3 AM Update
Rosendale is losing ground. Tester gained 3,000 votes and is now 5,000 votes behind. The urban areas yet to be counted won’t favor Rosendale, either.
Now is when the ‘overnight slip’ comes in and we’ll wake up to see Tester with a big lead.
SD 11 in Great Falls has Matt Rosendale’s son, Adam, running as the GOP candidate against Dem Tom Jacobson. Currently Adam is losing, 59-41%, or by about 900 votes.
HD 21 in Great Falls has Ed Buttrey barely hanging onto his seat, 52-48% with 130 votes separating him from the Dem. He might lose the jump down to the lower chamber, but I kinda doubt it.
And that’s it for me tonight. 5,100 words written. Thanks for reading.
2:30 AM Update
Still going, damn it.
Beaverhead and Fallon came in. Fallon is 73-21, with 900 more votes for Rosendale and just about 300 for Tester.
Beaverhead came in 58-38% for Rosendale, but they’re still counting.
By 2:15, Politico had Rosendale up by nearly 9,000 votes. That’s a 4,000-vote jump in just 20 minutes or so.
At the same time, the AP had Rosendale up about 8,000 votes with the race at 49.7% to 47.4%, with 10,651 votes going to the Libertarian, or 2.9%.
Both Tester and Rosendale are taking more votes out of the Flathead than occurred for either candidate in ’12, but Rosendale is taking a lot more. It’s 56-41% there, and in ’12 it was 55-37%.
Ten days ago I predicted this race would be:
- Rosendale: 48.6%
- Tester: 47.8%
- Other: 3.6%
It’s pretty close to that now, but we’ve still got a lot of votes until morning. I’ll stick by my prediction, however.
When it comes to the House race, we now see Gianforte 37,000 votes ahead of Williams. That’s 54-43% right now.
Holly Michels of Lee did the math and figures that based on the number of votes counted and the number of absentee cast, we have these ballots waiting to be counted:
- Missoula: 26,000
- Gallatin: 24,000
- Yellowstone: 11,000
2 AM Update
I skipped the last update as nothing is happening anymore. This might be my last update of the night.
We aren’t getting much anymore from Gallatin, Missoula and Yellowstone Counties.
Silver Bow is at 90% now, so Tester won’t find much support there anymore. He needs it – he’s still down by 5,000 votes overall against Rosendale today.
Beaverhead and Fallon Counties aren’t in yet at all. If they go like they did six years ago, it’ll probably be 60-30% for Rosendale in both.
Park County hasn’t given us anything either, but if they’re like 2012 it’ll probably be Tester there with 50-40% or so.
Tester got over 36,000 votes from Missoula County in ’12, so that dwarfs all three of those counties. He had 13,000 votes from there a short time ago. Rehberg took 18,000 from Missoula in ’12, and Rosendale also has a chance to get around 43% of the vote there.
Gallatin is another tough one. Tester got 25,000 votes there in ’12 compared to the 20,000 Rehberg took. That came to 51-42%. Cascade is another tough one, at least for Rosendale. Tester took over 18,000 votes there in ’12, compared to the 14,000 Rehberg got. That came to 52-42%. It’s 53-44% there right now. Thousands of votes remain to be counted in Cascade County.
I know many are pinning their hopes on these urban areas with long lines today to come through for Tester, but I think a lot of the votes there will also go to Rosendale.
Right now Rosendale is up by 6,000 votes on Politico and the same on the AP. SoS has him at about 5,000 votes up.
Boy it’s gonna be close. Either of these men could squeak out a win here, but the areas where the vote needs to be counted are currently favoring Tester.
That’s why Tester coming in just 350 votes short of what he did in Hill County in ’12 is not good for him. Rosendale got 1,000 more votes in Hill than Rehberg did.
And even though Tester took both Roosevelt and Silver Bow, he won them both by fewer votes, 300 and 70 respectively.
These small numbers will add up in this oh-so-tight race.
