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

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Republican Party has embrace an almost early Soviet style devotion to the ever constant quest for greater purification and routing out of those hostile elements who have found themselves within their ranks from a variety of backgrounds and origins and whose presence serves to dillute and pollute the Party.


Of course, this is not a Totalitarian regime, so the notion that you can superimpose a bog standard conservative boilerplate into every race, in every state is a recipe for electoral disaster and a big reason why we no longer can compete at all in close to 20 states.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is a horrifying result no matter how you slice it.

Something has gone horribly wrong in American politics, and I don't think it's going to get fixed any time soon.

I seem to recall an incident in 2006 where Conrad Burns attacked a group of out of state firefighters for "not doing enough" to help with the wildfires in the state.

Many thought it contributed to his loss, perhaps it did considering how close it was. But, Burns was trailing by 20 point and IIRC, subsequent polls to that incident showed Burns gaining ground.

I tend to think you are right to some extent, especially with regards to Montana as this is the second time that such unacceptable behavior, seemingly didn't play out the way it would have expected.

Or perhaps it is just coincidence.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is a horrifying result no matter how you slice it.

Something has gone horribly wrong in American politics, and I don't think it's going to get fixed any time soon.

I seem to recall an incident in 2006 where Conrad Burns attacked a group of out of state firefighters for "not doing enough" to help with the wildfires in the state.

Many thought it contributed to his loss, perhaps it did considering how close it was. But, Burns was trailing by 20 point and IIRC, subsequent polls to that incident showed Burns gaining ground.

I tend to think you are right to some extent, especially with regards to Montana as this is the second time that such unacceptable behavior, seemingly didn't play out the way it would have expected.

Or perhaps it is just coincidence.

Burns was not down by 20 points at any time. He was trailing, but the polls were very close, within single digits from all pollsters except a poll from Montana State University (dubious) and clustered in the 1-5 point lead for Tester range. I agree that some people attributed his loss to the firefighter comments, but whether those actually made a difference is hard to say. The polls didn't change much and more or less matched the final result.

https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/SENATE/2006/polls.php?fips=30

I seemed to have recalled him further down because of the Abramoff scandal, at least early on.

Either way, one would expect such an incident to cause him to lose by a wide margin, not come within a 1% tie.