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

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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

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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.

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Obligatory: LOCK HIM UP!

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I assume in a few decades conservative candidates will have to at least accept violence as a "necessary evil" against leftists, considering how unhinged their constituents are becoming. Anyone who condemns physical attacks on the left will be branded as weak or an infiltrator of some kind.

Few decades?  More like in a few months.

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/867871793251590145

Rick Wilson is a very intelligent never Trump Republican, for those who aren't aware. 

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How do the absentee/mail ballots usually get counted in MT? Should we expect a big dump of all the absentees at the very beginning, and then a long wait while precinct results gradually filter in? If so, does it vary much by county?

They've contracted the counting of absentee ballots out to British Columbia. So, two weeks. (Just kidding)

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I think this is more evidence of the Republican Party being 'the party of personal responsibility' is a stupid myth that stupid Republicans (redundant, sorry) still believe.

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Can we not with the posts about how awful Montana's voters are for voting for the violent thug? Nearly three quarters of them voted before it happened.

Gianforte has a history of violence.

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Why is Yellowstone County so Republican?

Republicans stick together because they seem to be much more cult like.  How many Republicans in Montana have quoted the lie that "Gianforte was provoked"?  I'm sincerely asking but my guess is, to the degree they bring this incident up, they're repeating it like parrots.

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Is it fair to consider Quist's failure a failure of Bernie's populist angle? Quist had a lot of baggage of his own. He wasn't the best candidate for this race.

Until humans are perfected, every candidate will have a lot of baggage.  So, I don't think that explains Quist losing.  Montana Democrats apparently thought he was a strong candidate at the beginning of the race.

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I don't know if this was mentioned here earlier, and I didn't learn about this until just now, but the Free Beacon botched the selective service scandal.

Like every Republican propaganda outfit, the Free Beacon has no interest in being factual.

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Kyung Lah confirms more voters went out to vote Gianforte because of slamgate and it helped his performance on election day

I don't give a sh*t if it is "elitist" but that is deplorable

Donald Trump is the real elitist, the rest is just lies from elitist Republicans that get their idiot supporters riled up.

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It says a lot about how low the opinion of the democratic party is in rural areas of middle america when a reality tv star and a man who beats up reporters defeat democrats.

I think it says a lot more about Republican voters and how few of them have any ethics, morality or intelligence.

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Some Democrat should jump on Gianforte's stage and beat him to a bloody pulp and then the Democrats should run him in the next election.  Let's give the people real 'Montana Justice.'

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A reminder that the DCCC spent a tenth on this race what they've spent in GA-6 so far.

Quist has also raised millions of dollars, getting a fundraising advantage over The Piano Man.

Quiet, it just easier to blame the DCCC then to admit that left-wing populism isn't some magic elixir that is going to win over rural voters.  

Is that the new meme, that Bernie can't win rural whites?

Well, he can win them in Vermont.  Not sure about anywhere else.

When he was running for Congress in 1988 or 1990, I bet people laughed at him for trying to win against a Democrat and a Republican in a state that had only ever voted once for President, when LBJ won every northern state.

Not likely, he had been a popular mayor of Burlington, which had been a fairly conservative city up until then.

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Sooo, all the over-confidence from you guys last night and even before last night, all the predictions of a quist 2 point or 3 point win, they were all fake hope?

This happens all the time on here. You guys hype up dem chances, and then when it actually doesn't happen, you pretend you never had any "true" hope for a win.

While I generally agree with you, Atlas wasn't the only place that thought this thing was going to have a serious impact on the race. I think in this case it's fair to say Quist would have done a lot better had he actually run a good campaign, but yeah... it also shows us that polarization is still a thing.

So yes, Republicans outperformed everyone's expectations this time (I should have stuck with my original prediction and not changed it at the last minute), but I'm still taking nothing for granted in this goddamn state. Harry Enten should feel kind of stupid for saying that Tester is going to be very happy about this result, though. Congrats to Mr. Daines, who won the Daines vs. Tester/Bullock proxy war.

I even thought Quist was a shoo-in after last night, but I'm happy that the Montana voters realized that a vote for Quist was a vote for 3000 murders a day, regardless of any personal flaws in Gianforte.  And, we're not trying to elect our pastor or role model, but rather someone who will vote to lead our country in the right direction, and I am confident that Gianforte will vote in the right way.

Doesn't really fit here, but a fetus is not a human.

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Sooo, all the over-confidence from you guys last night and even before last night, all the predictions of a quist 2 point or 3 point win, they were all fake hope?

This happens all the time on here. You guys hype up dem chances, and then when it actually doesn't happen, you pretend you never had any "true" hope for a win.

While I generally agree with you, Atlas wasn't the only place that thought this thing was going to have a serious impact on the race. I think in this case it's fair to say Quist would have done a lot better had he actually run a good campaign, but yeah... it also shows us that polarization is still a thing.

So yes, Republicans outperformed everyone's expectations this time (I should have stuck with my original prediction and not changed it at the last minute), but I'm still taking nothing for granted in this goddamn state. Harry Enten should feel kind of stupid for saying that Tester is going to be very happy about this result, though. Congrats to Mr. Daines, who won the Daines vs. Tester/Bullock proxy war.

I even thought Quist was a shoo-in after last night, but I'm happy that the Montana voters realized that a vote for Quist was a vote for 3000 murders a day, regardless of any personal flaws in Gianforte.  And, we're not trying to elect our pastor or role model, but rather someone who will vote to lead our country in the right direction, and I am confident that Gianforte will vote in the right way.

Doesn't really fit here, but a fetus is not a human, moron.

After all... human women give birth to monkeys, sea urchins, dolphins and all sorts of things.

Fine, a first trimester fetus is not a human.  You know, the trimester when 99% of abortions really occur, whatever you idiot Republicans lie to each other.

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Big Horn County has tightened.

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Sooo, all the over-confidence from you guys last night and even before last night, all the predictions of a quist 2 point or 3 point win, they were all fake hope?

This happens all the time on here. You guys hype up dem chances, and then when it actually doesn't happen, you pretend you never had any "true" hope for a win.

While I generally agree with you, Atlas wasn't the only place that thought this thing was going to have a serious impact on the race. I think in this case it's fair to say Quist would have done a lot better had he actually run a good campaign, but yeah... it also shows us that polarization is still a thing.

So yes, Republicans outperformed everyone's expectations this time (I should have stuck with my original prediction and not changed it at the last minute), but I'm still taking nothing for granted in this goddamn state. Harry Enten should feel kind of stupid for saying that Tester is going to be very happy about this result, though. Congrats to Mr. Daines, who won the Daines vs. Tester/Bullock proxy war.

I even thought Quist was a shoo-in after last night, but I'm happy that the Montana voters realized that a vote for Quist was a vote for 3000 murders a day, regardless of any personal flaws in Gianforte.  And, we're not trying to elect our pastor or role model, but rather someone who will vote to lead our country in the right direction, and I am confident that Gianforte will vote in the right way.

Doesn't really fit here, but a fetus is not a human, moron.

After all... human women give birth to monkeys, sea urchins, dolphins and all sorts of things.

Fine, a first trimester fetus is not a human.  You know, the trimester when 99% of abortions really occur, whatever you idiot Republicans lie to each other.

So sometime after the first trimester, the horse inside the human woman, morphs into a human.

That's an amazing take on the reproduction and life cycle ..... of humans.

So, is a zygote a human as well?