31 October 2018 — 2107 mdt
Tester maintains polling lead, Breckenridge sows confusion
It’s Halloween — and Libertarian Rick Breckenridge’s treat, or some would say, trick, is proving it’s possible to have one’s cake and eat it, too. He claims, as best I can determine, that he remains a candidate (he can’t be removed from the ballot), but endorses Matt Rosendale, the Republican state auditor challenging Sen. Jon Tester’s bid for a third term in the U.S. Senate.
More on Breckenridge in a moment. First, the polling numbers.
Sen. Jon Tester continues to maintain a mean polling lead of three to five points over Rosendale. Breckenridge’s polling average for September and October is 2.9 percent. The latest Gravis poll, released earlier this week, has Tester leading by three points, 48–45 percent, with seven percent undecided.
The time series plot below displays the candidates’ numbers for the polls, the dates of President Trump’s rallies, and the margin of error (the T-bars) for Tester and Rosendale. The size of the sample can be inferred from the length of the error bars; the shorter the bars, the larger the sample.
The next plot displays (a) Tester’s net lead in each poll, and (b) that net lead as adjusted by FiveThirtyEight (538’s adjustments are found on the forecast page). The Axis poll, a Republican partisan poll, reported a 44–44 percent tie, which is why only the dark blue column is visible.
FiveThirtyEight’s lite model (polls only) puts Tester’s chances of winning at four in five, with 51.5 percent of the vote. Rosendale’s projected vote share is 45.8 percent, Breckenridge’s 2.6 percent.
The registration and absentee ballot counts at the SecST’s website at 1800 MDT today were 704,330 registered; 418,925 absentee ballots sent; 242,446 returned; registered voter turnout thus far, 34.4 percent. A lot of voters have cast, and therefore cannot change, their ballots regardless of what happens between now and the close of the election on 6 November. That factors into the Breckenridge affair.
So does chaos, some of which was generated by Breckenridge, perhaps inadvertently. Angered by a dark money mailer attacking Rosendale, Breckenridge told Montana reporters on a conference call that he endorsed Rosendale. Phil Drake at the Great Falls Tribune, and Matthew Brown with the Associated Press have the stories, which were updated during the day as events unfolded.
Then all hell broke loose. At Reason, a Libertarian publication, Brian Doherty reported:
Breckenridge admits that he is likely to only get 2-3 percent of the vote, but he’s proud of how much traction he’s gotten, despite having raised, he says, only around $3,000 in campaign funds.
But he stresses this morning he is still running and wants people to vote for him. “I did not say ‘do not vote for me, vote for Matt.’ I’m a Libertarian through and through, I’m not a Republican. I’m not going to be campaigning for [Rosendale], won’t be on stage with” him. He characterizes his statement about Rosendale regarding dark money as “an issue bigger than my candidacy, and I had to do something from a citizen standpoint.”
An update of Drake’s story, issued an hour after Doherty’s story, had a different take on the situation:
Earlier in the day it was believed Breckenridge had pulled from the race. Breckenridge said later he remains on the ballot and is a candidate, but does support Rosendale.
Francis Wendt, chair of the Montana Libertarian Party, said his party was not endorsing Rosendale.
“We do not endorse any candidate in the Democratic or Republican party,” he said, adding most Libertarians are pragmatist and know their chances of winning are often slim.
Breckenridge said he discussed his decision with fellow Libertarians the night before.
“This was not a party decision but my decision alone,” he said.
It’s possible Breckenridge has issued a statement clarifying his situation. That would help. In the meantime, here’s where I think things stand:
- Breckenridge remains on the ballot as the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate. Legally, at this stage of the election, he can’t be removed from the ballot.
- Breckenridge may still be seeking votes for himself. Doherty says Breckenridge is, Drake merely reports that Breckenridge remains on the ballot.
- Breckenridge, according to Drake and Brown, supports Rosendale and wants voters to cast their ballots for the Republican candidate.
- The Libertarian Party and Breckenridge have gone separate ways. The party, astonished, concerned, and probably hopping mad, wants voters to vote only for Libertarians, and repudiates and questions Breckenridge’s backing of Rosendale.
As a practical matter, it doesn’t matter whether Breckenridge has endorsed, blessed, embraced, or just blown a kiss to, Rosendale. Tester’s polling lead dwarfs Breckenridge’s polling numbers. Approximately half of the vote has been cast, so at best Breckenridge could only help Breckenridge by a percent or so — and that’s only if Libertarians listened to Breckenridge and did his bidding, which would be a bit unnatural for a lot so independent.
Upon reading the news that Breckenridge had bolted to Rosendale, my first thought was that while that wouldn’t put Rosendale over the top, it might put Breckenridge on the dais with President Trump in Bozeman on Saturday. Now I’m beginning to suspect it simply puts him in the Libertarian’s dog house, and may torment him this spooky night with howls of outrage from the ghost of Mike Fellows.