Montana

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Montana is only 3% Mormon and doesn't have a much higher percentage of Evangelicals than the country at large. But it does have plenty of latte liberals and union Democrats. That's it in a nutshell.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Native Americans help a bit, but they don't make up a terribly large portion of the population and have low turn-out.

Much better turnout than in South Dakota or the Southwest. (Montana's State Legislature is gerrymandered to elect Natives in proportion to their numbers - some of these districts have quite small native majorities, but they all elect Natives. Now, compare South Dakota...)

Wasn't Tester's old State Senate seat like this? He may have been an exception.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Which seat did Tester represent? It's possible that the seat only went Native-held in 2006. Then again, he was certainly *born* in Havre, which is in a whitewashed district neighboring a Native-majority one.

I'm not sure what his seats nor am I familiar with the Montana state Senate map, though Tester is from Chouteau County after looking it up...so probably not after all. If it includes Hill and Blaine counties than it makes sense though, you have a district where the Democrats heavily rely on the Native vote but they don't make a majority and can't elect their own. Much like blacks in all the white Democrat-held seats in Georgia and North Carolina.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Which seat did Tester represent? It's possible that the seat only went Native-held in 2006. Then again, he was certainly *born* in Havre, which is in a whitewashed district neighboring a Native-majority one.

I'm not sure what his seats nor am I familiar with the Montana state Senate map, though Tester is from Chouteau County after looking it up...so probably not after all. If it includes Hill and Blaine counties than it makes sense though, you have a district where the Democrats heavily rely on the Native vote but they don't make a majority and can't elect their own. Much like blacks in all the white Democrat-held seats in Georgia and North Carolina.

Yah, the area is cut up to have a Native Senator and a White Senator:

SD 8 (HD 15 & 16), SD 16 (HD 31 & 32) and SD 21 (HD 41 & 42) are the Native Districts.

Oh, and the new Representative of HD 15 is Mr Frosty Calf Boss Ribs.

And while I was at it, I also checked what District Tester represented: SD 15 (that area elected a Democrat? Wtf? Currently it's delegation is all-Republican again. Excluding the portion of Chouteau, and including the portion of McCone not in the district, McCain took 67% here. Also, the district is just 0.9% Native American.)

Tester didn't make much of an improvement in that area either besides almost carrying Chouteau. I wonder if it's like Michele Bachmann where he was perceived as much less liberal while he was running for that seat. (Bachmann has never performed that well in her old seat and possibly could've lost had she ran for reelection. She also lost her hometown both times too.)

I assume that ugly appendage sticking out at the east end of 16 is part of a Native gerrymander?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Isn't that area in the middle of that district basically just a national forest? Looks that way on a map.