Dem
53
Ties
1
GOP
46
We have been remiss in not sharing some of the very interesting e-mails we have gotten from readers about their local races. Let's fix that right now:
P.C. in Helena, MT: You implied that Alani Bankhead, the Democratic candidate in the Montana U.S. Senate race, might actually have been recruited by Republicans. While she's definitely a Republican asset, what we know as of today makes me doubt she started as a Republican agent.
Bankhead can talk like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), but some suspect she is a double-agent because of her past activities. Seth Bodnar is the former University of Montana president turned independent candidate who has high-ranking Democratic backers, along with some prominent non-MAGA Republicans. Kurt Alme is a Republican sock-puppet candidate snuck on the ballot by the outgoing Republican senator Steve Daines (R) as he made his surprise exit. There's also Kyle Austin, a Republican-turned-Libertarian who is unlikely to do much.
The timing of events doesn't support the contention that Bankhead is a Republican creation. Bankhead had registered a campaign committee about a month before Bodnar's intent became widely known. Montana at that moment was considered to be strongly GOP for the Senate. And this was also a month before Donald Trump attacked Iran, when not many thought control of the Senate was in play.
Further, the initial Republican dirty tricks effort was to support Reilly Neill, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary. At the end of April, a Republican-friendly PAC started faux-attacking Neill as "too liberal for Montana," charges which they expected would promote her among Democrats. The PAC did so in expectation that she would stay in the race and deny votes for Bodnar. It was a Bodnar-adjacent PAC, not Republicans, that then began touting the unknown and underfunded Bankhead. Within days of the Neill attacks appearing, that PAC registered with the Federal Elections Commission and immediately started boosting Bankhead as the best Democratic candidate. This was in hopes of undercutting Neill, an actual Democratic politician, in contrast to Bankhead, who had only arrived in the state a couple of years ago and who didn't appear to be a serious candidate. To complicate matters further, the Republican PAC followed up by faux-supporting Bankhead, advocating for her by saying she was the one who would reach across the aisle to work with President Trump. It seemed to be an effort to discourage Democratic support for her and counter the Bodnar-adjacent PAC, but by this point, who could tell?
In the end, Bankhead won the Democratic primary with 48,772 votes to Neill's 36,880. All those PACs combined spent over $4 million on Bankhead and Neill; Bankhead herself spent less than $40,000. Once the general election got underway, PAC support for Bankhead mostly disappeared and Democratic donors have laid low. Bodnar has serious money and enthusiastic backing, but Bankhead is definitely not inclined to withdraw and has attacked Bodnar repeatedly. Enough Republicans are tired of Trump and disgusted at Daines that for the first time in a long while Republicans could, at least theoretically, be in danger. And Bankhead is indeed the one best positioned to pull them out of that danger. However, if Bankhead was recruited as you implied, it was a pretty prescient effort. (Of course, feel free to speculate about what has happened since.)
M.S. in Canton, NY: Things have gotten unexpectedly interesting in New York's deep red 21st Congressional district (Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's soon-to-be-former district). In the race between Republican Anthony Constantino and Democrat Blake Gendebien, we are being barraged by TV ads for both candidates—typical elsewhere, for sure, but almost unheard-of in this eternally non-competitive district.
In his primary race, Constantino couldn't say the name "Trump" often enough: He bragged about putting a 100-foot-long, 12-foot-high "Vote for Trump" sign on the factory he owns; about giving Trump a 7-foot bronze statue of himself (statue of Trump, that is); and about making a rap album called Thank You President Trump. Now, however, for some reason he has not mentioned Trump a single time in any of the ads I've seen. Instead, they are all about how "I'm my own man" and how Gendebien is a radical "Democrat politician," controlled by all kinds of evil people like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). (Fact check: this is the first partisan office that Gendebien has ever run for. I doubt he has ever met Mamdani.)
