Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Charles Johnson reports in today’s Missoulian that from 1960 to 1994, more Democrats than Republicans voted in Montana’s primaries. His excellent story is accompanied by an excellent table that I recommend downloading.
After 1994, Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republican primary voters only in 2006 and 2008, both throw-the-bums-out elections.
The turn-around coincides with Montana’s loss of one of its two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 1990 Census. Democrat Pat Williams won the 1992 and 1994 elections, the latter by only a plurality, then retired. Between his retirement and today, Nancy Keenan in 2000 was the only Democratic candidate for the U.S. House that was fully supported by her party and had a decent chance of winning. John Lewis, who just won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House, is the first Democrat since Keenan to have his party fully behind him.
The turn-around also coincides with the big Republican congressional win in 1994, when Newt Gingrich rose to power. Although Democrat Max Baucus continued to win federal elections in Montana, the state’s Democratic Party suffered from uncertain leadership and from what amounts to political shellshock.
Still, that doesn’t fully explain the turn-around. My initial impression is that beginning in 1996, approximately 50,000 Montanans who used to vote in the Democratic primary began voting in the Republican primary. Some might have been crossing over, others might have defected to the GOP. An alternate explanation is that prior to 1996, tens of thousands of Republicans voted in the Democratic primary.