MT-SEN 2018: #Populism wins, #ShrillNeoliberalism loses

[IceSpear]

Surprise, surprise! Fagg is in.

Good lord. His middle school/high school life must have been hell.

[IceSpear]

Any update on this race?

Posting this here because it's nice to have one thread for one race.

The GOP primary is basically a three-way race between Rosendale, Downing and Fagg. We'll see who emerges victorious - Rosendale has an edge, but it's still very early. Like JMT said in the other thread, Fagg (the former Yellowstone County Judge) is touting the endorsements of Marc Racicot, Judy Martz, Rick Hill, Stan Stephens and Danny Rehberg, but I'm not sure if that's going to help him win the primary, and that's putting it mildly. Unlike the other Republicans running for Senate, Fagg has also praised McConnell (which might explain why McConnell hasn't thrown his support behind Rosendale yet) and is trying to portray himself as the center-right/traditional conservative Establishment/Anti-Bannonite choice in this race. I'm leaning toward supporting Rosendale, Downing is way too hawkish for my taste and too easy to attack and Fagg strikes me as quite overrated and Denny Rehberg 2.0.

As for the competitiveness of this race, it's probably Lean D at this point, honestly. Some people have also rated it Likely D, but no one really thinks it's a Tossup. I'm still skeptical of the "Tester has this" hype, but I'm beginning to doubt that Republicans have the necessary resources to win this race, particularly since the NRSC "experts" don't really seem to consider this a top-tier race anyway. Given the national environment and high Democratic enthusiasm, Tester's significant fundraising advantage (whoever the Republican nominee is, he will face an onslaught of negative ads, without the cash to respond in kind), the Democrats' high floor as well as the MT Democratic Party's strong organization, I've moved it from Tossup to Lean D, though Democrats would be dumb to take this race for granted. If Republicans lose this race, they really have no one to blame but themselves.

Will Racicot jump in?

/bronz

[IceSpear]

Can’t wait to vote against Fagg in the primary!

[IceSpear]

Obamacare is far more controversial than Jackson. Voters can barely name any cabinet members, let alone recollect a specific incident months before the election. If Tester can get away with voting for Obamacare (which was on literally 100% of voters minds in 2012 and most people in Montana disliked it), I don't see why a random cabinet members that barely any voters will remember will matter. Tester also had a very credible opponent in 2012 too.

Seriously LL, you are a political nerd who has not worked in your entire life. Most voters are not political nerds and don't follow everything 24/7. People tend to vote on bread and butter issues (e.g health care), not some random appointment. I know you're like a 16 year old kid or whatever and you aren't actually working or raising a family, which is why you are so out of touch with the average American voter.


Tester could very well lose because of his liberal voting record, but I don't think this VA thing will even lower his vote share by 0.5%. The media loves making up things that could be damaging because they need to produce articles to get ad revenue (aka $$, which you will learn when you enter the workforce). It's far more likely that immigration or some other issue is what brings Tester down.

Good to see someone on this forum has a brain. Seriously, how many people do you think even know who "Ronny Jackson" is? How many of this tiny group do you think are swing voters? How many of this tiny group of swing voters do you think are going to remember this 6 months from now, let alone base their vote on it? Just lol.

People who are such Trump sycophants that they'd get fired up about Tester voting against some random cabinet nominee are already rock solid Republican banked votes to begin with.

[IceSpear]

Great news for Senator Tester!

Judge boots Green Party from Montana ballot in boost to Tester

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/396303-judge-boots-green-party-from-montana-ballot-in-boost-to-tester

Nice!

[IceSpear]

I don't know how "Tester is safe" became a meme. I've never actually seen that said unironically.

Charlie Cook has had it as "likely D" from the very beginning, even having Senators like Tina Smith, Debbie Stabenow, Tammy Baldwin, and Angus King as more likely to lose at certain points (and still to this day for Tina Smith.)

[IceSpear]

Tester is running an ad about how Maryland Matt is a fake #populist

https://youtu.be/jk7HMKlHCgA

Absolutely devastating ad. Is there a rating higher than Titanium D?

