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

[Skill and Chance]

That would probably require a Democratic governor to get elected in 2020, because in the hypothetical scenario of Montana getting a second district, a Republican could just force him out East and draw a new Western district. I'm skeptical of a Democrat keeping the mansion for 20 straight years, and assuming Bullock challenges Daines and Quist is still in office, that'd be asking to send 2 Democrats to Washington and 1 to Helena. That's a tough sell to a state that voted for Trump by 20%.

Congressmen don't technically need to live in the district they represent, just the state.  And he could always move into the new district, anyway. 

I suppose that a Republican could gerrymander two clear Republican-leaning districts, though.  But the power of incumbency is sometimes stronger than district lines, anyway.

Montana actually has an independent redistricting commission by constitutional amendment, so a clean east-west split is basically assured if the state ever gets MT-02 back.  I think an all western MT-02 would reliably go for someone like Quist and be competitive between the parties in general.

[Xing]

I'll believe Quist winning by double digits when I see it, but Democrats definitely made the right choice picking him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that while Democrats have had a lot of success in Montana, their victories are often pluralities or very slim majorities. I have to wonder if Wicks is going to end up being somewhat of a spoiler, and if Quist will win with 47-49% of the vote...

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

FWIW, since it's been questioned in the thread, Quist really DOES appear to be very well known in MT. Apparently he played this thing that became known as MT's Woodstock in 1974? There was apparently a LOT of beer.

This comes from reading local press + asking around with some relatives from Butte.

[windjammer]

Well, it's far from a given that Montana will gain that CD, right now it's really close in all the projections (but IIRC, they said that it's slightly more likely that it won't happen). If it does, Quist has that seat for as long as he wants it.

Unless Fox runs, I'd say Democrats are heavily favored in the 2020 gubernatorial race, so that's a problem. I wish heatcharger was right, but voters don't care how many Democrats there already are in Congress. If the GOP wants to stop Quist and Tester, 2018 will be their best and probably only opportunity. If they can't win either race next year, things will only get worse for them in 2020 IMO.

Fox is going to run. There is no way that he's not a favorite for this election.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

Well, it's far from a given that Montana will gain that CD, right now it's really close in all the projections (but IIRC, they said that it's slightly more likely that it won't happen). If it does, Quist has that seat for as long as he wants it.

Unless Fox runs, I'd say Democrats are heavily favored in the 2020 gubernatorial race, so that's a problem. I wish heatcharger was right, but voters don't care how many Democrats there already are in Congress. If the GOP wants to stop Quist and Tester, 2018 will be their best and probably only opportunity. If they can't win either race next year, things will only get worse for them in 2020 IMO.

Fox is going to run. There is no way that he's not a favorite for this election.

Unless the RSCC successfully convinces him to go for Senate...

[Heisenberg]

Well, it's far from a given that Montana will gain that CD, right now it's really close in all the projections (but IIRC, they said that it's slightly more likely that it won't happen). If it does, Quist has that seat for as long as he wants it.

Unless Fox runs, I'd say Democrats are heavily favored in the 2020 gubernatorial race, so that's a problem. I wish heatcharger was right, but voters don't care how many Democrats there already are in Congress. If the GOP wants to stop Quist and Tester, 2018 will be their best and probably only opportunity. If they can't win either race next year, things will only get worse for them in 2020 IMO.

Fox is going to run. There is no way that he's not a favorite for this election.

Unless the RSCC successfully convinces him to go for Senate...

Buttrey would be better. Fox getting the Senate seat requires him to resign as AG, and then Bullock appoints a Democrat, creating a new rising star in the Montana Democratic Party.

[Heisenberg]

Fox is going to run. There is no way that he's not a favorite for this election.

It would be Tilt or mayyybe Leans R at best, but closer to Tossup. No Republican is going to win a gubernatorial election in Montana easily, not even Fox. He should go for the Senate race instead IMO. If he loses narrowly, he can still run in 2020.

