Montana GOP Chair: “We Are Going to Have to Work to Keep the Seat”
Chair of the Montana Republican Party Don Kaltschmidt sat down with the Flathead Beacon and admitted that the Montana GOP is facing a serious uphill fight in 2020, saying:
“The House race is going to be very competitive”
AND that the Montana GOP
“are going to have to work to keep that seat.”
Catch that? Local Republicans are admitting they are running scared and have their hands full defending their record of selling of public lands and putting corporate special interests over the needs of Montana families and farmers.
“The Montana GOP’s own chairman has admitted what Democrats have known for months: Republicans running for Congress in Montana are in for an incredibly competitive, hard race,” said DCCC Spokesperson Andy Orellana. “That’s a direct result of Montana Democrats being powered by the grassroots, showing up and doing the work to turn Montana blue in 2020.”
Read more below on Montana Republicans’ admitted challenges in 2020:
MT-AL: Flathead Beacon — Outlook 2020: Big Races on the Horizon
Montanans will be voting for governor, U.S. House and Senate on 2020 ballots
BY TRISTAN SCOTT // JAN 2, 2020
Montana voters will have plenty to ponder on their 2020 ballots as Republicans mount an aggressive front, with a slate of candidates making bids for the governor’s office and other powerful positions in a host of statewide races.
[…]
Despite the confidence of Republicans, the party can’t lean on the power of incumbency in the lion’s share of its statewide races, including the contest for Montana’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
With Gianforte’s decision to run for governor again (he challenged Bullock unsuccessfully in 2016), the race for the House is wide open and crowded with eight candidates, including Republican State Auditor Matt Rosendale, who lost his 2018 bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, and Kathleen Williams, a former Democratic state lawmaker who in 2018 lost to Gianforte but earned high praise for her fundraising prowess and chops on the campaign trail.
Joining Rosendale on the GOP ticket is Montana Secretary State Corey Stapleton, Corvallis School Superintendent Tim Johnson, former Montana Republican Party Chair Debra Lamm, of Livingston, and Joe Dooling, a farmer and rancher from Helena.
“I think the House race is going to be very competitive,” Kaltschmidt said, acknowledging that Williams is the likely Democratic nominee. “We are going to have to work to keep that seat.”
[…]
Almost everyone agrees that elections in Montana are anything but predictable as independent voters swing across the political spectrum, but regardless of outcome, the 2020 election season promises to engage a high turnout in voters energized by the current political climate.
[…]
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