MT-SEN 2020: Time for Bullock?

[Skye]

Maybe Atlas is right and Daines is really heavily favored and I know nothing about my state's politics, but given this forum's (poor) track record when it comes to predicting Montana elections I’ll happily stick with my prediction. Underestimate Bullock/MT Dems to your heart's content, Republicans, but don’t say you weren’t warned when the first poll of this race shows Bullock up by 8 points or something like that.

I’m far from a Democratic hack and I still think this race is a Toss-up. If there’s a Democratic tidal wave like everyone here seems to think, it will hit pretty much every state. There’s a lot of uncertainty in this race, and I’m certainly not going to make the mistake of trusting the same people who unironically told me that AL-SEN 2017 was Safe R, sorry. Could Blackburn win by a lot? Absolutely, but if she does, there’s no way Democrats are holding states like MO or IN, winning MT/WV by double digits, or making TX competitive, etc., and more likely that the Democratic "wave" will be a "ripple" instead. Senate race outcomes are highly correlated with one another, they don’t occur in a vacuum.

The demogaphics for TN (60%ish white evangelical voting population, very white Dixie state, etc) are infinitely worse for Democrats than in states like MO, IN, TX, etc. Seeing MO and IN decided by squeakers while TN votes 8 points for Blackburn is well within the cards.

We’re talking about a candidate who swept every county in 2006 and won by 39 points in said state, when demographics were slightly better for Dems but still very unfavorable. He has the adventage of being able to tap into a reservoir of residual goodwill/nostalgia and is uniquely suited to appeal to high propensity and center-right voters who are fine with Bill Lee but just can’t bring themselves to vote for a "shrill extremist/lunatic" over their Phil Bredesen.

I guess we’ll see on Tuesday, but I guarantee you if Blackburn actually wins by double digits on election night, then Democrats will have a lot bigger problems to worry about than this race.

Is your logic about Montana seriously any different than these arguments you made prior to Bredesen getting completely crushed on Election Day as Dems would go on to win the House vote by 8-9 points?

I don’t know why you’re so unwilling to accept that polarization in senate races is a very real thing since you clearly got egg on your face about Heidi’s retail politics and Bredi’s 39 point 2006 governor win.

I think that, aside from the Tossup rating, IndyRep's analysis was spot on, especially the bolded part (he misjudged TX, like most of us, maybe because we underestimated the strength of the D trend there). And, since he didn't deny the possibility of a big Blackburn win, I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Maybe Atlas is right and Daines is really heavily favored and I know nothing about my state's politics, but given this forum's (poor) track record when it comes to predicting Montana elections I’ll happily stick with my prediction. Underestimate Bullock/MT Dems to your heart's content, Republicans, but don’t say you weren’t warned when the first poll of this race shows Bullock up by 8 points or something like that.

I’m far from a Democratic hack and I still think this race is a Toss-up. If there’s a Democratic tidal wave like everyone here seems to think, it will hit pretty much every state. There’s a lot of uncertainty in this race, and I’m certainly not going to make the mistake of trusting the same people who unironically told me that AL-SEN 2017 was Safe R, sorry. Could Blackburn win by a lot? Absolutely, but if she does, there’s no way Democrats are holding states like MO or IN, winning MT/WV by double digits, or making TX competitive, etc., and more likely that the Democratic "wave" will be a "ripple" instead. Senate race outcomes are highly correlated with one another, they don’t occur in a vacuum.

The demogaphics for TN (60%ish white evangelical voting population, very white Dixie state, etc) are infinitely worse for Democrats than in states like MO, IN, TX, etc. Seeing MO and IN decided by squeakers while TN votes 8 points for Blackburn is well within the cards.

We’re talking about a candidate who swept every county in 2006 and won by 39 points in said state, when demographics were slightly better for Dems but still very unfavorable. He has the adventage of being able to tap into a reservoir of residual goodwill/nostalgia and is uniquely suited to appeal to high propensity and center-right voters who are fine with Bill Lee but just can’t bring themselves to vote for a "shrill extremist/lunatic" over their Phil Bredesen.