1 AM Update
Someone had a very good observation after I put up my last update: Tester is currently losing in counties that he won in 2012.
These include:
- Rosebud: 52-45%, 250 vote difference
- Sheridan: 56-39%, 300 vote difference
- Wheatland: 62-34%, 250 vote difference
- Wibaux: 72-26%, 250 vote difference
Yeah, those are small counties with maybe 500 to 1,000 voters, but in a race that’s closer than 1%, they add up.
As of this hour, the total voter turnout in the state is 48%, and that will surely grow.
For the Senate it’s 49-48%, with Rosendale leading Tester by 3,300 votes or so. Politico has it 49.1% to 48%, with the Libertarian taking 2.9%, or 9,900 votes.
It’s pretty clear why Tester is losing: Trump visited 4 times; the native vote didn’t turn out; Tester didn’t carry a lot of the counties he did six years ago; the youth vote didn’t turn out in Missoula.
I’m sure there are more reasons, and they’ll be picked over in the weeks to come, after the hangover period ends…if it does for the Democrats.
Gianforte is now 32,000 votes ahead of Williams. It’s 53-44% there. The Libertarian has 3%, or 9,400 votes.
I’m not sure we’ll see a lot more results come in tonight. This might be it until morning.
Let’s discuss the initiatives a bit more.
People don’t want to tax cigarettes more, either because they smoke or they don’t want to tax low income people more. Or maybe they just got slammed by the ads, especially the veteran angle. That might have been it, all those veterans saying it would hurt them.
It was a flawed initiative to begin with, one the legislature was taking pains to get rid of via a special session that would have raised cigarette prices by $1.10 a pack. But not enough GOP legislators wanted another special session after we just had one months before.
I suspect a cig tax increase bill will be introduced in 2 months, and perhaps by a Republican. But we know that Big Tobacco is one of the largest lobbyist spenders in the state, so it’ll probably fail.
It’s clear that Democrats need to come up with some radically new ideas if they want to see the GOP go along with Medicaid expansion. I think it’s time for marijuana legalization. Gotta better idea where $60 million is gonna come from?
22 years ago we voted against a clean water mining initiative, and I believe we may have voted against one 10 years ago too. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that it failed – the campaign against it was smart; the campaign for it was pretty much nonexistent.
12:30 AM Update
I wonder if the $1 million or so the Montana Dems spent to kick the Green Party off the ballot was worth it. Just think of all those disgruntled voters.
Here in Missoula, Dems were worried the Green might take votes away from Diane Sands in her competition with football player Chase Reynolds. Currently, however, Reynolds is up 56-44%, or a nearly 400-vote lead. Guess he didn’t need the Green to win, though they’re still counting.
For the Senate race, Tester was able to lose on his own without a Green Party candidate. He’s currently down nearly 4,000 votes on the SoS page and 6,500 on Politico. The AP has Rosendale up nearly 5,000 votes.
Gianforte wasn’t affected by the body slam incident at all, despite how much Dems wanted him to be. He’s up by 31,000 votes…and will likely win by a larger margin than he did last year to get in in the first place.
I told you the Clerk of the Supreme Court position was lost to Dems after the primary. Currently the GOP leads that one by 41,000 votes.
I guess Rex Renk’s strategy of using the ‘extinction’ theme didn’t work, nor did his decision to hang onto so much campaign cash with just a month to go before the election. Bad campaign management on the part of his campaign manager, and a candidate that didn’t know any better.
I am surprised the initiatives are failing by so much. I thought both would pass. Guess it must have been all that ad spending.
Is it too early to talk about a leadership change for Montana Democrats? Surely if Tester loses this morning, Nancy Keenan won’t be keeping her job.
Dems need to do some real soul-searching. But they didn’t after the monumental statewide losses in 2016, so it’s a good bet they won’t this year, either.
The GOP is clearly doing something right, so I can’t chide them.
Midnight Update
Dems are very excited now that results are coming in for Gallatin County, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough.
