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

[Chief Justice Keef]

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

[Chief Justice Keef]

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.

[Chief Justice Keef]

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

[Chief Justice Keef]

I didnt realize Quist was a Berniecrat:

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FF.

[Chief Justice Keef]

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

[Chief Justice Keef]

The NRCC is already attacking Quist:

-snip-

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

lmao

[Chief Justice Keef]

I'm guessing that this quote is probably pretty representative of their attitude. Which is deeply disappointing, to say the least.

"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."

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.

[Chief Justice Keef]

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.

[Chief Justice Keef]

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.

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.

[Chief Justice Keef]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[Chief Justice Keef]

I've never seen a national party organization as lazy and incompetent as the Democrats right now. What an awful state of affairs they're in.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Quits has announced he has raised 1.3 million in about a month https://mobile.twitter.com/NickRiccardi/status/851824112825761793

Good to see a lot of grassroots energy for Quist. Dem leadership should really start taking this race seriously.

[Chief Justice Keef]

I think things will ramp up in this race in late April, early May. Although if (when) Ossoff goes to the runoff, he might continue to suck the energy out of this race.

If Quist wins here then I hope it sends a message to the party that these rural, working-class areas are worth investing in as much as upper-class suburb districts like GA-6.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Hopefully the DCCC and DNC learn their lesson tonight and start fundraising for Quist.

[Chief Justice Keef]

You are assuming that nationalizing races in blood red Trump states makes sense.  The DCCC coming in will allow Gianforte to credibly tie Quist to San Fran Nan and New York Chuck, who I'm sure aren't that popular in Montana.  Whose to say Thompson wouldn't have lost by a larger margin had the KS-04 race been nationalized more?

But then what is the alternative? Democrats abandon candidates in deeply Republican territory out of fear of it backfiring? I'm sure there are instances where it will be plenty valid, but the 'nationalization' excuse doesn't seem that strong to me. It seems like a good excuse to keep doing what the party said it would stop doing.

No.  The Democratic establishment should quietly support the candidate in other ways, by sending in surrogates that don't have ties to the Democratic establishment (like Sanders), and finding other ways to quietly get them resources behind the scenes.  Share the GOTV apparatus, microtargeting data and donor lists, for example.  Don't get into a situation where your Kansas or Montana candidate can be tied to unlikable characters from San Francisco and New York City.

But the Republicans did that anyways. Estes literally says in one of his ads that Thompson "will vote the way Pelosi tells him to."

The result of this election can be attributed to the fact the GOP put a ton of resources into this race after they realized they might lose. Instead of capitalizing on that momentum, the Democrats just sat on their asses and said, "well, we can't win every election."

Democrats constantly think they're playing a chess game with the GOP where they have to sacrifice some moves, when in reality the GOP is playing dodgeball and constantly putting time and money into these elections and winning.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Matt Stoller did a thread on Twitter about the DCCC's failures that's really depressing:

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[Chief Justice Keef]

Dave Weigel: https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/852589127757291520

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[Chief Justice Keef]

Here come the good ole Karl Rove dirty tricks:

Lmao I'm just imagining Bliss' bowtie spinning as he garbles that out of his mouth

[Chief Justice Keef]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsMlhdrz7nE
Quist likes guns and doesn't like TVs

Outrageous. This man has the audacity to shoot a TV? Unendorsed.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Reading Gianforte's Wikipedia page:

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Is this real? Wow.

Literally evil. Reading that sent a shiver down my spine.

[Chief Justice Keef]

I'm sorry, but how is "Gianforte doesn't think you should be able to retire" not an attack ad yet?

[Chief Justice Keef]

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 !

God, what a hack.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Emerson Poll shows Gianforte up 15 points, 52-37.

https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling/status/856865798517870595

[Chief Justice Keef]

I never understood people treating this as a tossup. Bullock is a much better candidate than Quist and he narrowly won

Gianforte just lost the gubernatorial race and Quist is a state celebrity who's running as a populist

[Chief Justice Keef]

Does the DCCC not understand how to respond to attack ads, or do they just not care?

Both.