist wins Western Montana by 14 (weighted), and loses Eastern Montana by 6 (weighted).  Western Montana was overrepresented in this poll, making up 78% of respondents versus the 59 or 60% they usually are.  The other two polls also overpolled Western Montana, but not by nearly this much.  If you re-weight the weighted regional results, you get Quist+6 statewide.

Agewise, Quist won every group except 35-44s and age unknowns.  Among men, the race is tied.  Quist has a 23 point lead among women.  Note: these results are unweighted.

Weighting spreadsheet here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VerbnL3vL6Tn2vQwFvJ57fxZ-t4aXiE8n4Nae-ssMr0/edit?usp=sharing).

He's a young earth creationist? Man screw this guy.

Our Revolution endorses Rob Quist (& James Thompson) for Congress. Loads of money coming from Bernie's email list.

MT-AL is a winnable seat with a good candidate who can hold a possibly red seat for many number of years. Dems should go all out for this & GA. I remember when Dems kept delaying & cancelling ad buys for Feingold when they though he was too strong/wouldn't need (& spend Millions in Florida wasted on a poor Murphy in an expensive market where Rubio was leading consistently & comfortably). This was while Hillary didn't do a single rally for Russ & Russ was getting slaughtered in TV ads from the Koch Brothers, NRA & other groups.

What is the use of raising 1.4B $ if you can't use it properly. And money is needed not just for ads but for a good ground team. Ray Buckley, NH Chair said if 10% of Hillary's TV money in attack ads were given to party chairs for door to door canvassing, volunteer teams etc - They would do much better !

This is the saddest, most frustrating, most infuriating thing on this forum. I miss Russ Feingold so much

Russ was the man. It's so sad he failed. The man behind one of the better campaign finance reform acts defeated by Ron ing Johnson.

If the DSCC put some money into his race instead of Florida or NC then he'd probably have won, and we'd be in that much better a position. I'm worried we might not have a Senator as great as him for a while, and because of the DSCC's stupidity his name is now too toxic for a Gubernatorial run

It's like they don't live in the real world. You would've hoped that the Trump presidency would be a wake up call for these people but I'm convinced most of them are too politically inept to do anything about it.

To be blunt the only thing keeping me a Democrat is my unhealthy optimism. I believe the party can do better than this, even if we're not seeing it right now.

Even if they did learn their lesson now tho it would be too late for Russ :(

Nah, he lost again to Johnson, he can go suck it.

Feingold actually won many rural counties which Hilary lost & surprisingly didn't have the same numbers as Hillary had in some urban counties (that's what I read - Not Sure !). Hillary didn't do 1 rally for him to unite her base for her. Wisconsin has a massive GOP infra build by Walker, Ryan & the Kochs.

Feingold lead throughout the race comfortably & that loss was a shocker. It is fair to blame him too, (he did loose twice to Johnson) maybe he didn't run a good campaign, couldn't connect emotionally with local issues.

Dems lost WI for the 1st time in 30 odd years & with any other Dem candidate & Feingold would probably be in the Senate. He was a fantastic Senator & McCain-Feingold was a great achievement.

He lost by a larger margin than her, it was his fault, not hers.  He might have been dragged across the line by others, but by less than 10000 votes.

Is there an official explanation for why the people who voted to drain the swamp and stop free trade also largely voted to elect a pro-trade swamp creature back to office over someone who opposed free trade and never missed a senate vote in his entire career?  The results of that race really confused me. 

It's because the DSCC never gave Feingold the resources he needed to define himself, so a ton of outside money for Johnson defined the terms of the race. Couple that with the perfect storm of Trump winning there, and there we go.

The only reason Hillary outperformed Russ Feingold had to do with Trump's coattails in the traditionally Democratic regions in Wisconsin, versus Hillary's strength in traditionally republican suburbs. Trump had coattails in parts of the state that Feingold needed to win. Hillary performed much much worse in the traditionally Democratic parts of the region to Feingold but her Suburbanite strategy let her make up some of that gap. The problem with that strategy is it totally screwed down ballot candidates, as most of those voters were still gonna vote for their republican Senator. Hillary knew this when she engaged in this strategy, her hubris was massive.

 Hillary Republicans that didn't want the crude Trump in office had no reason not to vote for the same GOP drones they always did through the Obama; and the large burst of relatively low-info Trump voters that showed up had no reason to vote for any Democrat, due to the lack of targeting by the national campaign. It would be silly to cast Russ as blameless, but he was screwed over by a national environment that cast Democrats against the schtick that he had historically relied on.

