This is bad news for Jon Tester:
so the dozen Libertarians in Montana might change their votes?
From the article:
6% of Montana votes? So that’s like maybe 2 dozen?
So the Dems are claiming Rosendale is spying on them with drones. Whassamatta, they run out of tinfoil?
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, the LP candidate probably could have counted on 5% of the vote or so. Tester leads by 4.2 in the RCP average. So yes, this is a big deal.
Ha. Only if libertarian voters do what the libertarian tells them to do.
These aren’t folks who like being told what to do.
Best rebuttal in the history of SDMB.
You’re right, many will stay home, some will go to Tester, but I do think Rosendale benefits more from this than Tester.
I’m assuming that this close to election day, even with the guy dropping out he’ll still be on the ballot right?
Another good point. Is it the same way in Alaska, or did he get out quickly enough?
Certainly, the Libertarian endorsing the Republican will help the Republican. But I’m inclined to agree with Lance Turbo that it probably won’t help him by very much. Anyone who votes Libertarian (or any other third party) isn’t doing so because they expect that it’ll get the Libertarian candidate elected; they’re doing it because they want to send a message of some sort, and they consider it more important to send that message than they do to influence the election.
Too little, too late. Plus, Libertarians aren’t the same as the Green Party spoilers. The left voters who vote for spoilers like Nader and Stein tend to be obsessed with ideological purity and want to punish the Democrats. Libertarians tend to be their own unique group, they’re certainly obsessive but they don’t want to punish Republicans. I had to leave a Facebook group for local politics because a few number of Libertarians ruined it with incessant posts. I highly doubt that they’d every vote any other way. Of course, eventually some will move out of their parents basement and become more mainstream
I have a hard time seeing a Libertarian as being a rival to anybody, for anything. Except maybe scraps from the dumpster.
Pretty much this.
Many of these people will vote for the Libertarian candidate anyway, even if they know he’s pulled out. And of those who know who he has pulled out some will stay home.
The endorsement will impact naught.
Maybe we should have a pool to guess Rick Breckenridge’s vote share. I’ll throw 5% out there.
I’ll go with 2% (cheating, 538 says the polls say 2.6% and I figure enough will stay home or switch t get it under 2.5 but not under 1.5).
Note IF the 538 polls aggregation is accurate then the whole 2.6 could go R and Tester would still win with 52% of the vote. But it would put it more in margin of doubt.
Yep. The “Libertarian” vote, such as it is, is pretty much entirely a “None of the above, the parties just suck” kind of vote. Without a frivolous candidate available to vote for to let them feel superior, they’ll just stay home.
As of right now…
Jon Tester - 224,361 - 49.3%
Matt Rosendale - 217,345 - 47.8%
Rick Breckenridge - 13,055 - 2.9%
Over 13k Montanans (more than Tester’s margin) voted for the guy who told them to vote for the other guy.
Good job!
Too bad Montana doesn’t have runoffs.
Not really. Western Libertarians don’t automatically break Republican. In a runoff a substantial number would go for Tester or NOTA.