For instance, Beaverhead, Park and Fergus Counties – all reliably GOP – haven’t put in any results yet.
Currently Tester is down on the SoS site by 3,500 votes. I’m not sure Gallatin and what’s left in Missoula will be enough, but we’ll see.
On Politico at 11:45 PM, Rosendale was up by 2,500 votes.
Politico is also showing Cascade County now, and Tester has a 2,500 vote lead there.
Let’s not forget that results went from a gush to a trickle in Yellowstone County. Over the past 2-3 hours they’ve only counted an additional 4,000 votes, and turnout there is just 47% with fewer than half precincts fully reporting.
And just before midnight NBC News declared that Gianforte would win the House race in Montana. He’s leading by 28,000 votes on the SoS site.
11:30 PM Update
Well, nationally the GOP won in the race for governorships, picking up or keeping more than the Dems. This continues a 10-year losing trend for the Dems.
The Dems did well in the House, picking up 25 seats so far. The GOP picked up 4 seats in the Senate…at least.
Split-decision, meaning politics will by nasty and dysfunctional for the next two years.
Here in Montana, I hear they’re still voting in Gallatin County…over 2 hours after the polls closed!
That’s why both Williams and Tester are telling their support crowds to go home, we won’t know the results until morning.
And that also gets rid of any concession speech demands from either side.
Ten minutes ago, Tester was not doing well and he’ll need Gallatin County and their results. He was leading Rosendale by just 600 votes, but now he's behind by 4,000.
Politico, however, is using AP results and not SoS results to tell us that Gallatin County is now showing results, putting Tester up by 6,000 votes.
Gianforte is now 19,000 votes ahead of Williams. Gianforte won against Quist to get the seat by 21,000 votes.
11 PM Update
Just before 11, Kathleen Williams thanked the large crowd at the Rialto in Bozeman. They have to be out of there at midnight, but big urban counties won’t be fully in by that time.
Right now Williams trails by 14,000 votes. Just a half hour ago it was only 8,000 votes, and two hours ago she was up by 5,000. It’s not going to get better for her.
Tester’s lead has been slipping all night. He’s still 4,000 ahead, but he was 13,000 ahead two hours ago.
Again, the urban counties still have a lot to count. And Yellowstone County isn’t really coming through for Rosendale like it should. He’s in trouble, as the rural counties will finish their counts earlier than the urban strongholds.
I expect Tester’s lead to begin ticking up as the hours tick by.
It’s time to talk about the legislative swing districts.
SD 14 in Havre: With half the precincts fully in, Republican Russ Tempel is leading Dem Paul Tuss 51-49%, or by about 150 votes. The GOP will probably keep this seat.
SD 24 in Billings: All four districts are partially in, and Dem Mary McNally is beating Republican Tom McGillvray by 55-45%, or 700 votes. Dems will keep this seat.
HD 3 in Columbia Falls: Dem Zac Perry is ahead of Republican Jerry O’Neil 53-45%, or 170 votes. The Libertarian has 53 votes, or 2%. Dems will probably hand onto this seat.
HD 50 in Billings: Dem Jade Bahr is way ahead of Republican Quentin Eggart by 60-35%, with 230 votes separating them.
HD 51 in Billings: Just 46 votes separate these two candidates right now. The GOP has had the seat in the past.
HD 52 in Billings: Dem Amelia Marquez is behind Republican Rodney Garcia by 54-46%, or 150 votes. The GOP will keep this open seat.
HD 93 in Ronan: Republican Joe Read is beating Dem Eldena Bear Don’t Walk 58-42%, or 200 votes. Dems will probably lose this open seat.
10:35 PM Update
People are getting pissed at SoS because the New York Times and Politico are getting federal results out faster.
Folks, we all said it’d be a long night. And we know Silver Bow and Cascade are going to take forever!
SoS now has turnout at 25%. Tester’s at 51% to Rosendale’s 46%, with about 8,000 votes separating them. Tester had been ahead by 13,000, so Rosendale has gained 4,000 votes over the past hour and a half.