I guess we’ll see on Tuesday, but I guarantee you if Blackburn actually wins by double digits on election night, then Democrats will have a lot bigger problems to worry about than this race.

Is your logic about Montana seriously any different than these arguments you made prior to Bredesen getting completely crushed on Election Day as Dems would go on to win the House vote by 8-9 points?

I don’t know why you’re so unwilling to accept that polarization in senate races is a very real thing since you clearly got egg on your face about Heidi’s retail politics and Bredi’s 39 point 2006 governor win.

I think that, aside from the Tossup rating, IndyRep's analysis was spot on, especially the bolded part (he misjudged TX, like most of us, maybe because we underestimated the strength of the D trend there). And, since he didn't deny the possibility of a big Blackburn win, I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

Idk maybe if he admitted that Blackburn winning by double digits (which she did quite easily) meant that Dems were in much bigger trouble than in TN (and they were at least in the senate) then maybe Bullock is in bigger trouble than simply having a 50% chance like he’s suggesting right now?

Just a thought.

[MT Treasurer]

Is your logic about Montana seriously any different than these arguments you made prior to Bredesen getting completely crushed on Election Day as Dems would go on to win the House vote by 8-9 points?

I don’t know why you’re so unwilling to accept that polarization in senate races is a very real thing since you clearly got egg on your face about Heidi’s retail politics and Bredi’s 39 point 2006 governor win.

Yeah, TN was definitely somewhat of a surprise to me, and I already admitted that I was wrong about that race (fortunately). That said, Democrats did have other problems to worry about in the Senate, as Nelson, Heitkamp, Donnelly, O'Rourke, and McCaskill all lost. Sure, Blackburn won by double digits, but I remember when people unironically thought that she would win by 10%+ while people like McCaskill and Donnelly would win reelection simultaneously, so that was what I strongly disagreed with (and I was right about that, no?).

Anyway, Montana is obviously far more Democratic than Tennessee, and if polarization was an unstoppable force, Tester would have lost reelection this year, especially with how high turnout was and the fact that Trump actively campaigned against him. Yeah, Rosendale wasn’t exactly a great candidate by any means, but he wasn’t an Akin tier candidate either, and it’s a Senate race after all, so you’d think "candidate quality" wouldn’t matter as much in a federal race, no? An incumbent Republican Senator badly underperforming the fundamentals of his race is hardly something that’s unprecedented, or how else do you explain Roberts 2014 or Blunt 2016 (who won by 3% even though Trump carried the state by 18%)? Like I said, if this was a state like Arkansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, etc. we were talking about, yeah, I’d feel much more confident about our chances, but Montana isn’t a deep red state, Steve Daines is certainly no John Hoeven, popular incumbent governors are stronger challengers than retreads like Bredesen or Bayh, the MT Democratic Party is probably one of the most competent and well-organized Democratic state parties in the country, the most populous counties (except Yellowstone) in Montana are actually becoming more Democratic, etc. Yeah, maybe you could rate it Lean R if you view Daines as a "stronger incumbent" than I do, but Toss-up is also a fair rating.

[Xing]

Polarization is high, but Montana isn't quite comparable to North Dakota or Tennessee, since it's much less red, and is even more competitive at the statewide level. Assuming Bullock is in, this is definitely a race to watch and certainly has potential to flip, but I think calling it more likely to flip than AZ/NC might be jumping the gun a bit, since Trump could lose both of those states (or even conceivably GA or *IOWA*, yes, I went there ) if he's having a bad night, but there's no way he's going to come close to losing Montana even in a Democratic wave. So Bullock still has to win over a significant number of Trump voters, which is increasingly hard to do.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Polarization is high, but Montana isn't quite comparable to North Dakota or Tennessee, since it's much less red, and is even more competitive at the statewide level. Assuming Bullock is in, this is definitely a race to watch and certainly has potential to flip, but I think calling it more likely to flip than AZ/NC might be jumping the gun a bit, since Trump could lose both of those states (or even conceivably GA or *IOWA*, yes, I went there ) if he's having a bad night, but there's no way he's going to come close to losing Montana even in a Democratic wave. So Bullock still has to win over a significant number of Trump voters, which is increasingly hard to do.

