MT-AL: Rob Quist (D) vs. Greg Gianforte (R) vs. Mark Wicks (L), May 25

[MT Treasurer]

Quist is doing what he has to do in Gallatin, Missoula and Ravalli, but Gianforte is overperforming everywhere else. Also, Gianforte is leading in Lake.

[MT Treasurer]

Gianforte is doing very well so far.

Any conclusions you can draw for us right now based on the results? Like, is it clear to say Gianaforte is on track to win or are these results still in flux?

It's way too early to call (especially since the election day vote might be more Democratic than usual), but I think it's much better for Gianforte than expected.

[MT Treasurer]

Quist is going to get Fairfax'd in a few seconds.

[MT Treasurer]

I'm still waiting until 70% of the vote is in, but yeah, if these patterns hold... Quist is finished.

[MT Treasurer]

Can we not call this yet and simply wait for more results? Geez...

[MT Treasurer]

Indeed, it looks like the East-West gap will be much wider than usual.

[MT Treasurer]

Let's not act as if this special election tells us anything about 2018 or 2020, regardless of who wins. You guys are acting as if the presidency is at stake tonight.

[MT Treasurer]

*brings up star candidate that never would've run*

ugh shut up

IMO Marc Racicot should have run IMO

[MT Treasurer]

FYI, I created this map a month ago. It shows what a Gianforte +5 victory (that was my original prediction) would look like. So far, it is looking almost exactly like that, maybe a bit better than that for Rs - assuming election day votes aren't significantly more Democratic than usual, which is a big if.

I will try to post a county map soon, but this is my prediction for now (I probably won't update it before election day):

50.8% Gianforte (R)
46.3% Quist (D)
2.9% Wicks (L)

For what it's worth (probably not much), here is my county map prediction:

[MT Treasurer]

Who was the last Republican to carry Big Horn County in a federal or gubernatorial race? Even Bush in '04 lost it by 4.

Racicot in 1996, I believe.

[MT Treasurer]

So I guess the only chance for Quist to win is to close the gap in Billings+get remaining Missoula precincts+Silver Bow+favorable election day vote overall.  

Pretty much. It is unlikely to happen, but we'll have to see.

[MT Treasurer]

Who was the last Republican to carry Big Horn County in a federal or gubernatorial race? Even Bush in '04 lost it by 4.

Racicot in 1996, I believe.

And that was a giant landslide. Makes this current result even more astounding. I'm sure the tribe leaders have real sway, but I don't know what Gianforte or Quist did to pull them that far away from their typical voting pattern.

Well to be fair, only 6/19 precincts have reported so far and there is a lot of vote still left to be counted. Quist should win it in the end.

[MT Treasurer]

I mean... Quist is definitely a good fit for the state on paper, but talking folksy and wearing a cowboy hat isn't going to seal the deal when your campaign isn't well-run. I know it sounds crazy to the people who think Gianforte is literally worse than Akin because he lost to a popular incumbent governor by 4 points, but before #Assaultgate, Gianforte did much better than even many Republicans thought he would do (good debate performance, strong retail politics, sounding authentic, securing newspaper endorsements, etc.). IMO, the biggest mistake the Quist campaign made is that they were constantly repeating their "But Gianforte is a multimilloynah from NJ!" and "Russia!" talking points over and over again. I predicted a 5-point GOP victory for weeks and only changed it yesterday because of this stupid incident. But again, that's just my opinion.

All things considered, a 5-point loss here isn't really that bad for Democrats, plus they will probably win in GA anyway.

[MT Treasurer]

I'm thinking Buttrey or Sales would have won by much more, in hindsight. Think this is two subpar candidates and the state's form showing

Nah, Sales wouldn't have done better, but Buttrey might have won by 2 points more or so. Gianforte really wasn't an awful candidate before #Assaultgate, so I'm not sure why everyone keeps saying that.

[MT Treasurer]

The AP still hasn't called it, but NY Times has projected GF as the winner. I'm also calling it for the GOP.

Also, we should probably NEVER ever take Google Consumer Surveys seriously. Or Gravis polls, for that matter.

[MT Treasurer]

Assuming Quist wins Big Horn and Hill, my prediction map will have turned out to be pretty accurate.

