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Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) wins again
Sen. Jon Tester (D) has won re-election in Montana. The election was called by the AP this morning. With 84 percent of precincts reporting, Tester is at 48.8 percent, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) is at 44.7 percent and Libertarian Dan Cox is at 6.5 percent.
This caps off what has been a very bad election for Senate Republicans. So far Democrats have picked up Republican held seats in Massachusetts, Indiana and Maine (presuming Independent Angus King caucuses with Democrats). On the other hand Republicans have only managed to take Nebraska away from the Democrats. If Democrat Heidi Heitkamp holds on to her narrow lead in North Dakota, Democrats will end up net two seats in the Senate.
Given that Democrats had twice as many seats to defend this cycle as the Republicans and many of the Democratic-held seats were in states won overwhelmingly by Mitt Romney, this is a truly remarkable development. Despite the Republicans having an incredibly favorable playing field this year in the Senate and doing relatively well in the House races, they lost basically every competitive Senate contest. While a two seat swing may not seem large, compared to how well Senate Republicans could have done this is a crushing loss.
24 Comments
Thanks Jon. Minor Word Press error “….is a crushing lose.”
Just how many GOP Senate and House members lost who said stupid stuff about rape, abortion etc?
The GOP pissed off Women, Hispanics, Gays, African Americans etc its no wonder they lost.
What will Reid say to excuse inaction and deadlock in the Senate now?
What I would like to hear is how the GOP tries to justify their *cough* strategy but still not admit that they were wrong. I don’t expect their excuses to be educational just funny.
I bet he will scream the National Debt is too high. Never mind the National Debt was Higher as a percent of the economy when we created Social Security in the first place.
New Reid excuses for doing nothing Everything the Left wants costs to much America is broke. Reid excuse to do everything for the Right it will stimulate the economy, create jobs and if we don’t do it the economy will collapse.
As a Montanan, this is especially gratifying, owing to all the money poured into the campaign by big money, out of state groups backed by the Kochs, Rove, and the US CoC to defeat him.
The pendulum is finally beginning to turn left. Unfortunately, it will reach its furthest rightward point shortly, when the Grand Bargain is reached.
The economy will collapse and the deficit BS will collapse with it.
Then what is what we should be planning for. I like the idea that prop 30 represents; let’s take some money from the 1% ;who are accumulating it at a rapid rate, in the form of taxes. Then we use the tax revenue to build new roads everyone can use, and set up an education system everyone can use, and provide basic healthcare for everyone. We could call it civilization for all humans not just the wealthy and their flunkies.
According to this ND blogger, Berg is about to concede. No confirmation yet.
next door, ND has elected its first woman Senator. Berg just conceded. Heidi Heitkamp will be ou next Senator. :-)
The Republicans held on to their Senate seat in California via Dianne Feinstein (DINO-CA).
I stand corrected on the confirmation. :)
And yet Mitch McConnell will continue to cater to the TeaPartiers in his midst, even though he can see his Senate majority having been taken from him twice in the past two years. The man is positively self-destructive. I have to wonder if he WANTS to be Senate Majority Leader.
Worst GOP Senate campaign since their 1986 fiasco, and richly deserved. Poster child for this is in Indiana, where GOPer Senate wannabe Morondock raped himself with his rape comments even after the example of idiot Akin.
I’m from the same home county, Chouteau, as Tester. He is absolutely despised in his home, rural district. Mainly b/c the thing he touts the most, his organic farming, is what pisses off his neighbors. The other farmers in the area blame Tester for the weeds in their precious Monsanto fields.
Even my parents (non farmers) are disgusted with him and they have been mostly “soft” Democrats until now.
Plus my mom said that Rehberg had some sort of controversy over a boating accident as well as his suing the fire fighters who didn’t put out a fire on his property to his liking.
When I went to visit Montana last summer, the virulent hatred I saw for Tester on the TV ads and huge billboards that said, “VOTE FOR ANYONE BUT TESTER”, I would have assumed he was a deadman walking.
Montana almost went for Obama in 2008 and boy did hope curdle in four years. Too much for Rehberg, b/c it put the Libertarian in play
The rumor is that populist governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, out of office b/c of term limits is going to take on Max Baucus in the Dem Primary in 2014.
I sure as hell hope so.
It would be morning in America if Baucus got defeated. I detest him/
I’m almost glad the Democrats didn’t pick up more seats (like Nevada). If they got anywhere near 60 it would provide cover for doing nothing regarding the filibuster.
I still don’t have high hopes, but I strongly suspect that Reid will streamline the appointment process so that they can staff the new administration, as well as handling the backlog of Federal judge appointments and two or three Supreme Court nominations.
Schweitzer primarying Baucus is a fabulous idea!
I have lived and farmed in Chouteau County for most of my life (I’m in the 60 to 65 age group) and, as Chairman of the Chouteau County Democrats at the time (many years ago now), I was the first to ask Jon to run for public office. He declined at that time because he had just finished a term or two on the local school board and wanted to give time for any resentments that service might have caused to settle (such service always causes some no matter what you do – I know as I spent nine years serving on my own nearby school district board). I believe two years later, he ran for the Montana legislature and has skyrocketed since then.
The thing to remember about Montana politics is that virtually all the rural precincts are conservative and the urban areas trend from moderate to quite liberal. No matter the record of service, most rural precincts vote straight line Republican ticket without fail.
The same is generally true in Chouteau County as Jon did not even win his home County in his first Senate run. This time, however, he did, so there was a lot of cross ticket voting for Jon from Republicans in this County this time. Not so in most of the other rural counties, per past custom.
I don’t know about Jon’s farming practices but I do know that he has a truly warm character, enjoys people immensely, and is extremely approachable. He has taken on none of the ‘airs of entitlement or power’ that you see in many nationally elected officials. And compared to Rehberg, who has served twelve years to Jon’s six, his list of accomplishments surpasses Rehberg’s immeasurably.
Jon is very intelligent, politically astute and a moderate-more so than most readers of this site would like, I am sure, and sometimes more that I would like but you don’t get elected to national office from Montana if you are a wild eyed liberal. Jon is an upfront guy with character and integrity. Just be glad we have a newly re-elected Democrat from Montana, as I am, and not a political hack like Dennis Rehberg.
Plainsman: the investigation I did today said that the Native American vote turned the tide for Tester. I was shocked to see Tester hold serve in Chouteau County. The Rocky Boy reservation in Box Elder plus anti Rehberg Republicans must have made the difference
I still subscribe to the River Press and based on the primary tallies from June, much more voting for Republican candidates than Democrat
Total of 7 IIRC Reservation s in Montana. Heitkamp benefitted from this phenomenon too in ND
Natty Rebel: There is probably a lot of truth to your statement about the impact of the Native American vote. The rural counties containing N A reservations, according to the voter maps, went heavily for Jon, as did most of the counties with larger cities (Jon even finished only slightly behind Rehberg in his home Yellowstone County). And the presence of a Libertarian candidate in the race didn’t hurt (same happened in the Gubernatorial race), as a significant number of what I assumed would otherwise be Republican votes were siphoned off. Thank you Libertarians!
There is nothing sweeter to this Montanan than seeing Rehberg booted out of any decision-making role. Unfortunately, we elected a guy who’s just as big a jerk to replace him in the House.
I bet the Billings firefighters Rehberg sued threw a great party last night to celebrate his demise.