Gianforte wins Montana special election Republican wins special House election, holding a longtime GOP seat a day after he was charged with assaulting a reporter.
Republican Greg Gianforte won Montana’s special House election Thursday night, beating Democrat Rob Quist a day after Gianforte was charged with assault for allegedly attacking a reporter covering his campaign.
The incident threatened to sink a red-state campaign that was already worrying Republicans nationally, despite President Donald Trump’s 20-point win in Montana just last year. But Gianforte’s win preserved the GOP’s 24-seat edge in the House of Representatives, frustrating Democratic activists who poured money into Quist’s campaign and demanded more help from party groups that saw the uphill, red-state race as unwinnable.
Gianforte, a technology executive, had 51 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race at about 10:30 p.m. Mountain Time. Quist, a folk singer and first-time candidate, had 44 percent of the vote. A Libertarian candidate, Mark Wicks, had 6 percent.
The hotly contested special election to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in Congress took a violent turn Wednesday night when Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, asked about Gianforte’s reaction to the Congressional Budget Office score of the House Republican health care plan. Jacobs said Gianforte “body-slammed” him and broke his glasses, an account which was corroborated by audio of the incident and eyewitness accounts from a Fox News reporting team in the room. The accounts directly contradicted Gianforte’s campaign, whose spokesman, Shane Scanlon, called Jacobs’ behavior “aggressive.”
But over a quarter-million voters cast their ballots before the incident, limiting its impact on the results of the special election.
Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Montana Sen. Steve Daines called on Gianforte to apologize Thursday, and GOP strategists said the incident will be a problem for Gianforte and his party going forward if he doesn’t address it well.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/25/montana-special-election-results-2017-238841
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Like Hillary Clinton you can spend more money but the voters want nothing to do with your sorry corrupt ass.