Somehow a Quist v. Gianforte thread has turned into a Feingold discussion for some reason?

You're mad about the money they wasted in FL and NC? What about all the money Schumer pissed away on his own Safe D race in New York?

Anyway, on topic, Republicans could probably dig up some serious dirt on Amanda Curtis. Dems would be smart to look elsewhere. She has some past ties to a communist revolutionary group that weren't really discussed during her 2014 Senate run due to her massive polling deficit against Steve Daines.

??? Quist is the nom not Curtis

There's also the over a  million dollars the DSCC spent in the Pennsylvania primary against the only 3 star vet ever in congress and then lost the general election with their candidate.

This is not a Pennsylvania thread.

That being said, Sestak was pretty much a trainwreck in his 2016 campaign and McGinty did much better than I expected her to (running even with Clinton and doing much better in rural PA). Sestak would've 100% done worse.

Quist has received the Our Revolution endorsement.

Why are we talking about Joe Sestak, Katie McGinty, and Russ Feingold -- neither of whom have run for office in Montana?

That being said, I think Quist can win given the right resources -- hell, we can take 435 seats if they're all given the right resources. Problem is that D-Trip sucks at right resources.

Why are we talking about Joe Sestak, Katie McGinty, and Russ Feingold -- neither of whom have run for office in Montana?

That being said, I think Quist can win given the right resources -- hell, we can take 435 seats if they're all given the right resources. Problem is that D-Trip sucks at right resources.

Also the IWW isn't communist.

This is absolutely not true. Literally no one likes McGinty. She was pushed by the state party upon us as the obvious worst of three candidates. Anyone would have done better.

It looks like MT Republicans are currently trying to replay their 2010 card and tie Quist with Nancy Pelosi.

I don't think it will, especially with Quist. Since he's allied with the Bernie wing of the party, it'd be hard to make the claim that he's some establishment favorite, especially when he's running against the slimy Gianforte.

In many ways, this special is do or die for the Bernie wing of the Democrats.  This is just about the ideal candidate and the ideal audience if there is any remaining chance to revive the rural left.

Agreed. Montana is the last of the four rural Rocky Mountain states (ID, MT, UT, WY) that the Democrats have any shot at. And that shot is slowly disappearing. It's now or never.

None of those states are majority rural. Utah is 90.6% urban.

The census bureau definitions include counties that are ridiculously far from the city center in the MSA for rural/urban purposes.  Charlottesville, VA is in the Washington, DC MSA for example.  Utah is almost as dominated by one major urban center as Nevada is, but the other 3 states on that list are clearly considered rural in American culture.

No, the Census Bureau doesn't use MSAs to decide what's urban and what's rural.

Of course you also forgot the Democratic bases of Silver Bow and Deer Lodge Counties, Trump and Fox almost flipped them, but Gianforte got destroyed in both. If they go from being 70% D to 50-50, that hurts Democrats and helps Republicans going forward.

Story being reported in the Billings Gazette and the Missoulian about Quist's financial situation (http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/quist-has--year-debt-trail-records-show/article_a660f016-9229-5e3c-9114-f831a0ba012f.html)

Unclear how this will play out, since Quist seems fairly unapologetic and up front about having money struggles.

If Trump repeatedly refusing to pay his contractors wasn't an issue last year, I can't see attacks based in part on someone's medical debt resonating.  If anything, it would reinforce the Romney-like stereotype Gianforte needs to get away from.  If there is eventually financial fraud at the bottom of this, that would be a different story, but for the time being this could easily backfire.

Montana is the only state where Dems have a chance, maybe Wyoming but only in gubernatorial elections, but that's a stretch.

This is the kind of story that clueless upper middle class beltway hack consultants often think is a gotcha, but which often backfires because it humanizes a candidate to voters who are facing similar struggles. If Quist loses, it won't be because of this.

Both this and the most recent attack on Gianforte by the MDP (http://mtpr.org/post/accusations-financial-chicanery-fly-us-house-race) are non-stories. Nothing to see here.

Btw: Who is Wulfric endorsing in this race? I imagine both candidates aren't moderate enough for him?

Quist likes Bernie right? Because if that's the case, Wulfric would consider him a Socialist and probably wouldn't endorse him.

I'm not making an endorsement.

Gianforte raises $1.5 million, Quist $750K for US Congress; Independent Group pledging $700,000 to boost the Gianforte campaign (http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/montana/gianforte-raises-million-quist-k-for-us-congress/article_b4b3bab3-8707-5ba2-81a5-5814ee59990c.html)

Don't read too much into these numbers, though.


