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

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

lol watch Quist win anyways. I mean the margin in this race is getting closer, not further away.

I hope so! I'm expecting an email back on a venue for GOTV phonebanks in a couple days.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Yeah, I think people are assuming that these "scandals" have much more impact than they actually do. Pianoforte is favored, but I wouldn't count Quist out yet.

I've been saying this for several weeks now, but people here keep overreacting to these "breaking stories" ("OMG Russiagate will sink Pianoforte!!!!11") and random polls ("Emerson sez Gianforte +15? It's over!!1" - "Oh wait, Google poll shows him up 5? Likely D, then!!!1!1"). Still, Quist could have run a better campaign.

I don't think any particular scandal has sunk Quist. But Pianoforte's campaign has done a very good job of keeping up a constant drip, drip, drip of small bad things that build to a consistent narrative.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

I don't think any particular scandal has sunk Quist. But Pianoforte's campaign has done a very good job of keeping up a constant drip, drip, drip of small bad things that build to a consistent narrative.

Again, I hate to sound like bronz here, but both sides™ do stuff like this in a Congressional race. The Quist campaign has been running attack ads claiming that PF and his business have had 22 tax liens filed against them, which simply isn't true. They also accused him of actively supporting groups which are trying to sell public lands and some other stuff like him being from NJ, blocking stream access near his estate, etc.

All Quist needs/needed to do is stick by his populist playbook and localize the race. He had a poor debate performance, doesn't really have clear political positions on a lot of issues (especially foreign and gun policy) and is trying to appeal to everyone at the same time. That's not necessarily the fault of the national Democratic party, but rather a result of Quist being a very mediocre candidate. Of course he could still win this race, but only because it's a special election and only because Montana is a very Democratic-friendly state.

I mean... I wasn't making an accusation? In fact, I was mostly complimenting the competence of Pianoforte's staff.

I'm not a Montanan, so my info on the race is pretty limited to what the Billings Gazette, Missoulian, and Helena IR choose to put into my Facebook feed. And so far that's been much more heavily slanted towards anti-Quist oppo than anti-Gianforte oppo.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

I mean... I wasn't making an accusation? In fact, I was mostly complimenting the competence of Pianoforte's staff.

I'm not a Montanan, so my info on the race is pretty limited to what the Billings Gazette, Missoulian, and Helena IR choose to put into my Facebook feed. And so far that's been much more heavily slanted towards anti-Quist oppo than anti-Gianforte oppo.

You should have followed the 2016 gubernatorial race, then - Quist's attack ads are very similar to the one Bullock and the DGA ran. If Pianoforte wins, it won't be because his oppo reseatch team is competent: Both campaigns are basically just repeating talking points and trying to rally their base with these attacks, but nothing serious has been revealed so far - I mean, no one cares about this nudist story, for example.

This idea that some Bernie people often seem to have - that everyone is conspiring against their candidate - is a bit ridiculous. Quist could have won the race fairly easily, and he might still win by a narrow margin, who knows. But just blaming Republican attack ads, Perez or national Democratic groups for a potential loss is nonsense.

I don't want to argue about this any longer, though. The results are going to be very interesting, regardless to who wins. I look forward to the county by county results and how accurate my map will be The East-West divide could be very large, but there is no way we will see a 58-point gap (which is basically what Castro's and cinyc's GCS poll showed). If Quist is getting crushed that badly in Eastern MT (which also means he is losing Yellowstone County by a lot, a place where I admittedly don't see him having that much crossover appeal), there is no way he will win the election. Of course the reverse is true as well - PF losing Western MT by 29 (which is not even remotely possible, but okay) would mean that he loses the election by a Blanche Lincoln style margin. The overall result (Quist +5) strikes me as a bit Democratic-friendly, but I'm prepared for everything, I guess. Republicans would do best if they didn't get their hopes up and prepared for a loss, so that they can be pleasantly surprised if things turn out better than expected on election day.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding what I'm saying.

