Election 2024 – A Postmortem

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There’s really no way to describe what happened on election night 2024 but that the MAGA Republicans across the nation delivered an old-fashioned ass-whipping. The ass-whipping was even more evident in Montana.

But you know what, the sun came up this morning and things are going to be OK. 

Here are the topics for this column:

  • Trump vs Harris
  • Tester vs Sheehy
  • Daines & NRSC
  • U.S. House
  • Statewide Races
  • Counting Votes
  • In Closing

TRUMP VS HARRIS:

I expected the presidential race to be close, but after the results for a few states were released, it was evident that Donald Trump was doing better than Kamala Harris.

It’s amazing the disparity amongst the media about when the race was called for Trump.  It was almost like the left and right in the press were either accepting the results or putting them off. 

I am proud that I never voted for Trump, but he will be my President on January 20. I want our country to do well, but I must admit that I am nervous about the next four years. I will also write about the things he is doing right and the things he is doing wrong.  

TESTER VS SHEEHY:

The polls leading up to election day showed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy having a large lead, but I did not believe them. Shame on me!

The last I checked, Sheehy was beating three-term Democrat U.S. Senator Jon Tester by around 47,000 votes (53%-45%). It was not even close. 

It was like Tester was on the endangered species list for the last few years and now the Democrats are extinct when it comes to statewide office holders. 

Some folks may wonder how I feel about Tester losing since he sent my boss, U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, into retirement by 3,562 votes back in 2006. Burns had served three terms. It was a dirty campaign, but not as bad as campaigns are these days. I don’t have any feelings one way or the other. I did vote for Tester. I do feel for Tester’s staff as now they have to plan on closing their offices, finding new jobs, and moving on. It’s a big job. It does suck. On the other hand, Sheehy gets to pick a staff and start new. It will be an exciting time for him and his supporters. He is young, so he could have this job for many years. I wish him well. 

I do think Sheehy owes the press some answers. Sooner or later he will need to address some of the issues he didn’t during his campaign.

DAINES & NRSC: 

I am not a big fan of U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), but the man does deserve some praise for recruiting Sheehy. Daines was the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and he managed to give the Republicans a solid majority in the U.S. Senate. This is big since Trump will be in the White House.  I also applaud the work of Daines’s former Chief of Staff, Jason Theilman, who was the Executive Director of the NRSC. They kicked some ass Tuesday night. Right now they have the Republicans in the Senate with 52 seats, but there are about five others that are too close to call. (Source) 

The U.S. House is still up in the air about which party will control it. I hope the Democrats control it, so Trump can’t steamroll his ideas through Congress. 

By the way, Daines is up for reelection in 2026. Right now I don’t see any Democrats in Montana who can come close to beating him. 

U.S. HOUSE:

It was a little interesting for a few hours watching the contest between incumbent Ryan Zinke and Monica Tranel in the 1st Congressional District. Tranel was doing well until the votes from Flathead County came in, and then the bottom fell out from under her. Currently, Zinke leads 53% to 44%. 

In the Second Congressional District, it was no contest. Republican Troy Downing is beating Democrat John Driscoll 66% to 34%. That was Republican Matt Rosendale’s seat who decided not to run. Have we seen the last of Rosendale? Will he work for Trump?  

STATEWIDE RACES:

As I have mentioned a few times, I split my ticket. I did vote for some winners (Republicans) and my votes for the state Supreme Court candidates were for the winners. 

As for the other races, they were not close. The MAGA candidates ran the table. I am an independent and not a Republican or Democrat, but I don’t see the Democrats cracking the code to win a statewide race anytime soon.  

CI-128, the abortion initiative, passed. I voted for all three initiatives. 

COUNTING VOTES:

Once again we had to wait for the counting of votes here in Montana. This is so wrong and it pisses me off. Supposedly, some counties would not release the results because some voters were standing in line (after polls closed) and they waited for them to finish. 

I hope the Montana Legislature tries to fix this problem.  

IN CLOSING:

Thanks to all the people who ran for office. If you lost, keep your chin up. If you won, we’ll be watching and counting on you.

Remember – there’s another major election in two years and another Presidential election in four years! 

God Bless America! 

