Rarely in electoral politics can one say “Well, nobody saw THIS coming.”
If he wins, he has to decline/resign, however that works, and then there’s another election in a few months - which could be during impeachment hearings, and with the Senate still trying to get rid of Montanans’ health care.
On what basis do you say that?
[QUOTE=Article I, Section 5]
Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members
<snip>
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
[/QUOTE]
If he wins, he’s in Congress, unless a couple dozen Republicans join with the Dems in finding Gianforte’s election/qualifications invalid, or unless nearly 100 Republican Representatives join with the Dems in voting to expel him.
I think the likelihood of such a rejection by Gianforte’s fellow Republicans is somewhere between minuscule and nonexistent.
Political reality.
I hope not to find out, but we may.
Ryan has already said the decision to sit the asshole depends upon the MT voters, even though he has the ability to prevent Gianforte from being sworn in. So don’t expect the Repubs to stand on principle.
Again.
Which political reality? Certainly not 2017’s. Maybe the one we had two years ago.
The political reality in which they know they can’t yield any more credibility or their remaining chances of doing anything they’ve promised their base, despite their majorities, disappear.
If your view is that they’re *already *at or past that point, and would have to make a point about at least keeping a seat, I won’t quarrel with it.
We’re talking about a party that not only has no shame, but believes having no shame is almost always the winning play.
I’d say that, given it happened in Montana, it’s likely it would have helped him even with the Democrats. Maybe they should up their WWE game in that state. 
I don’t think we’re there yet. It’s true that Trump has a growing credibility and legitimacy problem, but it’s still not past the point of no return. I think the bigger problem for repubs is that their legislative agenda is stalling and doesn’t appear to be moving anywhere soon. Tax reform, Obamacare repeal, the debt…nowhere close to done on those deals. Trump keeps sending congress bills that moderate repubs can’t sign, which in turn increases the pressure on others who have to go home to red meat districts and explain why, despite having total control of the government, they can’t get anything done. If things don’t turn around soon, the mid-terms are going to be brutal with a fired up democratic insurgency and an uninspired base. But that won’t be because of incidents like the one discussed here, outrageous though it may be.
He doesn’t send bills, he can’t send bills. He sends talking points. He didn’t give a fuck what was in the AHCA, he just wanted to be able to say he killed the ACA. The truth is Republicans just have no agenda whatsoever. They’re so used to being the party of no that they have no clue what to do with power when they have it.
So … when do the polls close in MT?
10 p.m. eastern - might be a long night.
Meh, I’m Mountain Time. Thanks for the answer.
Won’t be that long. There are what, 17 people in Montana? 
That’s midnight Mountain Time. :dubious:
I’m pretty sure it’s 8:00 PM
Alphaboi means the mid-Atlantic range.
Polls close in 20 minutes. Here’s a NYT link to election results as they come in. There might be better Montana specific site for election results. I couldn’t find one but I didn’t look very hard.
Partial results in from three counties…
Quist is doing better than Clinton did in all three counties, but he doesn’t appear to be doing better enough.
I’ll be pretty surprised if Quist pulls it off. The massive amounts of early voting are going to make things extremely difficult.