Big Sky Cairn

Republicans nominate Kelleher to challenge Baucus. Democrats nominate Driscoll to challenge Rehberg. Montana lives up to its reputation as a political black box, and many - myself included - wake up this morning wondering what just happened. So what happened?

Our friend Montana Headlines theorizes that it’s name recognition in a crowded field that pushed these candidates over the top. Jay Stevens sees protest votes. Both, I think, have a point and can explain Kelleher’s win pretty well. I want to take their thoughts and integrate them into a larger scenario. Here’s what I think happened yesterday.

I think we saw the consequence of split ticket voting on strict party line ballots.

First, Montana voters are notoriously independent, and split-ticket voting (voting simultaneously for candidates from multiple parties) is quite prevalent. It’s why, for example, Republican Conrad Burns lost on the same ticket that Republican Denny Rehberg won on in 2006. As a state, we famously buck national trends and party distinctions.

Second, the highest billed ticket in this primary was the Presidential contest between Obama and Clinton. Given the unpopularity of President Bush and the skepticism many Montana Republicans feel toward McCain, there is a sense of discouraged inevitability among many Republicans that the winner of the Democratic Primary will be the next President. Since the Republican ticket was already set, I think many Montanans who lean Republican may have voted on the Democrat ticket in order to voice their opinion on this important question. Some probably voted for Hillary to continue the in-fighting on the left (Operation Chaos). Some probably voted for Obama because they really like him and will vote for him in the General Election. Most, I’m guessing, voted for Obama because he’s a much better option in their minds than Clinton and they don’t want to be stuck with another Clinton Administration. It was the importance of this race, and the fact that there weren’t any other hotly contested primaries among Republicans that made voting on the Democrat Ticket attractive.

Third, the Republicans who voted for the Democrat Presidential Candidate were locked into voting Democrat for the remainder of the ballot. Congressman Rehberg is still popular in Montana, especially among Republicans who may have selected what they considered to be the weaker of the two significant candidates in order to help ensure his seat was unthreatened.

Fourth, the Republican exodus to the Democrat ballot (again, not for insidious Operation Chaos reasons) left the Republican ticket vulnerable to greater influence from a smaller number of people with an axe to grind (see Jay Stevens’ analysis). Coupled with a crowded field in which no candidate was able to get in front of the pack (see Montana Headlines’ take above) an overall minority of voters (36%) was able to nominate the winning candidate as the majority of voters (64%) split their votes among the remaining candidates.

And pre-emptively, no, I don’t have any hard proof. Like most Montanans I know, I’m still scratching my head. This is my guess.

Oh man, I’m also confused by these results.

I’m not sure if I completely buy the split ticket theory — tho’ I know of plenty of folks who bitterly complained that they wished they could have voted in both primaries — given that only about 9% of the Dem primary consisted of self-identified Republicans. Independents, however, comprised 30% of the Dem primary electorate.

Here are the theories I’ve heard:

–Name recognition: Uninformed voters picked the candidates they had heard of, ignorant of their actual positions.

For the GOP primary, that doesn’t make much sense to me, b/c you’d think mostly diehard Repubs would have attended that race. And even if that were the case, you’d think you’d see a more even distribution of the votes. But the bottom feeders scored low single-digits.

For the Dem primary, that makes more sense, but then Driscoll is known for being a legislator in the 70s and for serving on the PSC. His leg. exp. wouldn’t resonate with younger voters — Obama’s base — and I opine a PSC chair isn’t much of a platform for fame. That is, you’d probably have to be a staunch and long-time Dem to know who he was.

–The Paul Bearers wreaking havoc. The idea is that Kelleher falls more in line ideologically with Paul Bearers than the other GOP candidates. They boosted him to the top spot.

Intriguing, but the Paul electorate on the Prez race was under 20 percent. Kelleher scored 36 percent. Plus much of Kelleher’s beliefs are an anathema to Paul’s accolytes.

–Operation Chaos. The GOPers looking to cause trouble in the Dem primary chose Driscoll to be a weak candidate against Rehberg.