That might help them a little, but it is cancelled out by Gallatin County trending Democratic. It has little impact overall.

If anything it could help Quist as it makes him a populist underdog

Gianforte *has* to have saturated the airwaves at this point, right?

Like, everyone who is realistically going to vote in this election has now been hearing about GG in every communications medium for a calendar year.

At this point it's probably more likely to hurt than help him. I know I get sick of seeing campaign ads everywhere I go. I got PTSD when we were getting the damn Scott Brown for NH ads here in MA.

That's not a long-term trend and there's no reason to believe that it will "help Republicans going forward"...

750k for someone like Quist isn't a bad haul at all. He'll obviously be outspent by a lot though.

Isn't that a fairly large amount for a congressional race?

Hopefully the Our-revolution endorsement will bring in a quite a lot of funds. And anyways there will be enough money to compete, that won't be a major problem.

GA-06 is in a pricy urban media market. But Ossoff has also raised way more than needed. $750k is plenty for Quist. Wouldn't hurt to have more but also wouldn't do much to help.

No surprise, but the mail-in ballot bill is dead (http://mtpr.org/post/montana-mail-voting-bill-dead-after-failed-blast-motion)

It's telling that Republicans are willing to waste taxpayer dollars just to ensure that fewer people go to the polls.  The country needs to be clear-eyed about the Republican Party's increasing authoritarianism.

I don't think this was on as much of a party line vote as you think.  The motion to pass quickly was made by a Republican, and a Democrat representing Native Americans was against the bill because she thought mail-in voting only would discriminate against Native Americans.  And I don't think mail-in voting is totally eliminated without the bill.  It just requires that polling places be opened up, too:

Well it was a local Republican Party official who sent a letter to everyone saying they shouldn't approve the bill because it might hurt their chances.


That probably just means the current absentee rules. It's not the same as if everyone got a ballot.

A Republican motioned to get the bill to the floor quickly, and supported it.  A Democrat representing an Indian Reservation opposed it.  And the bill passed the Republican-dominated Montana Senate by a wide margin (https://www.usnews.com/news/montana/articles/2017-02-24/montana-senate-endorses-bill-to-allow-mail-in-ballot), where it was sponsored by a Republican. 

I don't think it is as clear cut as your typical Atlas "evil Republicans" meme espoused by the poster I was responding to, Ronnie, thinks.


And why should everyone be mailed a ballot?  Believe it or not, not everyone in the country has mail delivery at their house, and not everyone has ready access to a mailbox or post office to drop off outgoing mail.  This is particularly true in rural areas, like Indian Reservations, which is why the Democrat representing one opposed the bill.  Besides, mail gets lost.  In-person votes don't.

Anyone who wants to vote by mail CAN do so in Montana by simply filling out an absentee list request.

I don't like all mail-in balloting (or non-excuse absentee voting, for that matter).  It ruins election day, turning it into election week or election month.  Things can happen during election month that will cause people to regret their initial vote.

Actually all residences do have a mailing address....  even those that are homeless have the ability to have registered mailing address, although granted this is much more difficult to obtain for those without friends or family members, especially in areas where there aren't state/local resources available to provide greater self-sufficiency to homeless residents.

Ok--- "Not everybody has access to a mailbox or post office to drop off outgoing mail"

This is an absurd statement, and actually in entirely VbM states there are as many (or more) county ballot drop-off stations, as there are voting locations. So your argument is a bit ridiculous on the surface, since either the cost of putting a stamp on an envelope, vs the cost of gas to drive to a ballot drop-off location (Or voting precinct in the current model) in rural areas, actually works out cheaper for citizens to vote-by-mail than drive.

Just when I thought the arguments against VbM were already totally OTT, now you throw out the old canard of "things get lost in the mail".

Actually, the reality is that in VbM states there are extensive resources available to track one's ballot. State, County, Local Gvt, as well as the US Postal Service are well aware of the importance of not only the legal and statutory requirements regarding VbM and the Right to Vote, but additionally, this is a revenue stream and they practice meticulous standards to ensure that all ballots are captured within the Mail stream and routed to the local County government within an extremely timely fashion.

I have worked in Postal related occupations, and regardless of partisan affiliation, I can tell you that at all the way down the line from the mail carriers, to the mail handlers, not to mention the pretty amazing automated software and oversight that the USPS has, this is definitely NOT a problem for mail-in-ballots.

