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

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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 !

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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.

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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.

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3) Endorsing and campaigning for Hillary Clinton. It made him look like a huge hypocrite, since his whole campaign was railing against her, now he supports her?

Why? Bernie could have legitimate issues with her and make a case against her in the context of him vs her, but against Trump, it's easy to see why she is still the better pick from the perspective of Democrats/many others.

imo, Trump has only continued to bolster that view since becoming president.

It was just some hard headed, objective political analysis, but some people thought it "sore." Anyway, the Gravis poll only confirms my prediction of a 10-point Gianforte win, only it appears some third candidates will be significant, so I switch my prediction from 55%-45% to 53%-43%.

Beet, Bernie has supported every major Dem nominee from Bill Clinton to Al Gore to Kerry to Obama & even he was for Bill Clinton ran as an uber centrist, sometimes trying to go to the right of Dole, gutted welfare etc. The choice is clear - It is a 2 way race & the other option is the GOP. And he said clearly even before the primary, that he will support HRC or whoever the Dem nominee is for the general.

But his endorsement & him enthusiastically rallying everywhere for HRC came with a small price - Some policy issues which HRC adopted so that he could atleast make the case to his supporters. And he said time & again, that real change comes in the primaries not the GE where you have to chose among 2 people.

And against Trump, I think most of his supporters understood it too.

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Rob Quist, a folk singer and Bernie Sanders supporter running for Montana’s open House seat, announced Tuesday that he’d raised $1.3 million so far for his race – the latest example of liberal donors crowdfunding in the hopes of creating an upset.

According to Quist’s FEC filings, promoted to reporters by the campaign, the Democrat raised close to $1 million in March alone, made up of 22,333 individual contributions. The average donation was $40, boosted after Sanders’ group Our Revolution and the Daily Kos blog endorsed Quist.

Looks like small donations are pouring in for Quist after Our-Revolution endorsement, also helped raise a lot of money in Kansas & made it somewhat competitive !

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If the DNC stars following advise of people who think free this free that bad, healthcare isn't a right blah blah the party is going to die like the Whigs.

Either way it is good that atleast Bernie with his Our-Revolution thing is raising some money for these candidates (if they are progressives). No1 has asked the DNC team to send Biden or Booker or Perez, just send some god damn money & help with the ground staff & field operations. In a low turnout election, a little more effort here & there can make you win & many of these are determined by turnout from the base. I mean Ted Cruz, has 0 crossover appeal & is essentially a scumbag but even he went to Kansas to turnout the base.

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The weighting stuff is irrelevant because a huge share of people voted Unknown in age bracket, no1 knows what their age is & makes the whole exercise meaningless. The number of people who selected male selected is higher than female, so don't know how weighting hurts Quist (but anyways problem of Unknowns here as well).

You could say this is a toss-up election with a fair share of undecided/3rd party voters !

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The weighting stuff is irrelevant because a huge share of people voted Unknown in age bracket, no1 knows what their age is & makes the whole exercise meaningless. The number of people who selected male selected is higher than female, so don't know how weighting hurts Quist (but anyways problem of Unknowns here as well).

You could say this is a toss-up election with a fair share of undecided/3rd party voters !

We've experimented with different ways of weighting the unknowns.  Totally ignoring them in the 2016 Presidential GE polling generally lead to worse results than including them.  Since then, following the lead of RRH for the Google component of their polls, I've generally weighted the unknowns at 1.  Totally ignoring the unknowns gives Quist a 4 point lead.

There may have been more males overall in the poll, but there were fewer Male 65+s sampled compared to their 2014 counterparts or 65+ women.  That means that they got a weight of about 2.26, compared to 1.8 for Female 65+s or .31 for Male 18-24s.  And Males 65+ were Gianforte's best group.

The general problem with Google Surveys is that they tend to skew younger than the electorate.  Thus, not weighting a Google Survey poll overemphasizes those who are less likely to vote, generally (but not always) skewing it toward minor party candidates, like Libertarians, and (usually, but not always) Democrats.  IIRC, weighting my initial poll of this race last month actually worked in Quist's favor.  IVR phone polls tend to skew old, which is why RRH Elections has been running composite phone/Google Survey polls recently.

By the way, technically, nobody selected male or female.  Google infers sex and age data.