In contrast, Blake Gendebien's early ads were about how he is a hard-working dairy farmer who understands the concerns of the hard-working people of the North Country. Oh, and did he mention that he believes in hard work? (For reasons unrelated to politics, I happened to meet Blake's mother a few weeks ago, and the one thing she seemed to want us to know about her son in our short conversation is that he really is a dairy farmer.) More recently, his ads have shifted to specific issues—especially the cost of diesel, in this rural district—for which everyone knows whom to blame, but he doesn't much mention the name "Trump" either. Instead, he just says he'll be an independent voice standing up to Washington on behalf of the North Country. Some of his recent ads are more pointed in attacking Constantino as an unserious hack who wouldn't even know what "hard work" is.
Will any of this matter? Apparently it might. The DCCC has recently added NY-21 to its "Red to Blue" list, which suggests more resources may be coming in. Even more surprisingly, the only credible poll so far, by Siena, shows Gendebien ahead, 46% to 42%. I remain skeptical, but if it holds up, it would be a shocking upset.
S.G. in Vancouver, WA: Here is a new article from NPR, about Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA): "In one of the country's most competitive districts, a Democrat tries to keep her seat."
My family lives within the city of Vancouver, and this particular statement from the article:
Clark County, where Vancouver is located, has slowly gotten bluer since 2008. Vancouver itself, Hoyt observed, has shifted toward the progressive side of the scale. That progressive tilt proposes trouble for Gluesenkamp Perez, especially since Clark County is one of two counties she consistently won since her first run for Congress.really resonates. We have always had her back, but she does not have ours. If she has to vote on a bill that favors only one side of her district (urban Vancouver vs. the rural MAGA areas), they win EVERY time. She takes our votes for granted. We'll see how that works out for her this time.
My entire family is actually planning to skip over this race on the ballot. We won't vote Republican, but we're also not going to vote for pseudo-Republicans. From conversations with friends and neighbors in the city bounds, we are not alone. She left us first. She really can't afford to lose many votes from either side, but I suspect she will in spades.
J.R. in Deer Isle, ME: I have been inundated with mailers from the Susan Collins campaign and PACs supporting her. Every day I get at least two mailers telling me what a crook Democrat Troy Jackson is and what a great gift to Maine Collins is. I also had someone (paid) come to my house on her behalf, with a follow up by text. I'm on an island located in a rural part of the state. I haven't heard sh** from the Jackson campaign. I'm registered as "Unenrolled" and it seems Collins and her supporters are mining the Unenrolled voter rolls and Jackson is not. Although I hope to hell we can finally be rid of her come January, I am not counting her out because she knows how to run a campaign better than he apparently does.
G.M. in Salt Lake City, UT: Utah is a decidedly red state, but our Lieutenant Governor, Deidre Henderson (R), who runs Utah elections, has not conceded an inch to Trump's election shenanigans, including his attacks on mail-in voting, or his threat to prosecute her for refusing to submit voter rolls to the federal government. She also solidly opposes Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) SAVE Act. It sure is refreshing to see a politician perform their duties with competence and integrity.
P.M. in Edenton, NC: Just some thoughts I've had as we approach the election in November.
I received a flyer in the mail from Laurie Buckhout, the Republican nominee for NC-01: the only competitive Congressional district remaining in North Carolina (PVI: R+5). It's a standard attack-type flyer, against her opponent.
My thoughts upon looking at it: I'll probably vote against her because I'm tired of this gerrymandering stuff. And I'm tired of the nuttiness foisted upon the country by Donald Trump and those who enable him—which I suspect Buckhout would do. She seems to be a nice person; she lives here in Edenton, and some people from my church know her.
It's not about her; it's about all the craziness going on. I want some kind of sanity back. George W. Bush—say what you want about him—wasn't insane. Neither were Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, etc., etc.
Upon looking over the flyer, I tore it up and said "I can't vote for her because I want to restore sanity." And my view is that of an independent-minded voter who leans conservative. Laurie may very well be in the vein of former Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, a sane Republican. But given what's going on, I simply can't support her.
M.S. in New York City, NY: This Achilles for Idaho ad is brilliant:
If you have local bytes for us, please send them to comments@electoral-vote.com.