Montana just has one Congressional district, the entire state. The state had been represented in the House by Ryan Zinke, now Secretary of the Interior.
Montanans will vote on Thursday, May 25, to elect Zinke’s replacement. The GOP candidate is Greg Gianforte, and the Dem candidate is Rob Quist.
According to statements filed on April 14, Gianforte has outraised Quist so far, by roughly $1.6M to $900K. It would obviously be better, from this Dem’s perspective, if the numbers were reversed, but the good news is that you can run a real race in Montana with a million bucks. This isn’t KS-04 where the Dem candidate didn’t have enough money to send out a mass mailing.
Gianforte ran for governor last year and lost, 50-46. He’s a young-earth creationist who’s got some positions that are unusual even for Republicans, such as being against the notion of retirement altogether on ‘biblical’ grounds.
Quist is a Montana legend as a folksinger. The question is, can he turn that into a win?
If the D national committee were smart (and I have doubts about that), they’d jump into this race with as much support as they could manage. Ditto for all these special races. They didn’t for KS-4 and they lost a close one they had a good chance at.
This year, the Democrat base is upset and energized like no party has ever been. Much more so than after that mess in 2000, for example. They really want some wins to show that, well, lots of things. The party needs to jump on this and go after all the special races. And every congressional race in 2018.
But they don’t seem to realize this and are going by past history. They need to realize that past history doesn’t apply this year. This is a situation that’s unprecedented, but they’re still going by precedents.
With three days to go before they vote in Big Sky country, it seems like time to bump this thread. Roll Call has changed their rating of the race from Likely Republican to Tilts Republican. Rob Quist has raised $5M, so if he loses, it won’t be because he didn’t have the resources.
I have to say that, despite all the negative press the President gets, and all the positive rah-rah from the Democrats, it doesn’t really appear that this is going to translate into flipped seats, yet. I doubt the Georgia seat will flip, the Kansas seat didn’t, the South Carolina seat almost certainly won’t (and it appears that one of the most controversially conservative Republicans won the run-off primary). A lot of sound and fury over nothing, so far.
Of all these races, the GA race is the only I think there’s a chance of an actual flip - simply because of the changing demographics of that area - and even with that, the sheer tribalism of voting R runs deep there too (heck, just ask a few of our fellow dopers, not going to name any names, the brainwashing is powerful indeed…)
I can’t see why the Montana seat can’t flip. Montana has a Dem governor and a Dem Senator, so it’s not like Dems never win statewide elections in Montana.
Sure, if I had to bet the house in an even-odds bet on one candidate or the other, I’d go with the Republican, but at the 2-1 odds on Predictit, I’d put my money on Quist.
Anyone here so sure that Montana can’t flip, that they’ll take the short-odds side of that bet? Your $40 against my $20, or your $100 against my $50, etc.?
But actually, making money isn’t (for me, at least) the point of the would-be bet. The point of the bet is to say, “If you’re so sure Montana can’t be flipped, let’s see your money. I not only think it can be flipped, but I think there’s at least a 1-in-3 chance that it will be flipped this week.”
Ahhh, ok. While I’m fairly confident that it won’t flip, I am far from certain, and don’t particularly want to damage my anonymity over $50 in winnings.
In a special election to fill a vacant state assembly seat on Long Island, Christine Pellegrino, a Bernie Sanders delegate to the DNC, crushed a Republican 58-42%. 45 had won the district 60-40%.
The district has not been represented by a Democrat in decades.
It’s not all sound and fury over nothing, it’s forcing the GOP to spend time, money, and effort to defend what was pre-trump a super red seat in a super red state.
I’m not sure I’d call MT a “super red state” prior to Trump. Obama very nearly won it in 2008, and it’s been consistently electing Dem Governors since 2004. It’s been represented in the Senate by at least one Democrat going back 100+ years.