So apparently your personal dislike of VbM because: " I don't like all mail-in balloting (or non-excuse absentee voting, for that matter).  It ruins election day, turning it into election week or election month.  Things can happen during election month that will cause people to regret their initial vote" is really the root cause of your opinions about VbM.

Sir, in no way will I tarnish your honor reputation and presume to question your intentions regarding VbM for partisan reasons, but quite frankly I do find your statements as to *why* you oppose VbM to be mainly based upon your personal dislike, and then throwing out a bunch of inane supporting reasons to reinforce your preexisting dislike/disdain for that voting practice.

I had many initial doubts about VbM when it was first became the only means to vote in Oregon, but actually the reality is once you kick the tires on the car, take it for a spin around the neighborhood, you'll find that pretty much everyone likes it regardless of Democratic/Republican/Libertarian/Green/ or Purple....

Shoot--- It saves a boatload of time standing in line at a polling place, saves a bunch of gas money in many cases, all for either the cost of a US Stamp....

Regarding the "not being able to change your vote"---- well, that's pretty easy.... most states allow VbM ballots to be processed so long as they are either postmarked within a few days before the election, or you can always drop it off at one of many designated locations in a secure ballot box that is literally picked up the day before the election, or even drive down to the county courthouse and physically deposit it before closing time on election night!

I'm not particularly convinced that this would even really help the Democratic Party in Montana, but what it will do is increase the ability of voters to participate in the political process, and save all of them some time and money in the process.

First, we're talking about a bill that enabled this mainly for the special election as a cost-saving measure. In that context, I don't see what the big deal is. If everyone got a ballot, turnout would probably end up being higher overall. If you want to talk about VbM across the board, then I would say I very much prefer systems like Colorado, where everyone gets a ballot but there are also larger polling places where anyone in a county can go to and cast their vote in-person. If the problems with the mail was enough of an issue for Native Americans, they could have easily allowed polling places there and still saved money. I won't comment on things getting lost in the mail - NOVA already did, and I definitely agree with him.



Then allow people to send in another ballot, or if limited in-person voting is also allowed, then allow them to go in and cast another vote. Have only the last vote cast be counted. I believe some states actually allow this, and it is really not a big deal to do. People can alter their vote if something big enough happens to sway them. But, either way, I'd also argue that this is no different than something happening that makes them regret their vote a week after election day. There will always be people with regret, and I don't see why a week after election day is any different than a week after one casts their vote during early voting but before end of voting. It's arbitrary.

I get that you don't like the idea of extended voting, but I don't believe the world / people work in a way that can do without it. There are, imo, plenty more reasons for having extended time and options to vote then there are against.

Quist released his first television ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c--EsRoiGs&feature=youtu.be

Pretty good message

He looks like an excellent candidate. Are you thinking about voting for him?

I think TN Vol has roughly the same policy I do: I can recognize individual Republican candidates as being good politicians, not a complete monster, and even find them more likable than their opponents. But I'm far too political and too aware of the importance of chamber majorities to ever vote for them.

I'm listening to Quist's music, and dude's a fantastic musician. Smooth voice too.

Then again I love me some bluegrass so...

Yeah -- I really dislike smooth voices in country music (cf: George Jones), but I can definitely appreciate him and the various bands that he's been in.

A Montana Special Election Nobody Is Following Could Deal A Huge Blow To Trump
Big Sky Country Democrats are running a legendary folk singer with a populist flair against a cartoon plutocrat. Why won’t the national party pay attention?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rob-quist-a-montana-special-election-nobody-is-following-could-deal-a-huge-blow-to-trump_us_58e3fcc5e4b03a26a3670c30

The lack of help from the DSCC seems to confirm their shift from WWC to upscale suburban districts.

Are Democrats now the party of the Bloombergeois?

Unfortunately, it would appear to be this way. Sanders represents the end of an era, rather than the beginning of a new one. He represents the dying gasps of the non-college educated White element of the Democratic Party - the one that can actually transcend partisanship (hence his stunning favorability among Independents). He's the last holdout of the New Deal Coalition and its nearly finalized influence on the party. There's no one who can carry his torch for a reason; the rest are too steeped in modern Democratic politics.

Just look at the demographics of Trump's approval/disapproval numbers; Whites without a college education (not to be confused with White working class) are the sole group that yet approve of him, whereas the traditional backbone of the Republican Party, which had been Whites with a college education, have essentially abandoned him. This group still gave him more votes than Clinton last year, but now his numbers among them are abysmal. Democratic leadership knows who to pursue and will adapt their policies and rhetoric to capture that new pool of voters starting in 2018. It's why they're focusing on the suburban district in Georgia while ignoring Montana.