The thing I'm not convinced of is that these Google Surveys are worth spending money on.  The track record of Atlas' 2016 GE polling was terrible.

Assuming a 2014 electorate in itself is wrong because the Dem turnout will be far higher while the GOP turnout will be much worse. Also if we try & weigh it to increase the 65+ males, it will further unskew the whole damn thing because this survey has too many males & isn't representative.

Other than that, guessing & assuming about the age of unknowns is kinda throwing stones into the dark as is trying to find out their gender. If it was 4-5 out of 300, maybe yes. But it is so god damn high that it could totally screw up the entire thing !

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Anyways this survey has as much chance of being R friendly as it has of beinG D friendly & the unknowns could be disproportionately 65+ males if you analyze the results -

Without Unknowns - '
Quist - 127 - 47.7%
Wicks - 32- 12%
Gianforte - 107 - 40.2%

Only Unknowns -
Quist - 24 - 35.8%
Wicks - 5 - 7.5%
Gianforte - 38 - 56.7%

As you can see Gianforte is closer due to disproportionately high support for unknowns who could well be older & 65+ voters. It is crazy than Quist is leading 48-40 w/o unknowns & is trailing 36-58 among only unknowns (shows how different the unknown voting population is compared to the rest).

This makes the weighting for Gianforte & increasing the 65+ makes even more redundant considering females are under-represented !

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Rob Quist already 3 ads - Voice, No Wonder, Right - You can find them in Ads section in "Team Quist information" in youtube (only 35 subscribers lol).

Apart from public lands, there's huge focus on Social Security, continous jabs at millionaires in Washington, Wall Street folks. He is also using shades of his singing popularity with guitar being played by him or as background music etc.

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In just over 6 weeks, Rob’s campaign raised $2 million from mainly small donations. Nearly 40,000 individuals have donated to the campaign with an average contribution of $32.

Tina Olechowski, spokesperson for Rob Quist’s campaign - “Montanans across party lines are supporting Rob, because they know he will stand up for everyday working people, not corporate special interests.” Unlike his opponent, New Jersey multi-millionaire Greg Gianforte, Rob does not accept donations from lobbyists or corporate PACs and supports a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

http://robquist.org/momentum-builds-behind-rob-quist-campaign-hits-2-million-campaign-contributions/

Money flowing into Quist campaign from small donors since the Our-Revolution endorsement!

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As national attention turns to the special election in Montana, the super PAC backed by House GOP leadership is deploying House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a new TV attack on Democratic nominee Rob Quist. The ad, which will debut Friday on broadcast and cable, marks the start of an $800,000 media buy from Congressional Leadership Fund. The super PAC ran its first TV ad against Quist last month, using many of the same attacks. 

“Rob Quist talks folksy,” the narrator says, opening the spot. “But his record is more Nancy Pelosi than Montana,” the narrator says. “Whether it’s cuts to the military or doubling down on a health care system more expensive than Obamacare, Rob Quist continues to prove he is more in-tune with Nancy Pelosi than Montana,” CLF executive director Corry Bliss said in a statement.

- See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/rob-quist-gop-montana#sthash.keVfiS8c.dpuf

Holy crap, close to 1M in attack ads through Super pacs !

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Gianforte has a new ad Grab attacking Quist for the automatic gun registry thing, distorting it with all rifles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlcwuaMeW8w

How are Democrats this dumb? Attack Gianforte as a Special Interest candidates who wants to eliminate Social Security, Medicare & sell off public lands. They are butchering Quist with negative ads !

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Wow, this thread has turned really, really bad. Posters on a political forum which is dedicated to analyzing and tracking elections as well as political demography and trends should never use the term "socially libertarian state" in any context at all. Just because a state has mountains doesn't make it libertarian or whatever. Same goes for the term "elastic state".

Anyway, Planned Parenthood has launched a serious GOTV effort in the state, and Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano campaigned with Quist in Bozeman today, LOL.

In case anyone wants to watch the first debate between the two candidates, here is the link.

What did you think of the debate ? How are other people in the state responding to the debate & recent campaign including ads?