This is what I think as well. Trump losing nationally by 6-8 points could easily gain us states like GA/NC/AZ and possibly IA while Bullock still comes up just short.

Dems need to go where the most persuadable voters are first.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Remember when MT Treasurer spent months and months telling us all that Heitkamp is favored and will easily win because of retail politics (TM).

Sorry to say MT Treasurer, but you aren't as intelligent as you think. You can write a lot of posts but that doesn't mean what you say will come true. Idk why you are still talking so confidently when ND and NH proved you massively wrong.

Projecting a little too much here, no? Judging from your posting history, I don’t think you’re in the position to rebuke other posters for their rude, smug, and pretentious behavior, but I digress. I’m not talking "confidently" at all, all I’m saying is that it would be foolish to declare Bullock DOA, and if people ridicule me for my supposedly "delusional" Toss-up or Tilt D rating, I have the right to respond to that. The only ones talking "confidently" are the same people who told me that AL was Safe R, that WV-GOV was Safe R, that Hyde-Smith was going to easily win by double digits, etc. and are now saying that Bullock couldn’t possibly beat Daines in 2020, that Jim Hood couldn’t possibly win a gubernatorial race in MS because of "polarization" (which has essentially become a handy but ridiculously overused and nebulous buzzword), etc.

Yeah, you’re absolutely right, I was wrong about TN, ND (although I certainly wasn’t the only one who overestimated Heitkamp, and in case you couldn’t tell, many of my posts about ND-SEN were exaggerated, especially the retail politics part) and NH (2018 more so than 2016). Congrats! I’ll still readily admit that I’m conceited enough to believe that I know a little more about Montana than any other state, and at least my Bullock +3 (2016), Gianforte +6 (2017), and Tester +3 (2018) predictions weren’t all that bad. I also never said that Bullock (assuming he runs, of course) will make this an automatic pick-up for Democrats, but Toss-up is definitely a fair rating and not one people should be ridiculed for. Like it or not, everyone's entitled to their own ratings and predictions, so if you don’t like my posts, put me on ignore instead of making snarky posts like that.

No one in America has such deep connections to the pulse of the American electorate than me. I am Italian, which means as an ethnic white, I can understand how both white people and miniorities think. In addition, I've lived in suburban NJ, urban FL, and rural GA, which gives me a unique perspective in every political biome. Finally, I've been inside many voters

My predictions are a beautiful work of art and it saddens me to see uneducated and unruly neandrathals make such daft predictions as "MT Senate 2020 is a tossup". One's conscience must be corrupted to their utter core to be so delierious. Thankfully, you have enlightened ethnic WASP's like me to show you the light.

[Zaybay]

Polarization is high, but Montana isn't quite comparable to North Dakota or Tennessee, since it's much less red, and is even more competitive at the statewide level. Assuming Bullock is in, this is definitely a race to watch and certainly has potential to flip, but I think calling it more likely to flip than AZ/NC might be jumping the gun a bit, since Trump could lose both of those states (or even conceivably GA or *IOWA*, yes, I went there ) if he's having a bad night, but there's no way he's going to come close to losing Montana even in a Democratic wave. So Bullock still has to win over a significant number of Trump voters, which is increasingly hard to do.

This is what I think as well. Trump losing nationally by 6-8 points could easily gain us states like GA/NC/AZ and possibly IA while Bullock still comes up just short.

Dems need to go where the most persuadable voters are first.

MT has a large amount of persuadable voters.....