Williams now trails Gianforte by about 8,000 votes. It’s 51% to 47% with Gianforte going strong.
It’s 51-43% in the Clerk race with 50 out of 669 precincts fully in.
Both PSC races appear to be gone to Dems.
SD 49 will go to a recount, just like 4 years ago. I think 3 votes separate Sands and Reynolds. Closer than I thought it’d be!
Let’s get to the tribes.
The Indians didn’t turnout for Tester.
Valley is terrible for Tester, where he’s down about 600 votes. We don’t know how Roosevelt County is going yet.
In Lake County, Rosendale only trails Tester by 1,000 votes at this point.
In Big Horn County, Tester is doing better – he’s up by about 300 votes over Rosendale.
We don’t have anything for Blaine County yet. A bit of the reservation is next door in Philips County, but we don’t have numbers there yet, either.
There’s nothing in Glacier County, either.
No, I don’t think Indians really turned out much in this election. Those numbers would be a lot higher for Tester if they did.
10 PM Update
I missed Flathead County: they have 24,000 votes in, 34% turnout, and 52% are going for Rosendale and 45% for Tester, with 1,300 votes separating them.
Gianforte is pulling close to Williams. By 9:45 there were about 1,000 votes separating them. It was 49-48%.
By 10 PM that’d fallen to around 60 votes. It’s 49-49% right now, with Williams still up. When she loses the lead I don’t think she’ll get it back all night. I expect her concession to come around 11:30 or midnight.
Greenwood is now up by nearly 6,000 votes.
For PSC #5, Shirtliff lost his early lead…as I expected he would. He’s now trailing by about 2,500 votes, and it’s 54-46% and getting worse for Dems by the minute.
Both I-185 and I-186 are now failing, 3,000 and 16,000 votes, respectively.
In Yellowstone County, Rosendale is up by 63 votes. He’s taken the lead there, and he might have it all night there from now on.
NBC News did the count, and of the Dems heading to the House, just 8 have openly said they oppose Nancy Pelosi. So she’ll still be speaker, I’m betting.
It appears that Claire McCaskill in Missouri is conceding the race to the GOP…another Senate seat lost to Dems.
Both she and Donnelly will likely blame their Party’s leadership for the disastrous handling of both the Kavanaugh Hearings, and the general tantrum-like policy ideas put forth by Dems ever since the 2016 Election.
9:30 PM Update
Just 6 precincts out of 669 are fully in. Another 183 are partially reporting.
Statewide turnout is now up to 16%. So far 232,000 votes have been counted in the Senate race, and about the same in the House race. The Clerk race is showing 222,000.
Let’s look at some county numbers.
- Yellowstone County: 42,000 votes cast, 43% turnout, 20,266 votes for Rosendale and 20,200 for Tester
- Missoula County: 10,000 votes cast, 11% turnout, 2,800 votes for Rosendale and 7,000 for Tester
- Cascade County: No reporting
- Gallatin County: No reporting
- Silver Bow County: 13,000 votes cast, 55% turnout, 3,000 votes for Rosendale and 9,000 for Tester
- Lewis & Clark County: 20,000 votes cast, 42% turnout, 7,000 for Rosendale and 12,500 for Tester
- Lake County: 6,000 votes cast, 31% turnout, 2,800 for Rosendale and 2,900 for Tester
- Hill County: Nothing to report
There you have the counties with the largest cities.
What about the more rural counties, but still large by population?
- Ravalli County: 14,000 votes cast, 44% turnout, 7,500 for Rosendale and 5,800 for Tester
- Lincoln County: 666 votes cast, 5% turnout, 500 for Rosendale and 100 for Tester
- Park County: Nothing to report
- Glacier County: Nothing to report
- Big Horn County: Nothing to report
- Jefferson County: 2,800 votes casts, 31% turnout, 1,400 for Rosendale and 1,250 for Tester
- Custer County: Nothing to report
- Sanders County: Nothing to report
Yep, still early.
