With absentee ballots scheduled to be distributed to voters in Montana by the end of this week, Monica Tranel’s campaign and the Democratic Party are making a record-breaking bid to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke. He has touted changes in fundraising and election campaigns. Western Congressional District Election.
Last week, Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecasting firm, changed the 1st Congressional District from “likely Republican” to “weakly Republican,” and the organization said Mr. Months later, he indicated he believed he had gained ground against Mr. Zinke.
Mr. Zinke defeated Mr. Tranel in the same race in 2022, winning by about 3 percentage points, or about 8,000 votes.
While Mr. Trannell’s campaign has promoted recent developments as positive, polls and election forecasts still favor Mr. Zinke with the Cook Partisan Voting Index rating the Republican district +6. Zinke is also widely known as the former Secretary of the Interior under former President Donald Trump. He raised twice as much as Tranel in 2022 and has outperformed her so far this cycle as well.
But the Cook Political Report said Mr Tranel had some support.
“The former Interior Secretary’s long list of ethics issues that ultimately led to his resignation from the Trump administration continues to plague him, and Mr. Tranel has appeared on television since July to discuss 18 federal investigations, particularly “Reminding voters of investigations into shady realities of ‘real estate deals,'” Cook Political Report said in an analysis last Thursday.
The change comes a day after Tranel’s campaign announced it raised $2.1 million in the third quarter, which ran from early July to September. Complete quarterly fundraising figures for all candidates will be available after the Federal Election Commission filing deadline ends Oct. 15.
Tranel’s campaign said the $5.25 million she raised during this period was the most ever for a Montana legislative challenger to this point in the race.
“Our supporters and volunteers are stepping up their efforts for representatives who will show up, listen, and deliver results,” Tranel said in a statement. “This record-breaking support proves that Montanans on both sides of the aisle are ready for change, and I am ready to show up in Congress and continue to be your voice.” Masu.”
In late August, Tranel’s campaign announced that she had raised $4 million for a legislative challenge, the fastest in Montana history. In the five weeks since then, she has launched separate television and digital ads attacking Zinke’s positions on abortion, housing and China, as well as radio ads about Montana’s housing crisis.
The House Majority PAC, which supports Democratic candidates for Congress, also launched a $415,000 television and digital ad campaign on Oct. 1 attacking Zinke on housing issues. This is the first time the PAC has spent money on a campaign this term.
Tranel’s campaign has repeatedly mentioned how she has visited all 16 counties in the Western District of Montana and both tribal nations. The Senate race between Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and his primary challenger, Republican Tim Sheehy, is dominating the airwaves in Montana, and some political experts say it’s on the ballot. He said the campaign could have a positive impact, along with the current constitutional amendment on abortion, which could have a positive impact if it could sway independents and some Republicans and force Democrats to vote. You can get it.
Recent polls, some of which were commissioned by Democrats, also show a close race between Mr. Tranel and Mr. Zinke. A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poll conducted from September 11 to 13 showed Zinke statistically leading by just one point. A poll conducted on behalf of Mr. Tranel by Impact Research in late August found Mr. Zinke with a 2-point lead.
However, a separate poll conducted Sept. 11-14 by Noble Predictive Insights on behalf of Inside Elections showed Zinke with a 5-point lead in a head-to-head race, trailing the Libertarian Party’s Davis Hayes as an option. It turned out that if we added that, we would have a 4 point lead. An AARP poll also from September showed Zinke with a 6-point lead.
Mr. Zinke has not yet reported quarterly campaign finance numbers, but he has steadily raised money throughout the cycle. He brought in $1 million in the second quarter of the year, started the third quarter with about $3.1 million in cash, and raised about $6.9 million during that period.
Tranel entered the third quarter with $2.1 million in cash after raising $773,000 during the second quarter and about $3.1 million to that point. Mr. Zinke outperformed Mr. Tranel’s $6.5 million to $3 million during the 2022 cycle.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball also ranks the 1st Congressional District race as a Republican-leaning race, and The Hill and Decision Desk HQ rank the seat as a Republican-leaning race. There is.