Though I do wish that DCCC had gotten into the race earlier, and I suspect that their reticence comes from a regional and ideological bias, what I'm mostly saying is:

A) Pianoforte (from what I'm seeing, which is admittedly limited) is running a better campaign than Quist.

B) Part of that is simply that Quist is really new to politics, and while being a touring musician and a candidate for office are superficially similar (public performance, long hours, cheap hotels, working ropelines) in fact he's not really doing a good job adjusting.

C) The MTDems and state VIPs that recruited Quist should have vetted his biography and, at minimum, addressed all of these (small) issues that Pianoforte is using quite well at the beginning of the campaign, or else recruited someone else.

I think I've also expressed frustration that National Democrats aren't doing infrastructural things like opposition research. I'm not sure, ultimately, whose responsibility that is. But I'm merely wishing that *someone * was doing it, because (at least in the newspapers) whatever research is being done by the Quist campaign isn't really getting traction.


Also -

Quist - 43.0, Gianforte - 70.3, Wicks - 7.9

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Looking forward to the Gianforte landslide!!!!

If you define a landslide as 1-5 points while getting 48-49% of the vote, go ahead.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Looking forward to the Gianforte landslide!!!!

If you define a landslide as 1-5 points while getting 48-49% of the vote, go ahead.

If Democrat newspapers are endorsing Gianforte, he probably has a good shot at a 10 point or 12 point win, and that's big for MT in non-presidential races.

Newspaper endorsements do not matter.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Considering that one of Mission Mountain Wood Band's iconic songs was "Take a Whiff on Me" I think any montanan that is surprised by Quist's use of softer stuff should have their head examined.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Could it be that they're more worried about Montana just because the Montana race is sooner and therefore a more immediate concern?

I think it's more that both campaigns have effectively 'maxed out' in the GA 6. Like, if you have a Democratic campaign that's suspended direct voter contact operations because they've completely saturated the universe... how much more can either campaign do? Meanwhile, while PF has been spending a lot of money, and Quist has a decent warchest as well, there's still a lot more 'to do' for each campaign.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Can Gianforte just behave himself for the next week? Doesn't he realize that if he loses, a BERNIECRAT gets elected? This is honestly getting a little scary.

Since you didn't respond last time -

^^^ Since you're clearly at it again, I'd like a response to this:

Wulfric, do even know what socialism is? Define it in a sentence or two without hitting up Google or Wikipedia.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Since Bernie Sanders lives in America, all Americans are evil commie socialists!!!

#DeportBernie2020

The only way America can get that CRUCIAL Wulfric endorsement.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Rob Quist @RobQuistforMT

**UPDATE** Saturday's Billings rally with @BernieSanders has moved to MetraPark, due to overwhelming excitement for Rob! #BigSkyBern

The Missoula rally was moved to a bigger venue, too.

Say what you want about him, but Bernie can fill a room pretty much anywhere in the United States.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

OMG Quist smoked pot!!!111!!!!11!!!!!(one)!!!!!!11

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

OMG Quist smoked pot!!!111!!!!11!!!!!(one)!!!!!!11

He's ducking the marijuana and health questions, instead of taking them head on.  That doesn't look good.  He intially lied about his citation for smoking pot, then immediately hung up on the reporter.  His spokeswoman had to set the record straight. 

Quist should have taken the Clinton route and just admitted it.  What hippie musician in the 70s didn't smoke pot?

Yeah. I think this is definitely his lack of experience and charisma showing. What would you do if someone asked you out of the blue if you'd done something illegal?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

So smoking pot in 2017 is "more controversial" than in the 70s?

Well it's gotten stronger, you see.

