Can a guitar-strumming cowboy poet strike the first blow at the polls against President Donald Trump? Democrat Rob Quist reckons he can do just that, in Thursday’s closely-watched special congressional election in Montana.
Quist croons at campaign rallies and writes poems for supporters. And as a first-time candidate for public office, the 69-year-old is running an unexpectedly tight race against a Republican businessman in Big Sky country.
The lead once enjoyed by Republican contender Greg Gianforte “has diminished in polling so much that it’s miniscule,” Jeremy Johnson, an associate professor of political science at Carroll College in the state capital Helena, told AFP.
It is the latest example of a congressional race in a traditional Republican stronghold that is far closer than expected, and will be key to determining whether rural voters, who helped send Trump to the White House, are sticking with him.
Trump carried Montana by 20 points; Thursday’s vote, for the western state’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, will be a nail-biter.
“Tomorrow, we have the chance to stand up and defend our values in Washington,” Quist tweeted Wednesday.
Another special election, in Georgia on June 20, is also going down to the wire. Polls show Democrat Jon Ossoff with a slim lead over Republican Karen Handel, who has Trump’s backing.
Both elections are to replace lawmakers who resigned in order to join Trump’s cabinet.
The votes may well be bellwethers on a key issue facing millions of Americans: health care.
Quist is vehemently opposed to the Republican bill, approved by the House of Representatives last month by a 217-213 margin, that would repeal and replace Obamacare.
Gianforte wants to replace Obamacare with something better, but has said he would not have supported the Republican measure in its current form.
But The New York Times dug up an audio recording of Gianforte telling Republicans he was “thankful” that the House passed its bill.
The Senate still needs to vote on the measure, and it is unlikely to survive as is. The renegotiated legislation will return to the House, where every vote will be critical.
The series of Trump-related crises — notably the deepening probe into his campaign’s ties with Russia — and concerns over the Republican health bill have given Quist the momentum, Johnson said.
National strategists are also paying close attention because the results could signal whether support for Trump is already waning in traditional conservative territory, or holding steady.
The Quist race suggests a nightmare scenario may be unfolding for Republicans as they try to protect their majority in the House of Representatives in the 2018 mid-term elections: conservative strongholds may prove more difficult — and expensive — for the party to hold in the wake of Trump assuming power.
“Everybody is trying to divine some meaning from each of these special elections,” said the US Senate’s number two Republican John Cornyn of Texas, adding he was acutely aware how losses in either race could imperil his party’s efforts on health care.
“Obviously it would have huge implications just in terms of the numbers,” Cornyn said.
Outside groups on both sides are reported to have poured millions of dollars into the Montana race.
A Democrat has not held Montana’s House seat in two decades.
An April special congressional election in central Kansas was instructive: Trump carried that district by 27 points, but five months later, the Republican candidate won by just seven points.
“The eyes of the country are on Montana this week,” Senator Bernie Sanders, an expert in rallying the grassroots Democratic base, told a large crowd at a recent Quist rally in Missoula.
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