Also I had a dream last night in which Tester won reelection by 0.3%, LOL.

Oh that would be so devastating, by 0.3%, especially if the LP candidate got 3% or more (that's happened many times).
I am frightened by the prospect of Bullock appointing a young, progressive AG who wins the Governorship in 2020 and 2024, then wins a Senate seat in 2026 or 2030 and becomes a lifer.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Treasurer in your opinion if Bullock ran for the nom in 2020 an won it vs a  unpopular Trump that MT going for Bullock due to some state pride/him being a liked governor?

[The Other Castro]

I thought I would poll Montana for this race as well to see if these results could be recreated, and what I ended up with was very interesting. All of the information on analyzing raw data came from cinyc, who was a huge help in making all of this. Links to the Google Survey and cinyc's spreadsheet with all the information are at the bottom.

"Montanans will go to the polls on May 25 to vote for a new U.S. Congressman. If this special election were held today, who would you vote for?"

Rob Quist (Democratic Party)
Greg Gianforte (Republican Party)
Mark Wicks (Libertarian Party)
I will not be voting in this election

334 people were polled, with 104 of the 334 selecting "I will not be voting in this election". Following the same weights as in the previous poll posted, the weighted results were: TIE

Rob Quist (DemocraticParty) - 47%
Greg Gianforte (Republican Party) - 47%
Mark Wicks (Libertarian Party) - 6%

Unweighted, it was also tied 47-47-7 (rounding errors led to a sum of greater than 100%). Quist actually led in raw numbers by exactly one single vote (107-108). Gianforte led for most of the duration of the poll, with the results becoming narrower at the end. The poll ran from 3/14-16 Mountain Time.

East (Weighted; N=85): Gianforte +20 (Unweighted: Gianforte +18)
Gianforte 58%
Quist 38%
Wicks 4%

West (Weighted; N=141): Quist +16 (Unweighted: Quist +11)
Quist 55%   
Gianforte 39%   
Wicks 6%

https://surveys.google.com/reporting/survey?survey=73vzmhbs6xqze7qc4a6qifsigq

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XUxjxg70OhTrVtm6K2HulJHaRDVbuD_VN_gPUxrNIUc/edit?usp=sharing

[cinyc]

The spreadsheet at the link is to the full spreadsheet I usually use to sift through the raw data for the nuggets like age, sex, time, date, urban/suburban/rural status, income, response type and geographical region.

There were some other trends compared to my poll:

The 55-65s and 65+s in this poll went to Gianforte, unlike in my poll, where the 55-65s were one of Quist's best groups.

The suburban/rural divide persists, with Quist winning suburbanites by 10 and Gianforte leading among rural residents by 15 (both, unweighted).  Again, there were too few urbanites for any meaningful analysis.

The poll again shows that most Montanans are solidly middle class, in the $25K-$50K range.  Higher incomes tended to be more Gianforte, but there are far too few respondents to be sure.

I also break things down by time on the spreadsheet.  As Castro said, Gianforte had a large lead in the beginning, which dwindled at the end.

This poll makes more intuitive sense than mine, even with the lower sample size.

[Figueira]

Very interesting. I obviously think Castro's poll is going to be closer to the actual results, not that Google can tell you much.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Thanks, Castro!

Now we just need a poll telling us Gianforte +20. J/k, these numbers look quite plausible, honestly, and by election day I think Castro's poll won't be too far off.

@Hindsight: Bullock will not be the Democratic nominee, so speculating about this is kinda pointless. I think he would lose the state by an Obama 2008 margin in a good Democratic year, unless Trump completely implodes (then he could certainly win it). If it's a good R year, though? No chance, even though he would have a high floor.

