12 September 2020 — 2025 mdt
Montana’s Democrats should allocate all of their
resources to Mike Cooney’s bid for governor
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney has closed the range on his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, to just one point (46 % C, 47 % G) according to a poll conducted by the Global Strategy Group for the Democratic Governors Association during the third week of August.
Six-hundred likely voters were interviewed by telephone. A one-page summary of the topline results is available, but the crosstabs are not. FiveThirtyEight classifies this as a partisan poll, but the methodology appears to be sound.
An Emerson College poll conducted in late July reported Cooney was trailing by 8.4 points.
All Democrats must put their shoulders into Cooney’s campaign
Of the six statewide partisan offices on the Montana ballot in 2020 — President, Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Auditor, and Superintendent of Public Instruction — governor is by far the most important for Montanans and Montana’s Democrats. If Democrats Biden, Bullock, Graybill, Bennett, Morigeau, and Romano, lose nothing changes. If Cooney loses, Republican Gianforte will replace 16 years of Democratic governors who vetoed hundreds of crackpot bill passed by the Republican legislature’s caucus of feckless ideologues — and Greg will sign what Brian and Steve vetoed.
Montana’s Democrats will rejoice if Bullock, Williams, and their ballot mates, win. But those victories would not begin to offset the dispair that would be brought by Cooney’s defeat.
Mike’s working hard. He needs more money, more phone bankers, more literature droppers, more drum bangers, and more horn tooters. And he needs them now.