MT-AL: Rob Quist (D) vs. Greg Gianforte (R) vs. Mark Wicks (L), May 25

[MT Treasurer]

As of 5/22:

County (2016 Presidential vote, Gubernatorial vote) % returned

Cascade (voted for Trump by 22%, Bullock by 10%) 65.4% of mail-ins returned (+2.8 )

Flathead (voted for Trump by 36%, Gianforte by 15%) 67.4% of mail-ins returned (+4.6)

Gallatin (voted for Clinton by 1%, Bullock by 15%) 62.5% of mail-ins returned (+3.8 )

Lake (voted for Trump by 21%, Bullock by 1%) 71.6% of mail-ins returned (+2.4)

Lewis & Clark (voted for Trump by 7%, Bullock by 23%) 71.1% of mail-ins returned (+2.8 )

Missoula (voted for Clinton by 16%, Bullock by 34%) 62.3% of mail-ins returned (+3.1)

Ravalli (voted for Trump by 38% Gianforte by 14%) 73.4% of mail-ins returned (+2.5)

Silver Bow (voted for Clinton by 14%, Bullock by 44%) 69.6% of mail-ins returned (+4.7)

Yellowstone (voted for Trump by 27%, Gianforte by 1%) 68.1% of mail-ins returned (+1.4)

STATEWIDE: 67.2% of mail-ins returned

Added the change (5/21-5/22) in brackets.

[MT Treasurer]

It's a bit unnerving that, according to this poll, a decent chuck of Bullock voters are bleeding away to Gianforte.  Quist needs to keep nearly all of them on his side to have a chance.

This was always going to happen, though. Especially in Eastern Montana.

Anyway, regardless of who wins on Thursday, a lot of "polling firms" and people are going to have egg on their face.

[MT Treasurer]

Change Research appears to be run by Mike Greenfield and J.R. Goldman, two Silicon Valley types.  I've linked their respective Twitter pages.  Both appear to be data scientists.  Mike Greenfield said that this is their first public poll on Twitter.

Gianforte +5 has also been my prediction since...forever now, so I hope they are right!

But seriously, why do so many "pollsters" show Wicks' support in the high single digits? The Libertarian candidate in the 2012 gubernatorial race (which was a very competitive race) won 3.7%, the Libertarian in the 2016 gubernatorial race (which was semi-competitive, I guess) won 3.4% of the vote, and I doubt they will get more than 4 in a very competitive special election.

[MT Treasurer]

Consider the Republican Candidate, A candidate for Governor in 2016 who voters may be weary of, who has flipped on the AHCA, an unpopular bill, has been subject to numerous attacks not only in this race but also in the Governor's race, and the fact that Quist has a decent campaign with a number of high profile and popular names campaigning with and backing him, in addition to numerous donations from small donors.  Quist won't win that's for sure, but he's made it far closer than anyone expected, in no small part thanks to Gianforte being a sub-par candidate.

If Gianforte is a subpar candidate, then what is Quist? Don't get me wrong, but blaming Gianforte for the closeness of this race is ridiculous. For the most part, he's run a pretty good campaign (which is why I still think he will win), even though I think he would make a better governor than Congressman, honestly. I can think of only one Republican (Ed Buttrey) who would have done better than Gianforte (and even that's a big if). Yes, he doesn't have a lot of crossover appeal, that's true, but there isn't any Montana Republican other than maybe Tim Fox who would have won over more (Democratic-leaning) Independents here, especially with Trump in the White House. This idea that Ken Miller, Carl Glimm, Ed Walker, or any other Republican nominee would have been spared from Democratic attack ads (Remember Denny Rehberg and Rick Hill, anyone?) is beyond ridiculous. So if Republicans lose this race, the last conclusion they should draw from this is that it only happened "because Quist ran a great campaign and Gianforte ran an awful one". Both of these things aren't true. A loss here would be pretty devastating for the MT GOP, and I have no doubt that both sides will do a lot of "spinning" tomorrow.

As for why the race is close... Montana Democrats have always done well in statewide and Senate races here and Quist can - despite all of his flaws - appeal to many people in the state, especially "Independents" who didn't like Clinton (yes, Trump won by 20 points, but like I said, it would have been much closer with any other Democratic nominee). The Democrats also have a high floor in the state and some of the attacks against Gianforte ("rich multimillionaire from NJ who wants to sell off public lands, cut access to health insurance and slash education funding) are resonating with a non-negligible number of voters and make it easy for Quist to rally his base, especially since the Democrats used basically the same attacks against him in the gubernatorial race in 2016. Plus, Quist is benefiting from a strong ground game, higher Democratic enthusiasm (probably), support from the national Democratic party, donations from small donors, the health care debate, etc.

[MT Treasurer]

As of 5/23:

County (2016 Presidential vote, Gubernatorial vote) % returned

Cascade (voted for Trump by 22%, Bullock by 10%) 68.3% of mail-ins returned (+2.9)

Flathead (voted for Trump by 36%, Gianforte by 15%) 72.2% of mail-ins returned (+4.8 )

Gallatin (voted for Clinton by 1%, Bullock by 15%) 65.4% of mail-ins returned (+2.9)

Lake (voted for Trump by 21%, Bullock by 1%) 76.3% of mail-ins returned (+4.7)

Lewis & Clark (voted for Trump by 7%, Bullock by 23%) 73.3% of mail-ins returned (+2.2)

Missoula (voted for Clinton by 16%, Bullock by 34%) 65.9% of mail-ins returned (+3.6)

Ravalli (voted for Trump by 38% Gianforte by 14%) 74.8% of mail-ins returned (+1.4)

Silver Bow (voted for Clinton by 14%, Bullock by 44%) 71.7% of mail-ins returned (+2.1)

Yellowstone (voted for Trump by 27%, Gianforte by 1%) 70.8% of mail-ins returned (+2.7)

STATEWIDE: 70.2% of mail-ins returned (+3.0)

Added the change (5/22-5/23) in brackets.