Anyway, MT, if Bullock runs, should certainly be on the map, and Bullock has a lot of advantages, but its still MT in a prez year.

 If MT 2018 is the new MT, then taking its congressional result, R+4.7, and adding the national house result, D+8.5, the state voted to the right by 13.2 points on the congressional level. Its really going to depend on the national environment and if MT shifts Left due to the Blueing of the Western 1/2 of the state, along with how much the unpopular Daines underpreforms, whether Bullock can make MT Blue again, or falls just like the others.

Though MT should be a top target, no matter what, especially with how cheap the state is.

[Technocracy Timmy]

MT has a large amount of persuadable voters.....

The future of the Democratic Party are educated suburbanites, not rural white trash kiddo.

Call me when the hipsters turn Montana into another Colorado.

[Zaybay]

MT has a large amount of persuadable voters.....

The future of the Democratic Party are educated suburbanites, not rural white trash kiddo.

Call me when the hipsters turn Montana into another Colorado.

...You do know what Western MT is like, right? Its made up of some rurals, with very few people in them, but is mostly the cities of Missoula, Great Falls, and Helena. These areas have been trending slightly D for a while, but they went heavily D in 2018, wheras the farming rurals in the East went strongly R. Even Yellowstone, the most populous county and a very R county in the East, trended D.

As I said, a lot of persuadable voters in MT, ones that can determine who represents.

[2016]

No surprise. If true, Tilt/Lean D.

This is not Lean D. Hilarious from you!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

MT has a large amount of persuadable voters.....

The future of the Democratic Party are educated suburbanites, not rural white trash kiddo.

I mean, this is correct, but I'm not going to stop pointing out that it's sick (and, yes, indicative of undisguised regional and class prejudice) that you people take so much pleasure in it.

Anyway, Safe R->Tilt/Lean R, and the Democrats should definitely seriously contest this with Bullock.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wonderful! Democrats have a real shot here and they'd better make the most of it.

[Virginiá]

Well Florida is on average only a couple points to the right of the nation. Montana was 9–10 points to the right in 08’, 17 points to the right in 2012, and 22 points to the right in 2016.

Even Tester won by only 3 in a D+8/9 year. Daines is clearly favored.

I think Daines is favored at this current time, given how early it is, but I think Bullock is probably our best candidate (unless someone else pops onto the radar between now and 2020), that's all. Also given the stubborn voting behavior of FL, I think I feel better about Democrats winning statewide elections (non-presidential) in Montana than I do in Florida. Comparing the success rates of Democrats in each over the past 25 years isn't even close. FL may have a much closer PVI, but it doesn't matter much if Democrats can't overcome those last couple points.

[President Johnson]

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Bullock should keep a senate run as his "reserve option" if he can't make it to the presidential nomination. He's probably the strongest Democrat to challenge Daines. However, he's one of the best candidates to beat Trump.

[Zaybay]

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Bullock should keep a senate run as his "reserve option" if he can't make it to the presidential nomination. He's probably the strongest Democrat to challenge Daines. However, he's one of the best candidates to beat Trump.

Well, he isnt getting the presidential nomination, so that "reserve" option is looking like the "only" option.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

The DSCC needs to force him to run for MT-SEN and not for president. He is by far the Democrats’ best candidate in this race and there’s a very small chance he could actually win the presidential primary.

[President Johnson]

I don't know why so many folks think he has no chance to get the nomination. The list of pros for a Bullock nomination is far longer than the cons, even from a neutral perspective. Because he is a white male? Wouldn't this be the very definition of identity politics? Sure, he's from a state with just a million people, but it's not that only large state governors have ended up in the Oval Office. In early 1976, nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was for example.

[lfromnj]

I don't know why so many folks think he has no chance to get the nomination. The list of pros for a Bullock nomination is far longer than the cons, even from a neutral perspective. Because he is a white male? Wouldn't this be the very definition of identity politics? Sure, he's from a state with just a million people, but it's not that only large state governors have ended up in the Oval Office. In early 1976, nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was for example.