9 PM Update
I encourage you to find election results for yourself as they come in.
You can get them here, on the Secretary of State page.
A word of warning: right now if you use the “my tracked contests” function, things will look like this:
Maybe that will be fixed by the end of the night.
So far about 12% of the vote has been counted.
- 200,000 votes have been counted in the Senate race, and Tester leads by about 13,000 votes. The Libertarian has nearly 3,000 votes.
- Gianforte is trailing Williams by around 5,000 votes, and the Libertarian has 2,600 there.
- Renk has now pulled ahead of Greenwood for Clerk.
- PSC #1 looks to be heading to the GOP again, with Pinocci at 77%.
- PSC #5 still has Shirtliff up, this time by nearly 2,000 votes.
- I feel I-185 is getting closer, with 51% support and 49% opposed. I-186 has 55% opposed, a nearly 8,000 point lead.
With early results in Missoula, it looks like Gianforte got 30% of the votes here in his race, and Rosendale 27%...so far.
I’ll have more ‘likely to flip’ legislative races later as the races I’m watching begin to show results.
Two in Missoula are:
SD 49 in Missoula: Looks like Chase Reynolds is leading Diane Sands in this race by about 5%
HD 96 in Missoula: Looks like Dem Winter is leading Republican Hertz by 5%.
Nationally, it looks like Ted Cruz will pull off a win in Texas, according to the AP around 8:40 PM.
The national media is saying the Dems don’t really have a chance to take the Senate anymore. The GOP gained two seats, the Dems needed 2, now need 4, and that ain’t gonna happen.
138,000 votes still separate the Florida Senate race, and with 99% in…you can bet there will be a recount.
Montana Public Radio is saying that Heidkampt lost her Senate seat in North Dakota.
Dems still need 23 seats to get the House, and as we move further West, I’m not so sure how likely that is. Earlier the chances were 90%. I feel those will slip as we move the night along…but I could be wrong.
Sounds like Gillum is conceding to DeSantis in Florida for the governor’s race.
8:15 PM Update
The Montana Secretary of State began putting up results around 8:05 or 8:10.
So far 8.37% is the official turnout number, so that gives you an idea how far along they are in counting votes.
With 56 of 669 precincts partially reporting, Tester is in the lead with 53% to Rosendale’s 44%
Just around 59,000 votes have been counted.
Williams leads Gianforte 49% to 48%. In both races the Libertarian has 3%.
Bowen Greenwood leads Rex Renk for Clerk of the Court 49-46%, with Roger Roots taking 5%.
No results for PSC #1, but PSC #5 has the Dem Shirtliff up 55% to Brad Johnson’s 45%, with 19,000 votes counted.
The 6-mill has 17,000 votes more supporting it.
Currently I-185 is winning by about 1,000 votes. I-186 is losing by around 2,000 votes.
There are 38,000 votes counted for the two major initiatives, and 57,000 for the 6-mill levy.
It’s still early.
Over on NBC they’re saying it’s 90% certain the Democrats will retake the U.S. House.
They were nice enough to say the Montana Senate race is too early to call. They didn’t even have any numbers up.
7:45 PM Update
5 minutes to go until Montana polls close, but we have a ton of people in line still.
Elsewhere…
It looks like the first openly gay man will win a governorship, in Colorado.
For the Senate, both Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Heidi Heidkampt in South Dakota aren’t doing that well, but a lot of votes still need to come in.
Here in Montana, Mike Dennison said this on Twitter around 7:40:
Noticing a trend in key, swing races nationwide: Republicans doing better than polls indicated. Will that carry forward in MT? #mtpol #mtnews #mtsen #mtal
— Mike Dennison (@mikedennison) November 7, 2018
7:15 PM Update
UM had just a bit over 50 votes, 40 provisional votes and 118 absentee ballots dropped off around 5:30. It’s been a quiet day there, according to Kaimin reporter Mel Loveridge.