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If Gianforte loses, it won't be because of low turnout in Republican areas, that's for sure:

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Link.

[MT Treasurer]

Two questions. 

What time do the polls close tomorrow, and what is a good website to use for watching the results come in county by county?

1.) 10 PM EST = 8 PM MST.
2.) Definitely the NY Times. Their maps are excellent.

[MT Treasurer]

LMFAO.

Ben Jacobs has a good relationship with Greg Gianforte, guys!

[MT Treasurer]

Oh wow, so this is actually big? I wonder what Jacobs said to him before it happened? Still, let's wait until we see the video.

[MT Treasurer]

Imagine if Tester or Fox did this. Jacobs would be dead now.

Also, how many pages will this thread have by tomorrow evening? lol

[MT Treasurer]

Wow, people on PredictIt are saying Quist will win in a landslide now. I don't buy it, and I don't think this will have the impact the forum thinks it will. We'll see, though.

[MT Treasurer]

If Gianforte wins he'll have to resign within days, then we get ANOTHER Special Election.

Sounds good to me, I'm ready for it!

[MT Treasurer]

Yeah, Jacobs is a moron and Gianforte should have ignored him. This was stupid.

[MT Treasurer]

A question. Doesn't the GOP electorate vote on Election Day, while the Dems turn out in the early vote? I know Trump was trailing in FL, and other battleground states before the ED vote. I don't know how Montana voting patterns so I'm curious.

Well, like I said before, the early vote is usually counted first on election day, and the most Democratic votes almost always come in first. Bullock was up 13 points (55-42) with roughly 30% of the vote in in 2012, and he only won by 4 in the end.

[MT Treasurer]

Gianforte needs to do damage control now.... somehow... Honestly, IMO it'd be the best if he were just honest about this entire thing and apologized publicly.

[MT Treasurer]

Gianforte needs to do damage control now.... somehow... Honestly, IMO it'd be the best if he were just honest about this entire thing and apologized publicly.

That's not enough.

Yeah, well, after a congressional candidate body slams a reporter, few things are going to be enough to lessen the damage done.

Yeah, well, it's certainly better than ignoring that it happened.

[MT Treasurer]

Quist's chances have been treated lower than they are all along.

Up until this, he virtually had no chance.

Incorrect. Gianforte needed/still needs high Republican turnout on election day.

[MT Treasurer]

Too late

I don't know, a third of the electorate is still a lot and those folks tend to be undecideds.

But how many of them will know about this?

This is being reported everywhere right now. Geez, just when you think the MT GOP did something right, this happens. Oh well, nowhere to go but up from here.

[MT Treasurer]

He was probably just basing his guesses on the predictit prices.

What? I always had this race as a Tossup, so please stop making stuff up.

[MT Treasurer]

Just talked to a GOP strategist who basically endorsed this  (GF's) statement as a political strategy. Can't apologize now. Rally base is only move
https://twitter.com/GarrettHaake/status/867550298188820480

Interesting. I can see where they're coming from... I hate to draw that comparison again, but didn't Akin also apologize publicly? Didn't help him at all in the end.

[MT Treasurer]

Speaking of Todd Akin... can someone tell him to shut this whole thread down?

[MT Treasurer]

Haven't read all the pages, but a lot of them.  I'm surprised nobody thought this: Gianforte likely responded with his (alleged) assault and battery because he was under intense stress caused by the surprising closeness of the race.  I think it's clear he wasn't about to handily win.

Maybe. The hilarious thing is that we will never really know what would have happened without this incident. I guess we should pay a lot of attention to the early vote as it comes in.

That's a good point. Under normal circumstances, it seems like about a 10-point lead for Quist in the early vote would suggest a very close race, is that accurate?

Probably closer to 8 points or so, but yeah, I think so. Of course his lead would shrink with time.

[MT Treasurer]

Featuring:
Greg Pianoforte (as the piano)
Piano men (as the GOP)
Frank Reynolds (as the Dems)
Charlie (as Ben Jacobs)
Mac (as Rob Quist)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO66-ic9C1E

ROFLMAO, now that was good. Well done.

Anyway guys, see you tomorrow. Gonna be a busy day obviously, and I want to get up early. Have fun.

[MT Treasurer]

I don't really understand CX's logic, but I think Fox could win an open gubernatorial rather comfortably. I wonder if that's more appealing to him than having to run in a barn burner of a race against Tester.

Maybe, who knows. He could run for Senate and if he lost narrowly (and it wouldn't be by more than 1 or 2 points IMO) he could still run for governor. It really didn't hurt Gianforte very much either.

Also, I'm not sure why people expect Fox to win the open gubernatorial race without breaking a sweat? The race would maybe be Lean R, but in reality closer to Tossup. Democrats will probably run Mike Cooney.

But it will be interesting for sure. I still predict that all three races (MT-SEN 2018, MT-SEN 2020, MT-GOV 2020) will be tossups and highly competitive by election day.

[MT Treasurer]

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/early-turnout-at-metrapark-polls-is-light-despite-gianforte-s/article_ec11bb83-c76e-51a5-bf93-f11b9f1f6c2d.html

[MT Treasurer]

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/early-turnout-at-metrapark-polls-is-light-despite-gianforte-s/article_ec11bb83-c76e-51a5-bf93-f11b9f1f6c2d.html

couldn't that be a sign of republican depression?

Oh, not saying this is good news for anyone, but someone asked for "early turnout reports".

@Arch: NYTimes, Decision Desk and the SOS page are all good websites. Also the AP if you don't care about the county by county results.