A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

 

2 October 2020 — 0824 mdt

Montana’s most important election for Democrats

Cooney, falling farther behind Gianforte,
is running out of time to make up the deficit

Democratic candidate for governor Mike Cooney is six points behind Republican Greg Gianforte a week before absentee ballots are mailed to Montanans and widespread voting begins.

mt_gov_25_sep      Double size      PDF for printing

The latest publicly available poll, the New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in mid-September, reports Gianforte leads 45–39 percent, with 10 percent undecided and four percent favoring Libertarian Lyman Bishop. FiveThirtyEight gives NYT/Siena an A+ rating.

Six of the 625 respondents chose the Green Party’s candidate, but that choice should not have been on the poll’s questionnaire as the Montana Supreme Court kicked the Republican hijacked Green Party off the ballot. The error does not invalidate the horserace numbers and has no effect on the crosstabs, which contain valuable information:

Gender. Men prefer Gianforte 49 to 34 percent. Women prefer Cooney 43 to 40 percent.

Age. Montanans 65 and older prefer Cooney 48 to 42 percent. The 18–44 cohort prefers Gianforte 41 to 37 percent, and those 45–64 prefer him 50 to 34 percent.

Education. Whites with a BA+ prefer Cooney 47 to 40 percent. Whites without a BA or higher degree prefer Gianforte 48 to 37 percent. Montana is approximately 90 percent white, and high school graduates outnumber college graduates two to one.

Pandemic v. law and order. The poll asked Montanans “What is the most important issue to you in the presidential race?” The choices: "Addressing the coronavirus pandemic," or "Addressing law and order." Thirty-eight percent favored addressing the pandemic, 55% favored addressing law and order.

Interestingly, 54% of Montanans have a favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement. Thirty-nine percent have an unfavorable view of the movement.

Containing the coronavirus v. restarting the economy. Montanans favored restarting the economy by two points, while the nation (crosstabs) favored containing the coronavirus by 23 points. Here’s the breakdown:

breakdown

Gianforte self-funds as though the election is an auction. According to the Montana Free Press, source of the table below, by 15 September, eight-figure multimillionaire Gianforte, had, by writing million-dollars checks to his campaign, raised 3.2 times as much money as Cooney.

Cooney has $455k left to spend; Gianforte, $398k. Cooney does not have the ability to write himself a big check for the home stretch. Gianforte does.

money

Trump remains popular in Montana. According to NYT/Siena, Trump leads Biden 49 to 43 percent, and is viewed favorably by a 51–48 margin. That’s why Gianforte (and Daines) is hugging Trump closer than his wife. The debate does not yet seem to have diminished support in red states. It’s too soon to know how Trump’s testing positive for Covid-19 will affect his horserace and favorability numbers in Montana.

Some voters may oppose a third consecutive Democratic governor on principle. This is, as Gary Wills observed in A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, an old theme in American politics. They believe that rotating the party in power prevents corruption, which they believe is more important than choosing the candidate with the best leadership skills, character, and platform.

This is Montana’s most important statewide election for Democrats. If they lose all of the other statewide elections, nothing changes. If they lose the governorship, they lose the veto pen that Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock used to protect the public from dozens of mean-spirited bills whooped through the legislature by Republican majorities.