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Watched the debate & Gianforte seemed like a hard right, uber religious, "muh defense spending increase & national security", strong supporter of Trump, cut benefits of Healthcare coverage, Climate change denying "Humans have some impact in Climate Change ala Scott Pruitt" guy. He has also got a big likeability & honesty problem. You may not agree with McCain's or Collins' policies, but they are honest & likeable. Gianforte seemed like a "Slimy Politician" 101 type person! Doesn't look like a candidate, a left leaning MT Treasurer type people will vote for !

He is obviously trying to move to to center just for this campaign but he seemed like a small version of Ted Cruz. Wouldn't be surprised if he joined the Freedom Caucus & Tea party lunatics!

Gianforte went to Fox & called Quist a Pelosi with a hat who wants a 90% Income Tax & said the Trump train is going forward well in Montana, praised Trump & is campaigning hard with Donald Trump Jr! That 90% Income tax is garbage but he can speak any lie & get away just like his hero Trump !

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Watched the debate & Gianforte seemed like a hard right, uber religious, "muh defense spending increase & national security", strong supporter of Trump, cut benefits of Healthcare coverage, Climate change denying "Humans have some impact in Climate Change ala Scott Pruitt" guy. He has also got a big likeability & honesty problem. You may not agree with McCain's or Collins' policies, but they are honest & likeable. Gianforte seemed like a "Slimy Politician" 101 type person! Doesn't look like a candidate, a left leaning MT Treasurer type people will vote for !

He is obviously trying to move to to center just for this campaign but he seemed like a small version of Ted Cruz. Wouldn't be surprised if he joined the Freedom Caucus & Tea party lunatics!

Gianforte went to Fox & called Quist a Pelosi with a hat who wants a 90% Income Tax & said the Trump train is going forward well in Montana, praised Trump & is campaigning hard with Donald Trump Jr! That 90% Income tax is garbage but he can speak any lie & get away just like his hero Trump !

Trump's favorables are +13 in Montana, according to the Emerson poll.  So campaigning with Donald Trump Jr. and praising President Trump is simply smart politics.

Emerson is not much of a indicator of anything but Trump surely is more popular than Pelosi for example who Gianforte is trying to link to Quist !

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Weird qualitative update, but I'm trying to organize out of state phone banks for Quist here in Chicago. The campaign finally got back to me after months of wrangling, and they literally just sent an OpenVPB* link and a "good luck!" email.

I'm losing confidence every day to be perfectly frank.

*for those not in the know, basically the lowest effort (and indeed, least useful) tool for distributed organizing built into the Democratic field platform NGPVAN.

One of the places which was used to make millions of calls for Bernie designed by r/sandersforpresident was bernie.pb which has been changed to grassroots.pb where you can call all Our-Revolution endorsed candidates, from School Board, City Council to Congress, Gov, etc!

Check it out -> https://www.grassrootspb.com/ - Don't know how useful it will be !

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Greg Gianforte reportedly owns shares of funds that have holdings in other companies, including Russian natural gas utility Gazprom, that are sanctioned by the U.S. Gianforte owns $92,400 shares in ISHARES MSCF Russia AND $150,000 in VanEck Vectors Russia ETF, the report said. Gianforte made millions after founding a technology company in the 1990s. A spokesman for Gianforte told The Guardian that the candidate will place his assets in a blind trust should he win the election.

Source - The Hill / report-montana-gop-candidate-has-financial-links-to-russian-firms

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Greg Gianforte reportedly owns shares of funds that have holdings in other companies, including Russian natural gas utility Gazprom, that are sanctioned by the U.S. Gianforte owns $92,400 shares in ISHARES MSCF Russia AND $150,000 in VanEck Vectors Russia ETF, the report said. Gianforte made millions after founding a technology company in the 1990s. A spokesman for Gianforte told The Guardian that the candidate will place his assets in a blind trust should he win the election.

Source - The Hill / report-montana-gop-candidate-has-financial-links-to-russian-firms

Some people are apparently getting very desperate. This story is very old and Quist brought it up during the debate when he dodged a question.

Pretty crap attack IMO. Especially when Gianforte doesn't believe much in SS/Medicare. Quist has run a mediocre campaign !

