Montana Election 2008

GOP Wins Montana Senate, Tied in the House

By Robert Struckman , 11-05-08

Late on election night, Montana voters—who historically have shown themselves to be inveterate ticket-splitters—seemed to have handed resounding victories to Democrats, especially as the results of statewide candidates were tallied.

But the slower count on the legislative districts have given Tuesday’s late night tale another twist. It seems the GOP has recaptured control of the Montana Senate, with a 27-23 majority, and will likely be deadlocked with Democrats in the House, tied at 50-50. The party that controls the House gets to set the agenda in this winter’s legislative session. As for the Senate, all of the governor’s appointments to department heads, boards and commissions get approval there.

“First of all, to have John McCain win, with very little presence, shows Montana is still, philosophically, a center-right state. We just haven’t done a good job of winning elections recently,” said state Republican chairman Erik Iverson. “The Democrats had every single structural advantage—four times the money. For the first time in history, a presidential candidate set up shop in the state, with all these offices, and for seven or eight months raided all this money, put in all this structure. What we’ve learned is something we’ve known for a long time, Montanans are ticket-splitters. You had people voting for Denny Rehberg and Barack Obama, for John McCain and Brian Schweitzer.”

Some of the closely fought elections, such as retired schoolteacher Gary Branae’s bid for the 27th Senate district in Billings, ended in victory for the Democrats. But the party which enjoyed victories across the nation came up short, despite out-recruiting, out-organizing and in most cases out-spending their opponents.

“Races in Montana are won on the ground,” said Yellowstone County GOP head Brad Anderson. That is to say, say insiders of both parties, pretty much any candidate can win in any district in Montana if they campaign in person, door-to-door, talking and listening to voters. What’s more, Montana voters often vote back and forth down the ballot, rather than straight down the ticket for one party.

“There’s no question about it, we lost some key races,” said Democratic Party chairman Dennis McDonald. “It really hurts. We thought we’d be competitive.”

Both Republicans and Democrats agreed that each district is peculiar to itself, that candidates need to work hard door-to-door to win and that a broad effort from the top helps less than good planning and execution on the ground.

“Did the voters hear the message? This goes back to the work ethic. The candidate has to work, has to deliver the message,” McDonald said. Then he cited several Democratic candidates who did work hard, he though, and who still lost.

Over the coming days, McDonald said, he and other top Democrats in the state would study the numbers to see what lessons could be learned.

As for Iverson, he said the GOP is glad to have a hand in the state government this year. Without these wins, the Republicans would have been empty-handed.

“It’s time to govern. That will mean reaching across the aisle, and that’s not going to work without civility, from both parties,” he said.

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