Donald fing Trump is president so I don't see why Bullock couldn't

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Donald fing Trump is president so I don't see why Bullock couldn't

There is no indication that he's going to run for president, sorry. Not to mention that I don't see him winning a Democratic primary. He'll likely run for Senate instead, the Democrats would be stupid to basically concede that race. Daines is extremely vulnerable, and while some other Democrats could give him a run for his money as well, I think Bullock is the only one who could win (it would be very close, though).

I'm sure there's a reason for this that I've missed, but why wouldn't Schweitzer run for Senate? Sure, he will have been out of office for six years at that point, but one doesn't just waste a politician who got 65% of the vote last time they stood for election...

[Figueira]

Donald fing Trump is president so I don't see why Bullock couldn't

There is no indication that he's going to run for president, sorry. Not to mention that I don't see him winning a Democratic primary. He'll likely run for Senate instead, the Democrats would be stupid to basically concede that race. Daines is extremely vulnerable, and while some other Democrats could give him a run for his money as well, I think Bullock is the only one who could win (it would be very close, though).

I'm sure there's a reason for this that I've missed, but why wouldn't Schweitzer run for Senate? Sure, he will have been out of office for six years at that point, but one doesn't just waste a politician who got 65% of the vote last time they stood for election...

Presumably the same reason he didn't run in 2014?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Donald fing Trump is president so I don't see why Bullock couldn't

There is no indication that he's going to run for president, sorry. Not to mention that I don't see him winning a Democratic primary. He'll likely run for Senate instead, the Democrats would be stupid to basically concede that race. Daines is extremely vulnerable, and while some other Democrats could give him a run for his money as well, I think Bullock is the only one who could win (it would be very close, though).

I'm sure there's a reason for this that I've missed, but why wouldn't Schweitzer run for Senate? Sure, he will have been out of office for six years at that point, but one doesn't just waste a politician who got 65% of the vote last time they stood for election...

Presumably the same reason he didn't run in 2014?

I always thought that was because he was eyeing the Presidency in 2016 (before he got caught up in the Eric Cantor 'gaydar' comment etc. etc.) and didn't want to announce for another office six-to-eight months after his election.

Surely he's not running for President in 2020...?

EDIT: Upon further research looks like there was some campaign finance kerfuffle that was about to blow up.

At this point, provided he isn't continuing to engage in shady practices, can't he just say "no one came forward with anything," and move on?

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

In other news, Gianforte gave 1.1 million to a Billings affordable housing project in Dec. 2016.

In case anyone's keeping score, that timeline means that he did it basically as soon as he knew Zinke was being appointed Interior Secretary.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

In other other news, 800k in TV ads have already been spent on the race.

All of them on the GOP side.

[Hindsight was 2020]

In other other news, 800k in TV ads have already been spent on the race.

All of them on the GOP side.

God dammit Perez

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

In other other news, 800k in TV ads have already been spent on the race.

All of them on the GOP side.

God dammit Perez

That would actually be the DCCC's decision rather than Perez's, but thanks for playing

[Figueira]

God dammit Luján then. I hope Democrats get in this.

[Sumner 1868]

In other other news, 800k in TV ads have already been spent on the race.

All of them on the GOP side.

Figures. D's probably won't spend a cent there until GA-06 is over.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

In other other news, 800k in TV ads have already been spent on the race.

All of them on the GOP side.

Figures. D's probably won't spend a cent there until GA-06 is over.

Ideally they'd be reserving the ad space now though, while it's cheaper. Do we know how much they're spending on the GA 6?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

God dammit Luján then. I hope Democrats get in this.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Lujan, but the alternative (Sean Patrick Baloney) would've been infinitely worse, if you can believe it

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

God dammit Luján then. I hope Democrats get in this.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Lujan, but the alternative (Sean Patrick Baloney) would've been infinitely worse, if you can believe it

Like, he even has the benefit of incumbency. I assume there's no major staff turnover at DCCC, they knew they weren't going to be challenged as of December (before Zinke got picked) so it's not like they were holding their collective breath waiting to get replaced...

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

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."