24 May 2017 — 1250 mdt

Joe Lamson’s model predicts narrow Quist victory

Old political hand Joe Lamson believes that the 22 May Gravis poll is an outlier. Here’s his analysis, which he graciously allowed Flathead Memo to publish.

Guest post by Joe Lamson

Here’s what my model’s showing:

I ran some projections based on different projected turnout, 5/22 Absentee returns, projected absentee return rates and different projected Quist percent in a three way race in the absentee and election day votes.

My model showed Quist could win with less than 60% turnout. In fact he did better if turnout was near normal of 56% for last two off year elections. And better still with lower turnouts.

To date absentee ballot return rates for all Montana general elections have averaged 93% with a low of 89% in 2014. So far 67% of the absentees have been reported as returned. If you assume a low of 90% absentee return rate, it would result that overall 82% of the voters would vote absentee and 18%, around 72,000, will vote on Thursday at the polls.

Under that scenario, if Quist receives 51% of the the absentees, GG 47% and Wicks 2%. And on election day if Quist receives 42%, GG 56% and Wicks 2%. Then Quist wins by about 2652 votes. It turnout is 60% under that same vote scenario Quist loses by 1262 votes. If the turnout is 52%, Quist wins by 6568 votes.

Looking at all my various scenarios, I think Quist wins with a 1/2 to 1% margin