http://www.kpax.com/story/35533050/montana-special-election-by-the-numbers
Republican Greg Gianforte won a clear victory over Democrat Rob Quist and Libertarian Mark Wicks in Thursday’s special election to fill Montana’s open U.S. House seat. It marked the end of a short but contentious campaign.
Gianforte, a technology entrepreneur from Bozeman, received just over 50% of more than 377,000 votes counted. Quist got 44%, while Wicks drew 6%.
The three men were running to replace former Rep. Ryan Zinke, who resigned from Congress earlier this year when he became U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
Gianforte received the most votes in 45 of Montana’s 56 counties – including Cascade and Lake Counties, where he lost to Gov. Steve Bullock in last year’s race for governor.
Cascade County saw one of the biggest swings from the 2016 election. Gianforte lost to Bullock there by more than 3,000 votes, but he defeated Quist by more than 2,000.
The Republican also won by a wide margin in Yellowstone County, receiving 10,000 more votes than Quist. He narrowly beat Bullock there, by fewer than 500 votes.
Gianforte also won dominant victories in most of Montana’s rural counties – getting twice as many votes as Quist in many cases. In some eastern Montana counties, like Musselshell, Phillips, and Fallon, he received at least four times as many votes.
Quist, a well-known musician from Flathead County, won 11 counties, including large counties like Missoula, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark and Silver Bow. However, his margins weren’t wide enough to overcome the Republican advantage elsewhere.
Gianforte tied his campaign closely to President Donald Trump, holding rallies with Donald Trump Jr. and Vice President Mike Pence and promising to be a strong supporter of the president’s agenda in Washington. But his six-point victory was much narrower than Trump’s 20-point win in Montana last November.
Quist came closer to winning Montana’s lone U.S. House seat than any Democrat since 2000, when Nancy Keenan came within five points of Denny Rehberg. Republicans have held the seat since Rick Hill was elected in 1996.