Montana Democrats Nominated Rob Quist For Congress Today-- Can He Win In May?

Rob Quist

I hope you remember Blue America's old friend from Montana, Franke Wilmer, a professor of political science at Montana State University, who served in the state House, including as Speaker Pro Tem, and brought us as close as the country's ever gotten to electing someone like Barbara Ehrenreich to Congress. I asked her if she could help us understand if the Democrats have a legitimate shot to win the at-large House seat in Montana-- to replace Trump's new Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke-- in the May 25 special election.

Late this afternoon, the Democratic Party nominating convention in Helena selected, on the 4th round of voting, Rob Quist, a popular singing cowboy backed by former Gov. Brian Schweitzer over half a dozen other candidates. Tomorrow the Republicans are likely to pick clueless multimillionaire extremist Greg Gianforte, who lost the governor's race in November to Democrat Steve Bullock, even while Hillary was being wiped out by Trump. So how does Quist beat the Republican? Here's where Franke came in, just moments ago:

The Montana special election is one of the first special elections following the Trump takeover/inauguration. It will absolutely be viewed by the whole country, but especially those in elected office, to figure out which way the political winds are blowing as a measure of Trump's eroded or continued support. Nothing is more important right now and until we do everything we can to elect our Democrat nominee.

Because turnout in special elections is so low and unpredictable, if we put the same energy into getting every possible Dem voter to the polls as we put into turnout for the Women's March, WE CAN WIN THIS AND THIS IS THE STRONGEST MESSAGE POSSIBLE TO SEND TO TRUMP-- from a state where he won by 10 points, no less. At the least, sitting Republican members of congress and state legislatures will be reluctant to support Trump’s most extreme agenda if they fear a similarly strong turnout in their 2018 elections.

SO PLEASE PROMISE TWO THINGS: Start now to line up fundraising and volunteers to get out the vote for the Democrat nominee whoever it is, and immediately following the convention pledge strong and unified support for our nominee.

SECOND, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, more than any other election, this special election will be about TURNOUT. If each of the 10,000 people who showed up Jan 21 votes and can guarantee twenty additional votes from folks who, for one reason or another, were not in Helena on Jan 21, that 200,000 can be our "win” (or scare the hell out Repubs) number.

So start with family members, friends who were out of town or down with the flu, friends who attended a march elsewhere but live and vote in MT, people who are or have attended one of the other rallies recently-- the votes of Democrats in eastern Montana and rural parts of the state will count more than ever-- then ask of all them to commit to vote for our candidate in the special election, and make it your responsibility to get their votes in the mail ballots turned in. It does not appear that we've had a special election like this in some time (1934 and 1969 are the only two I could find), and the data on turnout for primaries, general elections (presidential and off-year) is all over the place-- between 40-74%. But I can confidently say that if 200,000 people show up for the Dem candidate, we will shake things up monumentally. I had 27 people on my list in the first day. And two of them are making their own lists of 20! This election is a referendum on the Trump presidency. WE CAN DO THIS!

And we are not alone-- watch what Rachel says about our special election!

UPDATE: Republicans Must Be Worried

A day after the Democrats nominated Quist, Ryan's Congressional Leadership Fund SuperPAC launched a $700,000 ad buy against him, with all the standard rote bullshit Ryan uses against all Democratic candidates regardless of where they stand on any issue: