2020 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[MT Treasurer]

Apologies if this has already been posted:

MT-AL: U of Montana, Oct. 10-18, 607 RV

Williams (D) 45.8
Gianforte (R, inc) 45.3
Swanson (L) 1.8

Folks are nuts if they still have this as Lean R.

Just ignore the Tester +3/Gianforte +8 poll and take a Williams +1/Tester +10 poll at face value, okay then. But I get that people are basically just basing their predictions for these two races on their personal feelings.

[MT Treasurer]

I think Gianforte will be fine if the Senate race is Tester +3, but it will be closer than it should be.

[MT Treasurer]

This is garbage, but makes sense coming from the pollster that had Sununu up by 8, lol. Let me put it this way: Someone like Eddie Edwards isn’t winning in a district like NH-01, even if his opponent's name is Pappas.

[MT Treasurer]

Democrats also won by 8 points in 2006. What I don’t understand is why 2006 wasn’t a worse year for Republicans when Bush was more unpopular than Trump, the economy was in worse shape than it is right now, and people were dying in Iraq. It seems kinda bizarre that Democrats might do better this year than in 2006.

[MT Treasurer]

Democrats also won by 8 points in 2006. What I don’t understand is why 2006 wasn’t a worse year for Republicans when Bush was more unpopular than Trump, the economy was in worse shape than it is right now, and people were dying in Iraq. It seems kinda bizarre that Democrats might do better this year than in 2006.

Both parties have a very high floor. In 2006 there were tons of polls showing Democrats up 15-20 points on the generic ballot, then Republicans surged at the very last second for literally no reason. Most likely because a win that big was never possible under any circumstances.

Why did they surge in 2006 but not this year? I get that Democrats hate Trump more than Bush, but overall, conditions were still more unfavorable for the GOP in 2006 than this year.

Part of the change is dems have a much more reliable group in their coalition now: strong support from college educated whites.

Good point, yeah. I guess that explains part of it.

[MT Treasurer]

How do Horn, McAdams, and Cunningham win again?  They're among my favorites of the new class so far.

Hope 2020 is a Democratic tsunami, because they're going to lose otherwise.

With how their districts are trending, Horn and McAdams certainly don’t need a "tsunami" to survive. A good year for Democrats? Maybe. A tsunami? No. Cunningham is probably the most vulnerable of the three, but then again I wouldn’t say he’s much more likely to lose than someone like Brindisi or Peterson.

[MT Treasurer]

Kathleen Williams (D) is taking another shot at MT-AL, should be an interesting race between her and Winter.

[MT Treasurer]

Kathleen Williams (D) is taking another shot at MT-AL, should be an interesting race between her and Winter.

I'm not seeing this unless it's a blowout Trump loss.   Could be an audition for a potential MT-02 in 2022?  Given the redistricting commission in the state constitution, it's basically assured to be an all Western MT district if it happens, which would be a pretty easy D pickup in a Trump midterm and will probably only get more Dem going forward given the Colorado-like trends in the Western MT "cities."

Generally agree, but not sure how two consecutive losses would help Williams in a 2022 D primary. Winter is also from the more Democratic hypothetical district, so my guess is if he finishes a close second in 2020, he’ll probably be courted again in 2022. Somewhat interesting (and maybe a little surprising) that both Democrats decided to run for House rather than governor or Senator, two races where the MTDP still lacks declared candidates. There’s also the possibility of the House seat opening up if Gianforte jumps into the governor's race, so I guess a lot of calculations are being made right now depending on Gianforte's most likely next moves. If I had to rank the four most likely Republican candidates at the top of the ticket from most difficult to easiest to beat, it would be Fox > Daines > Gianforte > Rosendale (probably the frontrunner if he runs for an open House seat). Another reason for not running for MT-SEN may be that no one wants to step up to challenge Daines and then step aside once Bullock loses IA. If Bullock runs for SEN and Cooney runs for GOV, the D primaries for SEN/GOV will be a snoozefest, although Cooney is clearly the more beatable candidate in both the primary and the general.

[MT Treasurer]

Golden running for reelection rather than Senate is definitely good news for Democrats. I doubt he would have been the ideal Democrat to run against Collins, and he won’t be as easy to beat in ME-02 as many people are making it out to be.

[MT Treasurer]

Golden running for reelection rather than Senate is definitely good news for Democrats. I doubt he would have been the ideal Democrat to run against Collins, and he won’t be as easy to beat in ME-02 as many people are making it out to be.

Are you joking? So he can run in  a seat that voted for Trump by 10 points and voted for Shawn Moody? He's may as well start writing his concession speech. He would have  been able to prevent bleeding in rural areas that we need to win statewide. A normal "resistance" democrat will get walloped in rural areas.

He’s running in a district that voted for him and Angus King and Shawn Moody in the same year; and IIRC, Moody only narrowly carried it against a Democrat with little to no appeal to the district. While ME-02 is pretty clearly trending Republican, it has also been a fairly incumbent-friendly district for a long time now, which is an underrated reason why Poliquin barely lost it in a wave year and only after RCV. Even if we assume that Golden only has like a 35-40% chance of winning reelection (that’s probably being fairly generous to Republicans given how weak their bench appears to be here), that’s a lot better than the 15-20% chance you’d have of holding an open House seat without Golden. I also strongly doubt that Golden’s 2018 strategy in a congressional seat like ME-02 would have been easily replicable in a statewide race against someone like Collins. Would he have run as a moderate Democrat touting his bipartisanship and work for Collins in ME-02 and simultaneously as a progressive Democrat exposing Collins’s fake moderate image in ME-01?