That doesn’t seem like a real blue wave of students there, but that was to be expected from the around 10-person crowd that showed up to see Tester and Williams yesterday on campus.
Tester had a much better showing the Sunday before, with around 1,000 showing up.
I wonder if Tester doing well in Missoula will make up for him not doing well in say, Yellowstone County. We’ll see.
Forward Montana was passing out food to people in line at the fairgrounds, which might be illegal.
Up in the Flathead, James Conner from Flathead Memo said he saw poll watcher misconduct, maybe even fraud, and said he might have been exposed to identity theft.
He’ll surely have an interesting post later tonight.
Over in Bozeman, some woman was arrested at a polling place for yelling racist remarks, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
As for me, I’m going to get some pizza. Dominoe’s has a 45-minute wait for carryout, so they’re busy.
Around 8 we’ll start getting Montana results. They’ll be interesting, but way to early to really see anything.
Or will they?
6:30 PM Update
Nothing much has changed in Montana, aside from some lines getting a bit longer. Most election officials say we won’t have final tallies in until tomorrow.
We could know a lot before the final tallies. Someone will probably concede before the night is through, maybe two someone’s.
A lot of the polls on the East Coast and further inland have closed, so we’ll focus on them for a bit.
Very early tallies show a lot more support for Brian Kemp in Georgia than Stacey Abrams in the governor’s race that many are watching. Kemp is up with just 16% of the vote in so far.
The Florida governor’s race is neck-and-neck with 91% in, but DeSantis leads by 0.8% over Andrew Gillum.
Dems need to pick up just 2 Senate seats. How’s it looking early on?
It looked like the GOP Senate candidate might be doing well early against Joe Donnelly in Indiana. 49% of the vote is in, and Republican Mike Braun is up 55% to the Dem incumbent Donnelly’s 40%.
Losing a seat is not going to help Dems, but there’s still halfway to go here.
Ted Cruz was way down against Beto O’Rourke in Texas a half hour ago, but with just 33% of the vote in, Crus is now catching up. It’s Beto at 50.6% and Cruz at 48.8%.
I don’t see Cruz losing, and it looks like the Dems might well lose Indiana. The Senate seems safe so far for the GOP, but that was to be expected.
6 PM
Prepare for a long night.
Prepare for a weird night…and don’t jump the gun.
As of 8 AM, nearly 324,000 absentee ballots had been returned. By 5 PM there were 340,000 absentee ballots returned.
It’s a good bet many have been counted or will be counted by 8 PM.
By 5:30 here in Missoula, the line at the fairgrounds to vote and/or register was 200 to 300 people long, with wait times of up to an hour.
Here’s an image from one of the local reporters there:
Line to vote in Missoula around 5:30
In Butte, the lines were getting so bad that the governor supposedly got involved to see if things could be sped up. I guess that means he made a phone call.
Matt Rosendale has his election night HQ set up in Helena and I believe Gianforte is doing his in Bozeman. Williams is in Helena and I’m not sure where Tester is at.
I’ll get photos off all that stuff for you later.
The first results will come quickly for some counties, and it’s those absentee ballots that will be the first in.
This is a good indication of what’s to come, but we’ve seen races completely flip as the night goes on. Happens in PSC races, legislative races, the governor’s race…but rarely in federal races.
This morning the absentee return rate was nearly 61%, putting the statewide turnout rate to nearly 46%.
I told you yesterday that I don’t think it’ll go above 58%, but I could very well be wrong on that.
And please remember, in 2016 Cascade, Lake, and Silver Bow Counties didn’t have any results up…even after midnight. That’s a big reason we went to bed at 2 AM with Bullock up by 70 votes, but by the time we woke up at 7 AM, he was up by 12,000.
The Tester race will probably be similar tonight, and many think we won’t know the final tally until tomorrow morning or afternoon…maybe later.
Like I said, prepare for a long and weird night.
