Vote like you understand that someone died for your right to do so. – Unknown

Today’s independent commentary deals with these issues:

• Anonymous Mailers
• U.S. Senate – Montana
• Montana House At-Large
• Bonus – U.S. Senate – Missouri
• Gallup – Confidence in Elections

Anonymous Mailers:

Here at the worldwide headquarters of The Western Word, we received a couple anonymous mailers via the U.S. Postal Service on Saturday. I think that is three altogether we’ve received. Some call them “dark money” mailers. Some say the anonymous mailers are illegal.

So are robo-calls, but that does not stop people from calling.

One mailer states that Republican “Matt Rosendale supports government surveillance drones flying over our skies…” and that Rosendale “also supports the devastating tariffs, which are hurting our farmers.”

The mailer says that I should call Matt Rosendale and “tell him to say no to using drones to spy on Montanans.”

At the bottom of the mailers, they state “Rick Breckenridge is a true conservative. He opposes government intrusion in Montanans’ private lives.” The other one says, “Rick Breckenridge is 100% opposed to the farm-killing tariffs, and he opposes big government intrusion into our private lives.”

In case you don’t know, Matt Rosendale is a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Montana and Rick Breckenridge is a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in Montana.

Here are thumbnails of the mailers/fliers. Click on them to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

U.S. Senate – Montana:

The blog FiveThirtyEight.com says that the Montana Senate race between incumbent U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D) and Republican Matt Rosendale has tightened some over the weekend.

FiveThirtyEight.com says that Tester has 78.2% chance of winning, down from an 85% last week. FiveThirtyEight.com rates the race as “Likely D.”

FiveThirtyEight.com also predicts Tester will get 51.4% of the vote to Rosendale’s 46.1%.

As of this morning, FiveThirtyEight.com predicts the Republicans have an 85.2% chance of keeping the majority in the U.S. Senate.

I’ve predicted a somewhat easy win for Tester all along. You can read the FiveThirtyEight.com analysis HERE.

Montana House At-Large:

The blog FiveThirtyEight.com says that incumbent Republican U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte has a 75.8% chance of winning the MT-At-Large race, up from 64.2% last week over Democrat Kathleen Williams. (FiveThirtyEight.com)

FiveThirtyEight.com also predicts Gianforte will get 50.5% of the vote to Williams’ 46.3%.

As of this morning, FiveThirtyEight.com predicts the Democrats have an 85.8% chance of winning the majority in the U.S. House.

You can read the FiveThirtyEight.com analysis HERE.

Bonus – U.S. Senate – Missouri:

Democrat incumbent U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill has a 58.4% chance of winning her race over Republican Josh Hawley in Missouri.

The race is rated a “toss-up.”

You can read the FiveThirtyEight.com analysis HERE.

Confidence in Elections:

Gallup polling is reporting this today that as U.S. voters prepare to head to the polls for Tuesday’s midterm elections, seven in 10 Americans say they are “very” (28%) or “somewhat” confident (42%) that votes will be accurately cast and counted, similar to what Gallup has measured in past elections, except for 2008.

We must always work to ensure our elections are fair and accurate. It must be easy to vote in this country. Voters must have confidence in the process.

Don’t forget to vote!

Follow The Western Word on Twitter @TheWesternWord and on Facebook for the latest election and campaign news.

 

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