[MT Treasurer]

Republicans blowing ME-02 might be the least surprising news ever, Golden was smart to pass on the Senate race and run for reelection. As for McSally, the only question is whether she loses in 2020 or 2022 (she’s already a substantial underdog in 2020 if you ask me, but even if she somehow survives 2020, she’s 100% gone in another Trump midterm).

[MT Treasurer]

Why is the GOP obsessed with winning Texas 7th?

Because a lot of Republican stategists are completely oblivious to reality. The NRSC and NRCC are two of the greatest Democratic assets.

[MT Treasurer]

Why is the GOP obsessed with winning Texas 7th?

Because a lot of Republican stategists are completely oblivious to reality. The NRSC and NRCC are two of the greatest Democratic assets.

Yeah! it is sooo crazy to think a Clinton +1 plurality district is remotely competitive. Obvious Safe D. Safer than NY14 because the trends are so fast obviously.

Republicans should absolutely put up a decent wave insurance candidate here, they just shouldn’t prioritize the district over much more winnable PA-8, MN-7, WI-3, ME-2, IA-2, IA-1, etc., just like they should have contested MT-SEN and WV-SEN from the get-go instead of only making a half-hearted last-ditch effort in those races. Guess propping up Luther Strange, defending strong incumbent Heller, and beating socialist Baldwin and weak incumbent Menendez was just too important tho

[MT Treasurer]

Ossoff to run against Perdue.

Oh dear.

Perdue would beat Ossoff fairly easily, by about 5-10 points or so. And Ossoff would definitely drag down Democratic chances of winning the other seat.

Ossoff wouldn’t lose by 5-10 points in a state like Georgia. Maybe 3-4 points at worst. Why would he drag down Democratic chances of winning the other seat? He might not be the "strongest candidate", but he’s hardly some Democratic Todd Akin.

[MT Treasurer]

Former MT GOP chair Debra Lamm is running for MT-AL and against socialism or something

Lamm said the upcoming election is a battle over a future “defined by socialism or American exceptionalism,” and that as a member of Congress she would “stand with President Trump to protect this country and our Montana way of life.” [...]

Four other Republicans already are in the race, including two statewide officeholders: State Auditor Matt Rosendale, Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, Helena farmer-rancher Joe Dooling and Corvallis Superintendent of Schools Tim Johnson.

Three Democrats also are competing for the seat, including former state Rep. Kathleen Williams of Bozeman, who lost the 2018 general election to Gianforte by five percentage points, 51 percent to 46 percent.

The other Democrats in the contest are rancher Matt Rains of Simms and state Rep. Tom Winter of Missoula.

https://www.krtv.com/news/montana-news/former-state-gop-chair-becomes-fifth-republican-in-2020-u-s-house-race

[MT Treasurer]

Have we found Tester’s 2024 opponent?

God help us if it’s Lamm. At this point Republicans should honestly just hope that Gianforte pulls a Rick Scott (beats Cooney and then runs for Senate as a popular incumbent governor). If this doesn’t happen, I’d go with someone like Jon Bennion if he wins AG. 2018 was really a missed opportunity for Republicans, and Tester certainly won’t be any easier to beat in 2024 when the state will be even less Republican. Not that it can’t be done, but I’m not optimistic.

[MT Treasurer]

Cook has moved NC from Likely R (yes, they had NC in the same category as MS/KY/TN) to Lean R.

[MT Treasurer]

Too lazy to find the MT-SEN thread right now (and there are many lol), so I’ll just post this here.

Two more Democrats have entered the Senate race:

Cora Neumann of Bozeman announced her candidacy Tuesday morning in a video. [...]

Nuemann says she’s focused on affordable and accessible health care, meaning protecting the Affordable Care Act. She says her campaign priorities also include protecting public lands, removing corporate special interests from politics and job creation. [...]

Another Bozemanite, Michael Knoles, has also filed paperwork to run for the U.S. Senate. But he has not yet publicly announced his campaign.

The other Democrats in the race include Helena Mayor Wilmot Collins and John Mues, a Navy veteran and engineer from Loma.

https://www.mtpr.org/post/new-candidates-enter-montanas-2020-us-senate-race

I don’t know who these people are, and it’s safe to say that they pose no real threat to Collins and Mues.

[MT Treasurer]

Huh, Mues is from Tester's county. Possible since Bullock is out, Maybe Tester knows Mues? And has politically adopted him to run? hmm

I don’t know, but Mues is definitely running a more polished campaign than the other candidates, and he really does come off as a handpicked candidate to a certain extent, but this is all speculation.

Of course this race has also received close to zero attention so far, and there are probably only three or four people in the entire state who have heard of all the candidates (it doesn’t help that they’re all political novices). The average MT voter isn’t exactly the most inquisitive or politically aware species either.