I think an important lesson that can be learned from this is that we should definitely be more careful before calling any Republican (or Democratic) candidate who makes a misstep another Akin. Granted, in this case it was something extreme, but I've seen people on this forum say that Kevin Cramer is another Akin just because he said something ridiculous about women's outfits. Or Josh Hawley, for that matter. With the electorate becoming increasingly more polarized, I think these things might not matter that much any more, or at least they won't have the impact they would have had 15 years ago or so.

[MT Treasurer]

Who else has a feeling that Tester will lose in 2018?

I would rate it a Tossup for now, but yes, he is very vulnerable.

[MT Treasurer]

But honestly, the most shocking result has got to be Yellowstone County. Not only did it vote 12 points to the right of the state, but the gap between Yellowstone and Missoula has never been wider than that. Insane.

[MT Treasurer]

Maybe I'm a tad too drunk, but I'm trying to think of how to even do that? Would we compare MT 2014 against the national House PV for 2014, and then stack that up against the 2017 margins (no trend for 2017)?

Comparing the county results against the statewide results. I was thinking about something like this:

2014: Statewide margin: R+15, Yellowstone margin: R+21.5
2017: Statewide margin: R+7, Yellowstone margin: R+19

--> The state swung 8 points to the left from 2014-2017, but Yellowstone County swung only 2.5 points Democratic. Hence, Yellowstone trended 5.5 points Republican.

[MT Treasurer]

Tonight's Map (Non-Atlas Colors):

Damn you, Park County....

I will try to post a county map soon, but this is my prediction for now (I probably won't update it before election day):

50.8% Gianforte (R)
46.3% Quist (D)
2.9% Wicks (L)

For what it's worth (probably not much), here is my county map prediction:

[MT Treasurer]

I will also take this opportunity to pledge that I will never live in Montana, or as it should be called, Assaultana, no matter what incentive one may give to me.

Excellent news! So even Quist and Wicks voters benefited from these results, after all.

The nice thing about that 7 point spread is that it's juuuust the right size to justify any #analysis someone would want to make.

Yeah, I agree with this. The takes and the spinning from both sides are astounding.

[MT Treasurer]

Funny how your percentage prediction underestimated Gianforte, while your county prediction underestimated Quist.

Yeah, I only missed Park County, which went for Quist with less than 50%, and not for Gianforte with less than 50%.

I called the other 55 counties for the right candidate, but the margins in some counties were wrong, partly because I underestimated Wicks' support.

- Dawson County: GF >60%, not >70%
- Golden Valley: GF >70%, not >60%
- Petroleum County: GF >70%, not >80%
- Hill County: Quist >40%, not >50%
- Blaine County: Quist >40%, not >50%
- Teton County: GF >50%, not >60%
- Liberty County: GF >50%, not >60%

Many of these were also reallllyyy close to being correct, after all. Overall, definitely not a bad county prediction.

[MT Treasurer]

Google Surveys were right about one thing: There was a 23-point difference between the vote in Eastern and Western Montana.  Quist won the Western Montana vote by 3 points, 49-46.  Gianforte won the Eastern Montana vote by 21, 57-36.

If I've done the math right, Western Montana was slightly overrepresented versus past elections - 61% of the total vote instead of 59-60%.

Yeah, the extent of this was quite astounding.

@xingkerui: Mark Wicks was born in Chester, which is located in Liberty County. I assume most people there know him personally, so that should explain his 17% showing (fun fact: He even came in second in one precinct). He also lives with his family in Inverness (Hill County) and runs a farm there, which probably explains the 12% in Hill.

@Kantakouzenos: I will try to make a trend map soon, at least when we know for sure that there aren't any votes left to be counted.

Btw: If anyone wants to see the results as they came in on election night, here is a video of election night coverage (it's the only one I found): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz4JgX9vkLM   Ignore the commentary and just skip to the results.

[MT Treasurer]

Haven't read the last 20 pages, but do we know how the Election Day vote broke? I would like to think the Dem won that, but red states have gotten totally inflexible.

If we're extrapolating the answer from the Yellowstone County results (the margin basically stayed the same throughout the night), the election day vote wasn't really more Democratic than the early vote.

[MT Treasurer]

In case you missed it, Gianforte was sworn into the House on Wednesday.



Meanwhile, the final tally in this race:

Greg Gianforte (R) - 190,520 - 49.95%
Rob Quist (D) - 169,214 - 44.36%
Mark Wicks (L) - 21,682 - 5.68%

GOP margin of victory: R+5.59

I am currently working on some swing and trend maps.