Election night is a major event for me. I love to watch the votes come in and see who wins the races. Thanks to all (over 300) who followed my updates in Twitter throughout the evening.

I stayed up late last night waiting for the Cascade County to get their results in to the Secretary of State’s office, but gave up. I read in the Great Falls Tribune this morning that the count was not done at 1:30 a.m. There’s something seriously wrong in the Cascade County elections department when they are consistently last in counting the votes.

It was also fun and somewhat comical to watch the Montana media try to keep up with the results. Hopefully they will improve a little before the big event in November.

A round of applause goes to Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch and the great website she has up and running for the election. Good job.

Montana At-Large Primary:

The big race on the ballot this November will be Congressman Denny Rehberg (R) and Dennis McDonald (D) for the Montana At-Large Congressional seat.

It should not be much of a race; Rehberg “should” cruise to a sixth term.  Should.

In the primary, I predicted Rehberg would get 76% of the vote in the three-way Republican primary. He ended up 74%. Some predicted that the constitutional Republican, Mark French, would make a strong showing. I did not see him getting over 20%. He ended up with 19.5% of the vote. There were 128,822 votes cast in the Republican primary for the Montana At-Large Congressional seat.

I predicted McDonald would win the Democratic primary with 52% of the vote; he ended up with 38% in the four-way race, but a victory nonetheless. I thought Gernant was coming on at the end and felt he would give Rehberg a tougher race in November, but after I saw that Missoula County (Gernant’s home turf) went to McDonald, I knew it was all over for Gernant.

According the Montana Secretary of State’s website, there were 62.805 votes cast in the Democratic primary. 38,671 of those votes went to the other three candidates instead of McDonald. McDonald pulled in 24,134 votes. It was a strong showing by Gernant, Gopher and Rankin. McDonald has much work to do in this race over the summer to keep him from becoming another Democrat who will go down in history as road kill for the Rehberg political machine.

Looking ahead:

Rehberg has the money in the bank. Both McDonald and Rehberg will tout their ties to the Agricultural community. Rehberg should easily take Yellowstone, Gallatin, and Flathead counties.

McDonald should take Silver Bow and be competitive in Missoula and Lewis and Clark counties.

The battleground may be Cascade County where both candidates will need to brush up on their military knowledge as they are both weak in this area. Also, with Montana having over 100,000 veterans, this block of voters are ripe for the taking as neither Rehberg nor McDonald ever served in the military.

Of course, the pointed press releases and web and TV commercials will be wild and nasty. If you are Dennis McDonald, this will have to be your method of operation to win the race – it’s the “throw all the crap you can” and see if anything sticks plan. On the other hand, if you are Denny Rehberg, you must act like a statesman, and in every other sentence mention Nancy Pelosi.

Although it is five months until the General Election a lot can happen. A candidate can screw up many ways and his staff can also screw up the race for him. You can bet both campaigns will be looking for an edge anywhere they can find it.

It should be fun to watch.

Rehberg Campaign Site:  http://www.dennyrehberg.com/

McDonald Campaign Site: http://www.mcdonald4congress.us/