*sigh*
Tester did exactly what Heitkamp did: He outperformed Clinton by 25 points (actually it was 24% in Tester's and 25% in Heitkamp's case, but that’s a negligible difference.) Basically the same margin, even though Cramer had a lot of things going in his favor that Rosendale just didn’t have (no contentious primary, no half-hearted/late NRSC support, a far weaker opponent, a far more Republican state in which pretty much all the urban areas are way to the right of Missoula/Bozeman/etc., a state in which Trump was much more popular than in Montana, etc.).
I don’t see how you could possibly argue that it was Tester (who everyone here expected to win, in case you forgot) who "overperformed." Rather, Donnelly, McCaskill, Nelson, and Morrisey all underperformed the fundamentals.
It was a genuine question from someone who was curious. If you found it frustrating to answer my question, then i'm not sure why you even bothered.
But yeah, I was under the impression Donnelly and McCaskill over performed. But you make a good point that they actually under performed.