But in all seriousness, while I think pot smoking is probably pretty acceptable to most of the population, it's still a pretty big deal for a federal candidate to casually admit to committing a contemporaneous felony.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Quist currently at a 34% chance on PredictIt: https://www.predictit.org/Market/2961/Who-will-win-the-2017-House-of-Representatives-special-election-in-Montana

How many predictIt users are intimately familiar with Montana politics?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Quist currently at a 34% chance on PredictIt: https://www.predictit.org/Market/2961/Who-will-win-the-2017-House-of-Representatives-special-election-in-Montana

How many predictIt users are intimately familiar with Montana politics?

Judging from the comment section, not many.

Yeah, this sort of thing leads me to be deeply skeptical of betting markets. Are they good for assessing the cosmopolitan elite's conventional wisdom? Yes. Is that vaguely influential on world events? Yes. Does that mean that they're strongly predictive? No.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/653200?unlock=SOV8HJ4QZYZGD2I1

While that's definitely true, I think the media generally underestimate how much of the pro-Trump vote was really anti-Clinton

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

qualitative report from a GOTV phonebank today - it sounds like the Quist campaign is really hitting its GOTV universe. We're exactly where you want to be 3 days out - pretty much 2/3 of people you call have been called like 8 times and are incredibly annoyed XD.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

To a certain extent, provided the public is made fully aware of this, GG getting elected today doesn't matter; DCCC will throw it on the top of the target list for 2018.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Quist was never going to win. MT went for Trump by 20 points. It's one of those states that still likes to pretend it's open minded but PF just destroyed to liberal New Jersey narrative by expressing his contempt for a liberal eastern professional. Expect him in the senate one day.

Montana is definitely open to Democrats in state and federal offices under the right circumstances. Have you even seen a chart of MT's political party power?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_Montana

Look how blue that is. The legislature is generally reliably Republican but state executive and federal offices have been as Democratic as Republican, and if you look at the Senate seats, Democrats have actually controlled those far longer than Republicans for the past century.

You could be right that maybe Quist specifically was never going to win, but MT is not a dead-end for Democrats.

Same reply as to wulfric. I agree that MT was open to Democrats pre 2015, and especially pre 2009, but it's changed. Bullock was lucky to squeak by as an incumbent. I expect the next several years to be very bad for MT Democrats.

This is all subjective, but I'm going to say that this drastically misperceives the political ground in Montana. For an anecdotal example from my phonebanking last night, I talked to a (very friendly) Alex Jones devotee and Trump lover who was gonna go out and vote for Quist because the MT GOP (and national GOP) are just dead wrong on public lands. Local issues of power and inequality help give the Democratic party life here.  

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

First results reporting!

Lewis and Clark   18/37   Quist: 9,975 53% PF: 7,956 42% Wicks: 956 5%

(that's Helena and surrounds  btw)

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Remember, Bullock was an incumbent who had 60+ approval ratings barely coasted by-- only won by 4 points. Otherwise he would have been toast.

So you are saying this is a pretty good performance, and the Democrats ought to nominate Berniecrats for everything. Message received!

The Berniecrat just lost to a criminal. Very successful brand of politics to be selling. Where's jfern?

The flawed, first time candidate berniecrat is currently 5.2 pts down (according to NYT) against someone who was charged with assault after most ballots had already been cast. Calm your jets.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Did Quist do something to piss off the people of Big Horn County?  

Native American turnout must have plummeted like Robenson County NC in 2016.

The Crow tribe endorsed the GOP candidate for the first time in a long time because the tribal economy is dependent on coal (and like, Quist's staff must have taken them for granted or something)

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

<snip>

w-o-w can you see the Crow Tribe's flip doing its work in Big Horn County.

Is there any indication that they're going to ally with the GOP long term?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

<snip>

w-o-w can you see the Crow Tribe's flip doing its work in Big Horn County.

Is there any indication that they're going to ally with the GOP long term?

Well, the Crow Tribe does have coal on their reservation, so I will assume that it will be a major factor in their endorsements.

Yeah, but I seemed to remember that they endorsed Dems pretty regularly before. So is this yet another Democratic casualty in the #waroncoal? Or was this a one-election deal?