24 August 2016
Ralph Nader’s best Montana county in 2000 was Missoula
Ralph Nader received 15 percent of the votes cast for president in Missoula County in 2000. That comes as no surprise, given Missoula is a university town where many liberal academics and students considered Nader a free vote — Bush was leading Gore by a landslide margin in Montana — for a party with the platform they believed the Democratic Party should have had. Nader’s next best county was Gallatin, home of engineering oriented Montana State University, where he received 7.9 percent of the vote.
Nader received 5.95 percent of the presidential votes cast in Montana in 2000. Four conservative third party candidates received 2.25 percent of the vote. Bush beat Gore 58.4 to 33.6 percent. You can download an Excel spreadsheet with the county totals.
Here’s how the third party vote looked graphically. Note the west to east falloff for Nader in the big counties.