## END ##

9 thoughts on “Election 2024 – A Postmortem”

  1. For the first time since 1897, Montana is seeing a sweep of Republican leadership across the Senate, governorship and congressional seats.

    • 1897. I did not know that. We’ll see how that works out. If it doesn’t, it may be 120 some years before it happens again!

    • If history is an example, the party that controls the House, Senate, and White House usually implodes with bickering and division.
      We’ll see how it goes this time if the GOP controls the House. Plus, the senate has the 60 vote rule that may slow down the MAGA agenda. -JmB

  3. IMO if you are any kind of outdoors person or sportsman in Montana you will come to regret this election. The new supreme court chief justice is hostile to our stream access law, and Sheehy as well as Trump are hostile to public lands. Unless your definition of “public” means closed off and leased to extractive industries, blocked from public access by adjoining private landowners, or maybe flat out sold off to millionaires and private clubs.

    Hope to be wrong but do not think so. The billionaire elite is running the show now, and they don’t have the best interests of normal people at top of their agenda.

    • Exactly. And therein lies the huge difference between outta starters and natives. Those of us who are old time residents know the tremendous effort and sacrifices those who came before made to preserve our Montana as Montana. Some newcomers understand and appreciate that and are willing to do their part to continue that tradition.

      But others like Tim Cheesy can’t wait to sell it off and profit from that which they have no right to. It’s sickening. His pathetic acceptance speech was a public display of sucking up to industry and polluters. Who does he think he is pimping out our state? He’s already an embarrassing toady. I think people will soon come to realize that replacing Jon Tester with a lying toady was a big mistake. I’ve got dogs that have been Montanans longer than this industry bootlicker!

      • Well, I guess you could look at it this way:

        Now those of us who are grandkids and great grandkids of Montana’s original white homesteaders and gold/silver/copper rushers know how the natives felt when our forebears came here and took everything away from them. The strong and the rich are always going to come and distract you with baubles and then take your nice things away by force, because that’s what they do. That’s how they got rich in the first place.

        So when we lose our stream access or they start selling off or more likely giving away the national forests and all the BLM land you used to hunt and hike and camp, just remember how important it was to get all hot and bothered about the 15 or whatever it is transgender people in the entire state, the phantom threat of drag queen story hours, and all the other distractions those big money people who underwrite Fox News etc. kept tossing out there to keep your eyes off their real game. You might have lost all your former rights to YOUR public lands, but dammit maybe 3 transgender kids were kept out of girls sports!

      • Of course you’re right. But I keep hoping for our ace in the hole. Complete, utter incompetence. I’m still hopeful that the MAGAs will implode under the weight of their own inability to provide even the basics of a functioning democracy, and that Americans will get pissed enough to run them off next election cycle.

        When they begin to see the actual effects of fascism, they just might figure things out, kinda like the abortion issue. Multiply that by hundreds in all the various ways these MAGA morons will ruin our lives, destroying public lands is just one example as you mentioned. Ya can eat bullsh*t forever and call it beef. When they deport every migrant laborer and their food prices soar. When trump screws up the Middle East and the world has no more cheap oil. The possibilities are endless.

        So yes, I’m confident, very confident that these bozos will do on a national level exactly what our MAGA morons here did to our election office. The MAGATIZED it! And the movement will go the way of the Rae Rae bird. Extinct! Throw in totally inexperienced unqualified politicos like Shady, and it just hastens the inevitable.

        So let the lil cop groupies with their safety budgets and the wacko christofascists gloat, for now they will have no one to blame but themselves when we’re in the toilet and Jesus hasn’t arrived to the rescue, and the Ten Commandments on the wall don’t seem to be working. It’s all on them.

        I’m reminded of what our greatest female journalist Dorothy Thompson said of the Nazis just before Hitler kicked her out of Germany. She said they were “the apotheosis of mediocrity.” And they were, and we’re there! Just look at the twin SEALs!

  4. Watch yourself, Jackie. You’re a good dude and a great writer. But even that might not protect you from the lil rickety type brown shirts organizing for retribution! You and me, we’re the enemy within! Good thing is though that most of them failed the basic requirement for militia duty. Pouring piss out of a boot! They all passed the other test though. Performing fake fellatio on a unsuspecting microphone named pooty!

    https://www.rawstory.com/far-right-violence-2669618722/

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