And there goes the last state where politics isn't dictated entirely by hyperpartisanship and the state's partisan lean. Sad!
Cooney isn’t losing because of hyperpartisanship, he’s losing because GF has been running a more effective campaign so far. If hyperpartisanship/partisan lean dictated the outcome of every election in the state, Bullock would be nowhere near as competitive in the Senate race as he still is.
Even if they lose the governorship, how likely do you think it is that Democrats win at least one row office this year?
Well, the fact that so many of them are open definitely helps. Unless you count "nonpartisan" judicial races (which we probably should, if we’re being honest -- Democrats would like to see McKinnon defeated in the Supreme Court election this year), I think they have a decent shot at flipping AG, which is pretty much the most important state executive office after GOV and will probably track the gubernatorial race pretty closely. While I certainly don’t dispute his conservative credentials, I don’t think nominating Knudsen over Bennion (who’s hardly a RINO) was a wise decision on the part of Republican primary voters for a variety of reasons (mostly but not solely because he’s much easier to paint as an extremist), and Graybill has been running a pretty effective campaign so far (tying himself to Bullock, campaigning on themes like consumer protection which probably resonate more with voters than Knudsen's ‘legalistic’ interpretation of the AG office, exploiting Knudsen's opposition to Medicaid expansion, etc.). I think that race is going to be way closer than it should be, and Knudsen will probably need Gianforte to perform well to feel good about his chances (both GF and Knudsen have been pretty vocal about supporting each other, too). I’d rate that race Tilt R.
The other offices aren’t safe for Republicans either, but they’ll require more effort for Democrats to flip. If I had to rank them from most likely to least likely to flip, it would be Superintendent of Public Instruction (Lean R) > Auditor (Lean/Likely R) > Secretary of State (Likely R, but you could make a case for Lean R as well). I do think you’ll see
much less split-ticket voting this year than in any election in the past, and it could very well be that Republicans end up sweeping all or almost all the statewide and federal races by single-digit margins. Many of the down-ballot races are being overshadowed by the GOV/SEN/AL campaigns and the pandemic (which mostly benefits Republicans), but that could still change (debates for some of the races haven’t even aired yet).