[IceSpear]

Tester is running an ad about how Maryland Matt is a fake #populist

https://youtu.be/jk7HMKlHCgA

Absolutely devastating ad. Is there a rating higher than Titanium D?

Wow, I love the "Moo" sound at the end, though it doesn’t quite outdo this:

https://youtu.be/Rxn9mQffVg8
https://youtu.be/EZt6PzOQ_KQ

Glad Cramer and Tester both like cattle So much #populism

Those ads made me literally LMAO. The fact that the cow had an encore was hilarious.

[IceSpear]

Matt Rosendale in an interview with the conservative Washington Examiner opposes the federal mandates in Obamacare that force health insurance carriers to cover pre-existing medical conditions and prohibit lifetime caps on payouts.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1054370375981809665

Not sure how smart this is.

I don't think ROSENdale has a strong enough haircut to survive this gaffe.

[IceSpear]

Our forum's resident #populists are going to love this:

https://twitter.com/jontester/status/1055568925075750912

If Tester runs this as an ad he really might win by 24 points after all.

[IceSpear]

If Tester runs this as an ad he really might win by 24 points after all.

All been done before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joQi27QG7Cs
Even Rosendale ran one this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_wLNVRnYo8

This all reflects badly on the state, honestly. Remember when Atlas told us that swing voters base their votes on "issues"?

LOL!

Atlas thinks every single swing voter reads the entire "issues" page on each candidate's website (even the write-ins!), makes a pros/cons chart for each candidate on Microsoft Word, carefully weighs their options for weeks/months, then finally chooses a candidate to support based off rational analysis and logical evidence. lol

[IceSpear]

Guy from Pharos Research claims to have Tester +6 and Gianforte +1

https://twitter.com/leuchtman/status/1055917093692960769

I honestly don't think there are going to be legions of Tester/Gianforte voters. I think they both win narrowly, but if the hype is real about Tester and he wins by a big margin, I highly doubt that Gianforte wins simultaneously.

[IceSpear]

I honestly don't think there are going to be legions of Tester/Gianforte voters. I think they both win narrowly, but if the hype is real about Tester and he wins by a big margin, I highly doubt that Gianforte wins simultaneously.

I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that there will be legions of Tester/Gianforte voters, it’s just that I don’t buy the polls showing Tester winning in a landslide and doing 20-30 points better than Heidi Heitkamp. MT polling can be even worse than NV polling sometimes, and this year it has been particularly bad. While I could see Tester winning by 6 points in a big wave, that’s basically the best-case scenario for him, and there’s really no indication that the House race is much more competitive than the Senate race. But we’ll find out in eight days who was right.

Have you forgotten about Charlie Cook and Gravis? lol

[IceSpear]

Tester will more likely than not win this race, but it should be obvious to anyone at this point that this was never "Likely D" or less likely to flip than Nevada, Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, or New Jersey, lol.

Are you telling me "expert" Charlie Cook was wrong about Tina Smith and Angus King being more vulnerable than Tester? I don't believe his ratings have ever led us astray!

[IceSpear]

Tester got double digits in Garfield County! Quist and Hillary couldn't do it.

#Populism

[IceSpear]

Rosendale only up by ~1,100 according to CNN.

Assuming CNN's results are accurate (big assumption), all of the remaining vote is in the Tester counties of Missoula, Cascade, Gallatin, and Park, so he should narrowly squeak by. I'd feel more confident about saying that if CNN's site wasn't glitches galore this whole night.

[IceSpear]

Looks like Tester's fellow hard-workin', straight-shootin' #populists in Chouteau County (where Tester grew up and has a farm) abandoned him. Tester lost the county this year after winning it in 2012.

That's okay, he made up for it with neoliberal corporatists in Bozeman who loved Denny Rehberg.

[IceSpear]

Virginia and her love of exit polls that show Dems crushing it with young voters knows no bounds

I need serious help

Seriously though, I'm not even sure this means all that much. It's a pretty sharp turn over one election, but maybe it means a large group of voters that is more open to Democrats that can counter-balance the shift with Boomers.

But I can't help but be curious why Tester got such deep support from young people. He had more rounded support last time. Did Montana start some chain of hipster ranches or something?

There was a strong third party vote in 2012, not so this time. That could explain some of it.