Because people want someone progressive and they think montana is a rural hicks state so Bullock is John bell edwards

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

In early 1976, nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was for example.

In early 1976, white people from southern states similar to Georgia were a big part of the base of the Democratic party.

In early 2020, white people from small rural states similar to Montana will not be a big part of the base of the Democratic party.

[President Johnson]

I don't know why so many folks think he has no chance to get the nomination. The list of pros for a Bullock nomination is far longer than the cons, even from a neutral perspective. Because he is a white male? Wouldn't this be the very definition of identity politics? Sure, he's from a state with just a million people, but it's not that only large state governors have ended up in the Oval Office. In early 1976, nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was for example.

Because people want someone progressive and they think montana is a rural hicks state so Bullock is John bell edwards

Well, it's not that Steve Bullock is a conservative Democrat as some people think. He's socially as liberal as you can get in Montana (pro-choice, unlike JBE) and implemented campaign finance reform, which is an important issue for progressives. He also supports labor unions and has moved to the left on gun control.

[lfromnj]

I don't know why so many folks think he has no chance to get the nomination. The list of pros for a Bullock nomination is far longer than the cons, even from a neutral perspective. Because he is a white male? Wouldn't this be the very definition of identity politics? Sure, he's from a state with just a million people, but it's not that only large state governors have ended up in the Oval Office. In early 1976, nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was for example.

Because people want someone progressive and they think montana is a rural hicks state so Bullock is John bell edwards

Well, it's not that Steve Bullock is a conservative Democrat as some people think. He's socially as liberal as you can get in Montana (pro-choice, unlike JBE) and implemented campaign finance reform, which is an important issue for progressives. He also supports labor unions and has moved to the left on gun control.

Yeah but the first impression is montana is a rural hicks state and that's what matters. No white man will be the nominee imo besides biden beto or bernie

[Anna Komnene]

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Bullock should keep a senate run as his "reserve option" if he can't make it to the presidential nomination. He's probably the strongest Democrat to challenge Daines. However, he's one of the best candidates to beat Trump.

They're just in damage control mode. Tester was just teasing the person who gave him the question for asking something so silly. He said he didn't know first and asked if she wanted to bet $100,000. Then he smiled and said 'yeah he's running.' Translation for those who are comedically challenged: 'How should I know what someone else is doing two years from now? Haha' It was a joke, but he forgot that politicians aren't allowed to make jokes. Poor guy!

[Zaybay]

I don't know why so many folks think he has no chance to get the nomination. The list of pros for a Bullock nomination is far longer than the cons, even from a neutral perspective. Because he is a white male? Wouldn't this be the very definition of identity politics? Sure, he's from a state with just a million people, but it's not that only large state governors have ended up in the Oval Office. In early 1976, nobody knew who Jimmy Carter was for example.

Because people want someone progressive and they think montana is a rural hicks state so Bullock is John bell edwards

Well, it's not that Steve Bullock is a conservative Democrat as some people think. He's socially as liberal as you can get in Montana (pro-choice, unlike JBE) and implemented campaign finance reform, which is an important issue for progressives. He also supports labor unions and has moved to the left on gun control.

I see no problem with his candidacy, I made sure not to call him a bad candidate or weak. Bullock is a pretty great candidate for the presidency, and he is more Progressive than people would initially think. What I did say was that he cannot win the primary, and thats where his overall weakness lies. He cant win it. He doesnt have a natural base, he has no clout, no nothing really.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Daines is pretty strong, so evidence of this walkback is obvious. But, he's not guarenteed reelection, either

[Antonio the Sixth]

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Bullock should keep a senate run as his "reserve option" if he can't make it to the presidential nomination. He's probably the strongest Democrat to challenge Daines. However, he's one of the best candidates to beat Trump.

What a buffoon. He could actually have been a Senator, instead he's gonna end up as 2020's Scott Walker.