24 October 2022 — 1039 mdt
Updates on the election for Montana’s
western congressional district
By James Conner
On 17 October, I reported that according to an end of September poll by Victoria Research, Republican Ryan Zinke was leading Democrat Monica Tranel by a single percentage point, 41–40, with Libertarian John Lamb at eight percent and 11 percent undecided. The sampling margin of error for Zinke and Tranel was 3.3 percent, but 1.8 percent for Lamb. There was a 62 percent probability that Zinke was leading Tranel.
Since my 17 October post, more information on the closeness of the election was published at the Daily Montanan (Keila Szpaller, 19 October) and the Helena Independent Record (finance, by Sam Wilson; and the Libertarian candidate, by Holly Michels).
Earlier in October, the Huffington Post ran a story, There Are Too Many Snakes In This Montana Campaign, on Tranel’s grotesque television ads calling Zinke a snake.
Szpaller reported that national political analysts have retreated slightly from their opinion that Zinke was overwhelmingly certain to win.
Wilson reported that Tranel has more in state donors than Zinke, but less money, and is trying to spin that as an indication that Montanans prefer her. It’s an old spin, and as flat as ever. In state dollars have exactly the same purchasing power as out of state dollars. What matters most is how many dollars a candidate has to spend. Tranel has many fewer than Zinke, and she’s spending them on reptilian television ads that leave me recoiling in disgust.
Disclosure. I stopped paying attention to political ads on televison decades ago. I think the 30-second campaign ad is as big a threat to democracy as the 6 January insurrection. The only people who benefit from these ad are the media consultants who get rich making them.
Michels reports today that Lamb doesn’t have a Social Security number (is that legal?), calls himself a Ron Paul Libertarian, and was interested in the trial of Amon Bundy, who led the occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. Bundy was acquitted.
One of the activities Lamb has gotten attention for in recent years was the Bundy occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. Lamb was quoted in several news stories about the occupation and subsequent court case, and a photo taken by Oregon Public Broadcasting shows him grilling hot dogs in downtown Portland while awaiting a verdict in the trial.
It was a case he first had “no intention of ever going to,” Lamb said, until Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was shot and killed by law enforcement on the way to a meeting in John Day.
“All I did, and I didn’t know what I was doing, I guess, I knew the gentleman who got shot in Oregon, so I went there. I thought it was horrific that the police shot this man,” Lamb said.
The shooting, which was deemed justified by the Malheur County district attorney, drew wide criticism and led to a trial where an FBI agent was found not guilty of charges that he lied about what happened during the incident.
“I believe they should have arrested (Finicum) instead of killing him,” Lamb said. “That even took me, I guess, to a different level because I met so many different people, like-minded in some ways, not with the guns because I’m not a gun guy, but I’m just for the civil rights.”
Michels also report that Lamb was a leader…
…in protests in late 2020 at the home of the former public health officer in Gallatin County. Reporting from the Bozeman Daily Chronicle said that Lamb and fellow Libertarian Roger Roots organized the protest that lasted more than two weeks against public health measures put in place because of the pandemic.
That selfish and irresponsible protest did not save lives, and may have contributed to unnecessary cases of Covid 19 and possibly even to unnecessary deaths.
At this point, the state of this race is unknown. The last poll we know about was conducted more than three weeks ago. Voting began last week.
I do not think Lamb will receive eight percent (the Victoria poll’s range for him is ≈ 6–10 percent). I think he’ll win three to six percent of the vote, and that disgruntled Republicans who told the pollster they favored Lamb will hold their noses and vote for Zinke, who, after all, is still a Republican.
Will the undecideds break for Tranel? I doubt it. Montana is a red state. I think the undecideds will break for Zinke.
Still, in 2018, Kathleen Williams carried the new western district. If it’s the 2018 electorate that votes, Tranel could win. But if it’s the 2020 electorate that votes, Zinke will win.