Late Registration & Voting
In the three hours between the polls opened at 7 until 10 AM, we know that over 650 people registered to vote.
From 10:30 AM to 2 PM, another 1,364 people registered to vote.
Who are these people that wait to the last minute, only to stand in line for an hour or more so they can vote?
Sounds kind of inefficient and like a waste of time. I mean…you can register months or even a year or more beforehand!
So it’s a good bet most of those registering today will be voting Democrat.
My wife is one of them.
She became a citizen two months ago, so now she can vote. And don’t worry – she came over legally and paid all the fees.
I got her the registration form over a month ago, but she didn’t send it in on time. I encouraged her to get to the fairgrounds to register and vote early, but she didn’t.
She headed down to the fairgrounds earlier and stood in line for 30 minutes and voted, mostly Democratic.
My Prediction
10 days ago I told you I saw the key races like so:
- Rosendale: 48.6%
- Tester: 47.8%
- Lib/Other: 3.6%
- Gianforte: 52%
- Williams: 45%
- Lib/Other: 3%
I also believe all the initiatives will pass and that Greenwood will go to Clerk and no Dems will go to the PSC.
I could be wildly off on some or all of those, and I’m fine with that.
How I Voted
I voted around 8:30 this morning.
I was the 92nd person to vote at my polling place.
The first 8 votes on my ballot, well…you might call them ‘protest’ votes.
This is how I voted today:
- Senate: Steve Kelly
- House: Elinor Swanson
- Clerk: Roger Roots
- Judge: Do not Retain
- Judge: Do not Retain
- Judge: Do not Retain
- Judge: Do not Retain
- Judge: Do not Retain
- HD 90: Nick Knowles
- Sheriff: Travis Wafstet
- LR-128: Yes
- I-185: Yes
- I-186: Yes
- Open Space Bond: No
- Open Space Levy: No
There were a few more races on the 3-page ballot, but I can’t remember what they are.
What stuck out to me most were how many judges had no opponents. I always vote to get rid of them when that’s the case, as I now they’ll easily get in. Boring!
Plus, this country and this state are in such bad shape, getting rid of just about everyone in government seems like a fine place to start. Certainly couldn’t make things worse.
So that’s how I voted. There are probably a few races I forgot about, but I didn’t leave anything blank. I just wrote in a lot of stuff, in one case: “Anyone else.”
Most will probably call me a Republican, even though I voted for just one Republican, one Green Party candidate, and two Libertarians.
- I voted for the legislative Republican as I think Marilyn Marler is a terrible candidate and a worse city council member. Her goal is to give me a sales tax so Mayor Engen has more play money to spend on his developer friends. That doesn’t benefit me one bit.
- I voted for the 6-mill, because I don’t pay property taxes, but I did pay $31,000 in student loans. Any kind of property tax increase can’t compare to the extortion we see in our student lending racket.
- I voted for the smoking tax increase, as I’d rather pay $20 more a month on smokes than $500-800 more a month on healthcare.
- I voted for clean mine water, as I know the history of the state and what mines have done to us, and how they view us. I also know that neighboring states with similar laws haven’t lost their mines.
- I voted against Missoula’s latest request for open space, as we have more than enough, but we don’t have enough affordable housing. Decreasing the available supply of land will increase the demand for it, thus the price, making it harder for me to ever buy a home, or even a condo.
Early Conclusion
So that’s it.
Around 10 minutes after I voted, Rick Breckenridge was on KGVO 1290 here in Missoula.
“I’m encouraging all Libertarians to vote for me,” he said quite clearly. One main reason for that? Trump and Rosendale support the border wall and he does not.
We’ll see how that impacts his ‘statement’ from Friday, and whether that spurs Libertarians to vote for him or Rosendale, perhaps costing or earning Tester his third term.
This post will be updated every 15 to 30 minutes from the time the polls close until around 2 AM.
I’ve done the same for every election since 2014, and probably will for a few more elections to come.
Thanks for reading.
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