MT - AL (May 25) Predictions Thread

[cinyc]

Quist: 48.5%
Gianforte: 46.5%
Wicks: 5%

Quist seems like a great candidate- relatable, down-to-earth, outsider. I've been following his campaign though and he hasn't been visiting Eastern Montana. I'm not as familiar with the state's politics, but maybe someone from MT can explain if this is smart or not. It doesn't look as populated as western MT but it might be nice to keep the margins down.

Define Eastern Montana. 

East of Billings, the state is very sparsely populated.  Western Montana is also generally more Democratic-leaning than Eastern Montana.

[cinyc]

Quist: 48.5%
Gianforte: 46.5%
Wicks: 5%

Quist seems like a great candidate- relatable, down-to-earth, outsider. I've been following his campaign though and he hasn't been visiting Eastern Montana. I'm not as familiar with the state's politics, but maybe someone from MT can explain if this is smart or not. It doesn't look as populated as western MT but it might be nice to keep the margins down.

Define Eastern Montana. 

East of Billings, the state is very sparsely populated.  Western Montana is also generally more Democratic-leaning than Eastern Montana.

I don't think Quist should spend a whole lot of time in Eastern Montana, but it would be better to lose it by, say, 15 points rather than 25 points or whatever.

Again, define Eastern Montana.  If it includes Billings or Great Falls, Quist should be spending time there.  But going to Glendive or Miles City or Sidney more than a handful of times probably doesn't make much sense.  Very few people live there, and those who do aren't as likely to vote for a Democrat as those in, say Missoula.

Plus, only Glendive is in its own TV market, which isn't that big (it's the smallest TV market in the country, IIRC), and may or may not even produce its own local TV news these days.  The rest of Eastern Montana is either in the Bismarck, ND market, Rapid City, SD market (1 county, IIRC) (and good luck getting TV coverage for a Montana event in the Rapid City or Bismarck markets) or Billings or Great Falls - and reaching viewers in the Montana markets is as easy as holding a rally in those larger cities.

[cinyc]

I meant east of Billings.

In theory, I suppose Quist should visit some of the Indian reservations there at least once to gin up Democratic support, and perhaps the larger "cities" of Eastern Montana a time or two.  But spending weeks there wouldn't make much sense.  Few people live east of Billings, so it's not worth as much time.  And it's pretty far from where the real Montana population centers are.  Montana's the fourth largest state in the country, barely behind California.  How often do Californian candidates bother to campaign in Eureka - which, though still small by California standards, probably has a larger population than many of the "cities" of Eastern Montana?

[cinyc]

Why is everyone predicting the Democrat to win here? Trump won the state by a huge margin and I don't see Quist with a strong match with the state's profile. Is there polling I'm unaware of?

Gravis had Gianforte up by double digits, but a series of Google Surveys have shown Quist in the lead.  My last Google Survey in March had Quist up by double digits.  

Even though I'm increasingly skeptical of these Google polls, I just put one into the field this afternoon. I expect it to be complete by Friday night or Saturday.

This, ultimately, is a Democratic-leaning website.  That predictions tend to skew pro-Democrat compared to conventional wisdom shouldn't be surprising, especially this early in the cycle with little available polling data.

[cinyc]

Google Surveys is extremely inaccurate and unreliable.

Well, it's almost literally all we have.  It may be a case where some data is worse than no data.

Montana has some rules limiting robopolling, so we haven't seen many other polls.  I'm still not sure how Gravis got around them.  The Lee Newspapers usually commission Mason-Dixon to poll the state closer to election day.  We'll have to see if they do that this time.  Otherwise, unless other pollsters jump in, we're in a bit of a polling desert for this race.

[cinyc]

Quist is a regular performer at a NUDIST RESORT.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/montana-democrat-rob-quist-regular-performer-nudist-resort/

It's the FREEBEACON, do you really expect us to believe that?

The Washington Free Beacon cannot lie about things that are a matter of public record.  The article is properly sourced.

How about USA Today?  Do you believe them?  They have the same story:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/04/27/montana-democrat-rob-quist-performed-at-a-nudist-resort/100950964/

[cinyc]

so what? what's wrong with that? Trump bragged about sexual assault and wants to bang his daughter. You social conservatives literally have no room to complain anymore. Rob Quist is a man of the people, and the people includes nudists.

god bless Rob Quist for giving his god given talents to the nudists.

Like I said in the other thread, it's not clear how this would play in Montana.  It would probably not play well in Utah, but Montana is not Utah.  The Montana Mormon population is much, much lower.

As someone else said, it plays into the hippie narrative about Quist, though.

[cinyc]

The only good polling in this race likely comes in the form of hints of private GOP polling, and the rest of what we have is either Gravis or Google, which are both showing insane and contradictory numbers. Given that, I will have no regret in predicting a Quist win:

Rob Quist - 49%
Preg Pianoforte - 47%

We also had an Emerson poll in April showing Gianforte up by 15.