Yeah, I agree with this. The only thing they came up with was that "Quist is a Bernie Sanders Democrat!" ad, which was pretty bad. Not saying that they shouldn't energize their base, but IMO nationalizing this race would be a dumb idea for both of them, this isn't GA-06. Others here might disagree, but I think they would be well-advised to keep their distance from the national parties.

It would be nice if someone actually polled this race, it has received surprisingly little attention outside of Atlas so far.

One reason is that it isn't technically easy to poll Montana by phone.  RRH says that they can't poll Montana due to either a high bond requirement or ban on robo-polling - I don't remember which.  Either way, it's just too costly for them to poll.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Lee Newspapers use Mason-Dixon to poll the race closer to election day, though.  They've done statewide polling of Montana in the past.

They'll probably try anyway.

I did read an article Tom is sending staffers an other help over so it's not completely ignored

Still, that doesn't really make sense given where the party is right now. Winning statewide races in Montana, whether for state or federal office, is still perfectly doable for the party, and right now we needs House seats period. It doesn't matter if they are suburban or not, and one thing about establishment actors is that they generally don't care about that, especially when they are the nation's minority party. That only leaves 3 options, in my opinion:

1. They have data suggesting he won't win - whether their opinion is correct or not is up for debate.
2. They are legitimately incompetent. Given the focus on Democrats ignoring too much of America, I doubt it is this
3. They are planning to jump in, but closer to the election, and are probably coordinating with him in some ways already. This, in some form, seems likely to me.

I'm inclined to give the party the benefit of the doubt for right now, but whether that is silly of me or not should become apparent relatively soon.

Or just that they hate progressives.

Typical jfern

Well, there's plenty of evidence that the establishment hates progressives. David Brock's Shareblue is still bashing Bernie on a regular basis, and Hillary hacks like Whitehouse are spouting their batsh**t crazy conspiracy theories.

My comment really had nothing to do with the validity of your statement. It was just that you brought it up in the first place. It's the same reason you had that "but Hillary" label in 2016. Your commentary is often blatantly fixated on a single subject, and you are largely oblivious to that (or don't care either way). If I had to guess, the overall focus of your political thoughts is around the impure nature of the politicians that represent the views closest to your own - aka Democrats. Not that you have any obligation to focus on anything in particular, but you're practically like the IID of a police department. Your entire focus is inwards.

The party had a choice last year between someone who appealed to progressives and would have beaten Trump or someone who seemed designed to piss people like me off and lost to Trump. Trump had a worse favorable rating than Goldwater. He was not a strong candidate. So how's the establishment respond? David Brock is still running his crazy anti Bernie propaganda. Prominent Democrats are spouting off insane Russian conspiracy theories, and Tom Perez was installed at the last minute as DNC chair. As low of an opinion that I had of the Democratic party, I thought they'd have gotten a bit more of a clue from losing to Donald J Trump than they did. One can oppose both Trump and the idiots who promoted Trump because they thought their terrible candidate could easily beat him.

I'm a pretty typical establishmentarian Democrat, but Quist is exactly the kind of progressive I can get behind, and Montana is exactly the kind of place I think the progressive movement can play a role in helping Democrats and the liberal movement more generally extend their appeal. As I've said before, it's not an issue of policy positions, but one of practicality. Quist is clearly the ideal candidate for Democrats to have running here, just as JBE is ideal for Louisiana and Gillibrand is great for New York. Now, whether I would support him for President in a Democratic primary is a different story, but that's not where we're at right now.

Are you implying that progressive can win in Montana but not New York?

Brock would still be doing what he does even if the Bernie wing completely took over the party. Your intra-party rivals don't just shut up when they lose stature.


Uh huh, and from other people's perspectives, you're another person on the left who dislikes the Russian angle because they believe it is being used solely to justify Clinton's loss. Even worse, you're of the type who believes Democrats have complete control of that narrative now. The investigation and the stories that come from it have taken on a life of its own. At best you can argue that certain people indulge certain parts of it too much.


I dunno, I'm not sure it counts as "last minute." Also, it is naive and silly of you if you really think the dominant faction of the party is just going to roll over and give it up just because Hillary lost. If progressives want to take over the party, it's unrealistic to expect everything to fall into place in such a brief period of time.


