MT Poll: (R) Gianforte, (D) Busse, or (L) Leib.
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SAJ-99
Well-known member
The racist ones?
Here is the data for Montana for the TLDR. You can easily pinpoint the exact year MT switched from Dem to Rep. (website attached for those that want to play around for their state). The explanation is well understood for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the 1960's. A lot of states look similar. Sometimes when the the candidate was from that state, things can switch (Carter in Georgia for example). Obama came the closest to having major surprises in 2008 in some of these states, and that was because we were in a major recession.
Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
Detailed national results of US Presidential Elections from 1789 through 2012, US Senate and Gubernatorial Elections since 1990. Site includes election data, county maps and state maps, charts. State and county results from 1892 through 2012.
uselectionatlas.org
Nameless Range
Well-known member
Like clockwork on social media today:
SAJ-99
Well-known member
The MT guys keep saying they want better candidates. Can someone give me a list of the things they want to hear? I would generally say that voting Americans are a diverse group, but the trend of the presidential victors over the last 45 years is to dumb stuff down. No one wants the details or hear about complexities of tradeoffs. Stay simple and tell them they will benefit $$$ and while giving up nothing. It doesn't even have to be true.
Southern Elk
Well-known member
A democrat governor candidate that doesn’t work for the gun control lobby would be a good start. You can laugh that off all you want, but it is a major issue here.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Great. But hard to believe you still elected Steve Bullock twice and his NRA rating is F, which I don’t think stands for fantastic.
noharleyyet
Well-known member
...there it is
Carnage2011
Well-known member
An NRA rating is a far cry from writing a book and working for an anti gun lobby group. Also, Steve Bullock is a long ways from the past two democrat candidates in MT. I don’t see Montana going purple anytime soon unless they come forward with a very moderate candidate.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Sure. I get that. What was Cooney's problem in 2020?
Hind sight is always 20/20. I just think that "guns" is an oversimplification of Montanans general decision when they walk into the booth. When I look at the historical results, Montana is all over the place, especially in the Governor races. Again, paint your perfect candidate. I'm sure the Dem party would love to see it. And then find someone to run and subject themselves to the scrutiny.
Once GG terms out, it will be very interesting given the anti-public land and anti-FWP sentiment Knudsen has shown. Good luck.
rogerthat
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I predict Knudsen will be our next Governor.
noharleyyet
Well-known member
Montana needs me telling them what to do like a fish needs a bicycle....what am I missing
Nameless Range
Well-known member
It's a fair question, and I am well aware I am in the cheap seats and not "in the arena". I admire those who step up regardless of their bent, and I think everyone should.
That meme is as much about national politics as it is about Montana's. Trump gained ground in essentially every demographic, and Montana is a microcosm of that. Aside from some of the other stuff mentioned, Democrats need to abandon the identity-politics BS, and issues x,y,z,b,c, and a that I won't call out here because it will just send the thread into the chitter. Normal folks don't give a rats bass about any of that stuff, and usually disagree with it.
I went to a mule deer event at the capital a couple years ago and Busse was there as was Gianforte, Busse was up front in the crowd, and when Gianforte spoke he turned his back on him. Just very performative. Last night when it was obvious it was over, he tweeted this:
This type of thing is off-putting to Montanans.Man, normal people don't sympathize with Democrats being partisan. Yes, Republicans get a longer rope. The people I interact with every day, they just care about other stuff than what is so often whinged about by Ds on TV/Internet. It's dang clear that Montana is red as hell now, and any D is gonna have a hell of a time, but there were over 40,000 Montanans who voted for Tester, who didn't vote for Busse. That's about 8% of the entire pile of folks who voted, which is meaningful in a race that wouldn't even be considered close. I've said it a handful of times on here, but I believe that the Democrat party nationally brings down Montana Democrats locally. It'd be tough to be one, but the ideal candidate wouldn't bash on newcomers - there's too GD many of em, would probably be tied to agriculture, would talk to Montanans about how crazy Democrats are on the national scale, and so I suppose in a perfect world would be an Independent.
Fair to call it out as a pipedream, but we shouldn't be surprised when the outcomes hit us Good and Hard.
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Guns Giffords donated a chit ton of $ to push their agenda and to have their Senior Advisor at the helm of Montana... the optics alone rates as a huge win for Giffords, border security USMCA, Criminal Sanctuary Cities - all the other platform agendas the fringe (including Giffords - remember on their page they seek to regulate bb guns...) push for their payment to assist the person into office.
Hey though, always good to play devil's advocate. Prompts good conversation.
Irrelevant
Well-known member
I respectfully think you are completely wrong.
The complaint the last go round was that Quist was an idiot, that was an argument about a person (right, wrong, or indifferent). Now it's that Busse is a Democrat. That it's a party issue. The fact that people can't separate party from person is the $*)Q!#@$ problem. And that boils down to tribalism, lack of critical through, and people spending too much friggin' time in their own political echo chambers.
You could make the argument that members of congress can be viewed as more "party based" because it is shocking how much unity is required by the party to maintain support during election cycles. But for State gov't? Com'on it should be about the person, not the party. As I've said before, our R's are Montana's Ds, if you look take a look at an individual's actual policy stances... which clearly people don't do.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
I'm not "telling" them to do anything. Just trying to understand what kind of candidate they want to see. Maybe I'll move back there.
True. I think the discussion is more about American voters in general and not specific to Montana. I do like looking back at how Montana voted and ask "what drove that?'. Voters do stuff for weird reasons. People hate inflation and just voted in the guy with a "Reflation" agenda. But that is too much in the weeds.
I don't think you can avoid "identity politics". If you don't define what you are what you stand for, the opponent will. I do think that just sticking to a few issues is probably best, and every solution has to be able to be narrowed down to a soundbite. Unfortunately I still think it is a popularity contest on the national stage. No one dominates that aspect like our past and future president. But there can be too much of anything. It will be interesting to see if people are sick of him in two years and wonder what the hell they were thinking.
