5 Day Countdown To Montana Special Election-- It's All About Getting Out The Vote

Rob Quist might be hard for Steny Hoyer and his K Street goons to relate to

The Montana special election to fill Ryan Zinke's seat is this Thursday-- 5 days from today. Recent public polling shows Democrat Rob Quist getting closer. Internal polling-- done for both parties after Comey was fired by Trump-- supposedly shows a dead heat. A dead heat means the race isn't about who's spending more on TV ads; it means who has a better ground game and who gets out the vote on Thursday. The DNC has decided to kick in in a big way for Ossoff's race next month in GA-06. But they're not helping in Montana. The DCCC and Pelosi's PAC have given huge money towards Ossoff's race but just modestly for Quist. This week Alex Isendstadt made a big fuss over a $25,000 late ad buy from the House Majority PAC in Montana. That's a drop in the bucket compared to what they're spending in Georgia. He wrote that "the buy is a small one; the candidates and parties have so far spent more than $8 million on the Montana race. But it underscores how Democrats are making a late play in the contest." It doesn't sound like much of a play to me at all. Republican groups have spent around $4 million bolstering Gianforte while the DCCC has put $280,000 into Montana. Fuckers.

Republicans remain confident that Gianforte will pull out a win. But with Trump’s turmoil dominating the headlines, GOP officials are on alert. Two party strategists who had reviewed recent polling said they believed Gianforte’s lead was around 5 percentage points. “Up but not out of the woods,” one Republican strategist said.

To buttress Gianforte, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced that it would air $200,000 worth of commercials during the final week of the contest.

Without air cover from national Democrats, Quist has been forced to rely on his own fundraising-- which has been prolific. Quist’s campaign announced on Thursday that it had raised over $5 million to date.

Some liberals have complained about the national party’s reluctance to engage in the contest, arguing that they were missing out on the opportunity to steal a Republican-held seat. A win would further energize Democrats, who are looking to exploit Trump’s national unpopularity and retake the speaker’s gavel.

Quist is too populist, too independent-minded, too progressive and too anti-establishment for the suits at the DCCC to get very excited about. He happens to be, though, the exact kind of candidate who has a shot to win in Montana. He's not a DC kind of guy. They want more guys like them. That's why they lose in districts like these-- always.

Thursday Quist's campaign announced they had raised $5 million from 200,000 individuals in 85 days. He is out-raising Gianforte-- who took in $3,3 million, primarily from lobbyists and big donors-- but Paul Ryan's SuperPAC is making up the difference while the DCCC sits around with their heads up their asses. And Gianforte put a million dollars of his own money into trying to buy the seat. He did the same thing when he tried buying the governorship last year-- and lost to Democrat Steve Bullock by 20,000 votes-- 50.25% to 46.36%. He is too extreme and too much of a bigot for Montana. He's obsessed with homosexuality, which isn't much of an issue even for conservatives in Montana. And he's very extreme on Choice as well. He's had Donald Trump. Jr. and Mike Pence campaigning for him.

Today Bernie kicks off two days of barnstorming with Quist. They start at 11 AM in Missoula-- where Bernie didn't just crush Hillary in the primary-- he beat Trump as well! In fact, Bernie got 13,271 votes in Missoula County. Trump only got 7,623 votes in the GOP primary. Bernie not only beat Trump, though; he beat Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio and Bush combined-- 13,271 to 9,983. Today's first event was scheduled for the 1,200 seat Wilma Theater but had to be moved to the 7,500-seat Adams Center Field House. By 3 PM they'll be at the Butte Civic Center and then move on to an 8:30 PM rally at the Billings Depot. Tomorrow morning they'll be at Montana State University in Bozeman. Bernie and Quist have a message for working folks in Montana which transcends Trump's bullshit and Gianoforte's transparently craven lust for position. There are good reasons Quist didn't ask DC politicians like Pelosi, Hoyer, Wasserman Schultz and that type to join him on the campaign trail-- just Bernie.

Who thinks it will help Gianforte's chances that Trump was caught telling two top Kremlin spies that he fired "the nut job" when they were in the Oval Office? He told Sergey Kislyak, Russia's spymaster for the Western Hemisphere that firing Jim Comey had relieved "great pressure" on him. He was probably wrong to imagine he-- or the GOP-- would be relieved. "I just fired the head of the FBI He was crazy, a real nut job," he told the Russians. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off... I’m not under investigation." He is-- and voters in Montana are not likely to react any differently than anyone else in the country is to this breaking news. Polling show that most Americans don't trust Trump and know exactly why he fired Comey and understand what obstruction of justice means and how serious it is.

UPDATE: Bernie And Rob Kicked Ass In Missoula

Rob Quist told thousands of people in Missoula that "people shouldn't have to go bankrupt because they've had a medical issue," a familiar refrain to progressives in the Democratic Party and to more and more garden variety Democrats as well. Even some from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party have started signing on to John Conyers' Medicare for All Act. Friday Wall Street captive Joe Crowley was finally forced into it. But Montana Bernie Sanders supporters were on board long before Crowley and they are turning out for Quist. "The eyes of the country are on Montana this week," Bernie reminded the cheering crowd.