Driscoll won liberal hotbeds like Missoula and Bozeman. Can’t do that with a handful of malicious party switchers in overwhelmingly liberal towns, methinks.Driscoll also won by more than 8 percent. Does anyone really think Operation Chaos could rally 8 percent of a record-setting primary electorate?

You’d think uninformed voters would have distributed their votes equally on the down-ticket races, but on both ballots, the other races had well-regarded and lower-profile candidates win by large margins. (Think Juneau and Fox, say.) If the votes were the result of ignorance, you’d think those races would have been closer, too.

Probably, as is the case with aberrations like this, it’s a combination of factors, as you suggest. Malicious voters looking to harm the opposition; protest votes; uninformed voters; candidates chosen at random; slight name recognition.

What’s really odd is that it happened in two races in the same election, giving illusion that there’s some sort of pattern. Maybe it’s just coincidence…

Jay, where did you get the party-breakdown that you cite that indicated that 9% of the Dem primary was self-identified Republicans? I haven’t seen that kind of breakdown - and what we really need to figure out what happened is a breakdown of how tickets broke by party identification and down-ticket votes.

Given that number, you’re still looking at around 15,000 votes, and you have to consider that many of those independents lean Republican.

When I was “exit polled”, I told the pollster I was a Democrat.

I had a Republican friend tell me last summer that he planned to vote for Obama, just to keep Hillary from winning. There is lots of fear and loathing of her that worked directly against OpChaos among people who don’t pay attention to Rush or blogs and there are plenty. So there were probably a lot of mixed up motives and emotions in the voting.

Ok - may-be you all have the most likely answers, but I still can’t figure how Kelleher won in 53 out of 56 counties. That simply doesn’t happen! Without sounding like a conspiracy nut or an anti-tech freak - what about some kind of malfunction of the ballot readers? Could we perhaps take a peak at the actual ballots just for the heck and fun of it?

Wiley: I believe that number came from the CNN exit polls. Even if that number’s low — as GOPers often claim — I don’t think that explains Driscoll’s big win.

Honestly, the whole thing is mysterious…

Perhaps folks just don’t pay attention as closely as they should. They knew about McCain and Obama and Hillary, but nothing about anything below.

I wouldn’t try to read too much into it - talk to the advertising people and they’ll let you in on the dirty little secret - one little vote don’t make a whole lotta difference, so people don’t invest much time studying. They vote based on who has touched them with an ad, or whose name they recognize. Generally, for advertising to work, and this is from what I remember of my 1996 run, people have to see your name seven times in one form or another, and have a positive association with it. I saw or heard very little from Republican senatorial candidates, nothing from Hunt or Driscoll. If I am typical (I don’t watch much local TV, so I may not be), most people were blank slates when they went into the booth.

Mark, I tend to agree with you that there were probably a lot of uninformed voters. Personally, I know a lot of college students who registered in droves to vote for Obama - they had their marching orders and they didn’t bother to go beyond that in research.

But usually blank slates split fairly evenly between candidates and then more informed voters push the stalemate in the direction of popular wisdom. That didn’t happen here. Neither of the surprises were that close and as Auntie Lib points out Kelleher won 53 out of 56 counties. That’s not the sort of result you get from droves of uninformed voters.

I’m with Wiley on this one. The numbers were just too big to be the result of ignorance, IMHO. There’s either got to be some sort of underground Kelleher grassroots movement we don’t know anything about, or the votes that propelled him into the nomination had to have been added up from a number of factors, likely incl. uninformed voters…

What we need is an actual, real live Kelleher / Driscoll voter to ask! Anyone know anybody who voted for either of those guys?

Let’s ask ‘em.

[…] post your reason here - and feel free to do it anonymously. I know quite a few people who are very interested. Maybe Jay can ask this over at LITW […]

I voted for Driscoll …not the first time. He’s not status quo. People of all stripes are dumping the familiar for the unknown. Baucus is in real trouble, he just doesn’t know it yet.