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Raw Story reported that Gianforte, a tech millionaire originally from New Jersey, settled a 1991 lawsuit with a former employee who accused Gianforte of firing him for having multiple sclerosis. The details of the suit are harrowing. The former employee at Brightwork Development, Gianforte’s software company, won awards for his sales numbers after his diagnosis. Gianforte allegedly heard about the disease and summoned the employee to his office to ask probing questions about whether it was affecting his performance. A couple months later, the company fired the employee.

In his failed 2016 bid for Montana governor, Gianforte also faced questions about why Petra Academy, a private Christian school in Bozeman where he is board chairman, does not welcome all students with disabilities. In a tense exchange about the topic in February 2016, Gianforte told the Billings Gazette editorial board that the school, which is not subject to the law requiring public schools to accommodate students with special needs, does not admit students who need an extra staff person devoted to them.

“The votes in the House are going to determine whether we get tax reform done, sounds like we just passed a health care thing, which I’m thankful for, sounds like we’re starting to repeal and replace,” Gianforte said. “After refusing to say how he would have voted on the disastrous D.C. health care bill, it turns out Greg Gianforte was saying something different to the special-interest lobbyists bankrolling his campaign,” Quist said in a statement on Friday. “We need an independent voice in Congress who will stand up to the special interests, not a dishonest politician who says one thing to Montanans and another to the millionaires behind closed doors.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/rob-quist-greg-gianforte-disability-lawsuit_us_590e5af2e4b0d5d9049cf76e

Gianforte is so thankful to pass this disastrous healthcare bill only because it slashes 900B off Medicaid which could be used to further give bigger tax cuts (in addition to the repeal of Obamacare taxes). He is happy as long as billionaires get big tax cuts! Where did the moderate Republicans go?

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It's a mid single digit race & a high turnout could hand Quist the race. The Republican is definitely favored at this point & it is a lean R race but this is by no means over, this is a special election & the Dem base is more likely to turnout !

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Quist looks like a nervous political novice with an average campaign while Greg is like a slimy douchebag politician who has done this time n again & knows how to play the political game.

Having said that, this is race that Hillary Clinton lost by 21%, the state leg is solid R, Zinke always won, the other seat is with the GOP. Democrats need to have a good candidate, run a strong campaign & require the GOP to run an average campaign with an average candidate to win this.

People are exaggerating how bad Quist is doing in typical atlas style & Greg didn't run a perfect campaign, staying home & stuff. You have to give Quist some time, he is kinda learning the ropes. Anyways I think this race is around 5/6% R at the moment, kind of lean R & a high turnout can cause an upset. It is by no means over & special elections are all about turnout !

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Amanda Curtis would've ran a better campaign than this.

Yeah, I wish she would have won the Democratic nomination. She'd probably have been my favorite Democrat in Congress and the GE campaign would have been more entertaining as well, LOL.

Isn't she more left leaning than even Quist? They'd probably call her a socialist ?

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People have been exaggerating how bad a campaign Quist has run. This is still winnable & a lean R race. Greg is possibly ahead by 5/6% odd or maybe less.

A very high turnout in election day like Kansas which had huge democratic turnout will make Quist the winner !

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Over the course of 72 hours this past week, Greg Gianforte, the millionaire Republican running for Montana’s open congressional seat, took three different stances on the health care bill just passed by the House of Representatives. And his opponent took that flip-flopping to the bank.

Democrat Rob Quist, who has refused to accept donations from lobbyists or corporate political action committees, raised over $550,000 in the past four days, his campaign told HuffPost on Wednesday. Campaign contributions, which average $25 and have come from about 147,000 individual donors, now top $3.8 million.

“Our campaign has seen a surge in donations and volunteer enthusiasm since New Jersey multimillionaire Greg Gianforte was caught saying one thing to Montanans and the opposite to his D.C. lobbyist donors,” Tina Olechowski, Quist’s spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Montanans deserve and expect honesty from their representatives but we’ve yet to see that from New Jersey multimillionaire Greg Gianforte,” Olechowski told HuffPost. “All the damage control his wealth can buy can’t walk this back ― Montanans expect straight talk, not a career politician who will only share his true positions with lobbyist donors behind closed doors.”

Less than a third of the public favors the new bill, according to a HuffPost/YouGov survey published Monday. A Fox News poll found similar results. Gianforte has accepted $2 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, which only supports candidates who back the AHCA.

Trumpcare is not going to help Gianforte !