While I'm not endorsing either side in this particular part of my response, I'd say you have no idea whether or not anyone has got a clue yet. We aren't even a year from the election, nor has Perez even been chair for more than a couple months and you are already talking about complete failures of this and that!

I have to admit, I really hope the party is up to your code by early 2018, or else at this rate you'll be foaming at the mouth and out for blood.

No, just that no one faction of the Democratic Party can claim to be the one true path to salvation for the national party as a whole. Had Clinton won the election and chosen Bullock to be in her administration, it would have been the wrong choice for Democrats to nominate Amanda Curtis to replace him, even despite the Clinton wing theoretically claiming to have "won" in this scenario. Likewise, had Bernie won and put some hypothetical New Jersey Democrat in his administration, it probably wouldn't have been the best pick to get Cornell West to run as the Democratic candidate to replace them, even if the Sanders wing had "won" the day in the election.

In short, the party should play to its regional strengths when we aren't running nation-wide elections, and not try to focus on purity tests for its candidates one way or another.

He's more than just an intra-party rival. His SuperPAC directly coordinated with the Hillary campaign and he pushed that "Bernie Bro" myth hard.


There's no evidence that Russia was behind the Podesta e-mail leak, and those e-mails have been DKIM verified, and the contents not addressed. The Russia thing is all a pathetic distraction to start a new cold war to distract people from that.


Ellison bent over backwards for the Hillary people and had more endorsements from Hillary supporting US Senators than Perez, but Obama and the Clintons wanted to retain the establishment power.


My expectations for the Democratic party were damn low, but they included them stopping their insane Russian conspiracy theories by now. The party needs to STFU about the Russians, stop bashing people who didn't support their terrible candidate, and actually focus on issues that help people.

The establishment forces purity tests. Why do you think so many endorsed Hillary in the primary? There were Democrats who were thinking of endorsing Bernie, but were informed that would stop them from being renominated.

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And even if you endorsed Hillary, you weren't safe, such as the 6 year old vendetta against Joe Sestak where the DSCC blew 7 digits defeating him in the primary last year.

"Please read my massive wall of text about the vast establishment conspiracy against me. Also, the establishment are the conspiracy theorists." - jfern

To be honest, I disagree with you. Sanders isn't the end of an era or the beginning of a new one, he's a revival of the New Deal era of Democrats, and I'm seeing a lot more energy, especially in terms of organizing, from progressives and Bernie supporters within the party than I am from liberals and Clinton supporters.

Frankly, Bernie is the most popular politician in America right now, and because of how popular he is among Millennials and how much pull he has in the national party now, his movement, or at the very least his ideas, are gonna last much longer than Clinton/Obama Democrat politics. The fact that nearly half of House Democrats have cosponsored Conyers' perennial Medicare-for-All bill without any push from leadership shows a pretty big push for Democrats to go left.

Exactly. Sanders is to Democrats what Goldwater was to Republicans.

Quist being from Kalispell, does anyone think Quist can win Flathead county?

Gravis polled the race, and has it at Gianforte +12:

Gianforte 50%
Quist 38%
Wicks 3%
Breck 2%
Uncertain 7%
http://gravismarketing.com/polling-and-market-research/current-montana-polling-3/
1,222 Voters; MoE +-2.9;  Poll Dates ? - It was released today.


Breck is apparently the Green Party candidate.  Did we miss him getting ballot access, or is Gravis polling someone not on the ballot?

Good job DNC

Apparently, Green Thomas Breck and Independent Steve Kelly are suing (http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/keci/federal-court-to-decide-montana-ballot-lawsuit/433651145) to get on the ballot.  They didn't get the requisite number of signatures or pay to get on the ballot, so they're suing in federal court, claiming they didn't have enough time.

One problem is that many counties have already printed or are in the process of printing their ballots.

Do we remember what other Democratic politician became highly popular after losing a primary to the eventual Democratic nominee, gamely supporting the winner's campaign, and returning to Washington in a lower-profile role?

It seems like the google consumer survey polls are skewing pretty young and Gravis which I think uses landlines is skewing a bit old. 

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I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Since we already have 19 more pages of analysis on this race than the DCCC apparently does, perhaps we should shoot them an email suggesting we collectively take over as strategy chair for this election.

That the Democrats aren't wasting money on a race where they're down 12 points?

What the naso...?

but pelosi is the worst dem leader because muh republican tv ads.

This is ridiculous.

Ugh, do we really have to have this argument AGAIN?