Upper Rockies - 2024 Election Compendium

Topic: 2024 Election Analysis

Upper Rockies 2024 Presidential Election Review

Author’s Note: All other election reviews can be found here.

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This portion of the 2024 Election Compendium focuses on three states in a region I am referring to as the “Upper Rockies” – Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Outcomes

Idaho Trump +36.5%

Montana Trump +19.9%

Wyoming Trump +45.8%

My Predictions

Idaho Trump by minimum of 35.0%

Montana Trump by minimum of 20.0%

Wyoming Trump by minimum of 45.0%

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Preface

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming make up a Republican mountain fortress that is seemingly impenetrable, despite rapid regional growth and continued urbanization in a few hot spots like Boise, Missoula, and Bozeman. Montana has an ancestral Democrat streak linked to mining and railroads that is dying off as the working-class voter breaks party ties, and hasn’t backed a Democrat nominee for president since 1992, when H. Ross Perot cost George H.W. Bush the state – although Barack Obama did come close to an upset there in 2008.

Idaho and Wyoming, on the other hand, haven’t backed a Democrat for president since throwing in with Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 national landslide, and I’d be surprised if either of them did at any point in my lifetime, or in the lifetimes of my children. These three states are heavily reliant on agriculture, energy, mining, livestock, and have traditional (conservative) social views and value personal freedoms. For these reasons, I had them all firmly in the Trump fold and pegged the final margins almost exactly to the percentage.

Two of these three states register voters by party, with Montana being the lone exception. They both shifted Republican in registration from four years ago:

· Idaho from R+38.6% in 2020 to R+46.4% in 2024

· Wyoming from R+51.4% in 2020 to R+67.0% in 2024

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Analysis

IDAHO

· 43 of Idaho’s 44 counties became more Republican by registration (or less Democrat, in the case of Blaine County). Clark County, a rural county in eastern Idaho with a declining population, is the only county with a shift left by registration, and it is nothing more than statistical noise given the condition of the rest of the state. Here are the shifts by county since four years ago:

· 37 of 44 counties (84.1%) became more Republican by percentage margin, or less Democrat in the cases of Blaine and Teton Counties. That means, with Clark County moving slightly left as suggested by party registration, that the party registration indicator went 38 for 44 (86.4%) in predicting the shifting of counties by percentage.

· Trump flipped Latah County, which contains the University of Idaho, in the northwest and made substantial gains around metro Boise, where he won Ada County by 10.3%, the largest GOP presidential margin of his three runs in the state.

· Harris lagged Biden by 4,423 ballots in Ada County, but still commanded a ballot total that is 40,439 higher than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 count. This gain is due to the out-of-state (California) transplants populating the capital city and surrounding area, pearl clutching LDS voters like those found to the south in Idaho, and the potential for bad actors to manipulate election results through invalid or otherwise ineligible voter registrations. Harris finished 12,049 ballots behind Joe Biden’s 2020 ballot count, and with Trump’s gain of 51,127 of his own net new ballots, the result was the largest GOP presidential margin in 20 years by percentage.

· The eastern and southeastern portion of the state, which contained the counties swinging slightly left, are also the most Mormon-populated in Idaho, and corroborate Utah’s Democrat ballot gains.

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MONTANA

· Trump improved in 50 of 56 counties (89.3%) by percentage margin and had at least 74.0% of the vote in all 6 counties that nudged to the left, which means those leftward shifts most likely qualify as statistical noise in counties stagnant or declining in population.

· Trump flipped Big Horn County, which is roughly two-thirds Native American, for the first GOP presidential win of the county since 1980, and flipped Blaine County, which is a highly accurate national bellwether dating back more than a century that he won in 2016. Trump’s momentum in Montana was enough to rid the state of Democrat U.S. Senator John Tester, who was upended by Republican Tim Sheehy, but by a much lower margin of victory than Trump’s (+7.1%).

· Harris won just 5 counties, and lagged Biden’s 2020 ballot count by 12,880. She lost ground in Montana’s two most significant Democrat counties, Missoula and Gallatin. Missoula contains the University of Montana, while Gallatin contains Montana State University and the Bozeman metro, which is true to form with the Yellowstone series narrative in that it is swimming with new tech companies and startups. Trump improved by 2.4% in Missoula, and by 4.3% in Gallatin, with Harris coming up 454 and 2,106 short of Biden’s count in each, respectively, suggesting an underperformance in campus ballot harvesting efforts and low liberal enthusiasm.

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WYOMING

· All 23 Wyoming counties shifted to the Republican right by registration since the 2020 election, when Wyoming was, like 2024, Trump’s strongest state by percentage margin. The state entered Election Day at a seemingly impossible R+67.0%. The county shifts are captured below:

· The shifts above were aided by a voter roll purge that cut over a quarter of the state’s database, and despite the existing disparity between Republicans and Democrats statewide, the underdog party regressed further.

· 17 of 23 counties (73.9%) shifted more Republican in results by percentage, including Albany County, home of the University of Wyoming, which flipped back to Trump. Of the six counties that moved away from the registration shift, Trump won at least 79.9% of the vote, suggesting the small leftward nudges are based more on statistical noise than legitimate Democrat inroads.

· Trump made up 2.8% in Teton County, the only county Harris won and the home of the disgusting neocon Liz Cheney, who suffered a humiliating primary defeat in 2022. Harris lost 1,100 of Biden’s ballot count in that one county alone, and 3,964 statewide. Trump lagged his statewide 2020 vote count by 926.

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REGION

· Referencing the map above, Harris lagged Biden’s ballot count in 101 out of 123 counties in the region, including 7 counties in which she failed to match Hillary Clinton’s ballot count (Glacier County, Montana, is the most notable). As indicated in the Idaho-specific section of this report, Harris’s gains in small counties in eastern Idaho are likely due to a small Mormon coalition shift favoring Democrats.

· The party registration indicator went for 54 for 67 (80.6%) in accurately forecasting shift in results by percentage margin in Idaho and Wyoming.

· These three states produced the following Trump margins in his races:

Trump won these three states by a margin 87,571 higher than he did four years ago (and by 134,286 higher than eight years ago) with a larger percentage margin victory in each; Notably, Trump posted crushing increases in raw vote margin of victory in Idaho and Montana, pushing every state in this region far beyond any future hope for Democrats, who are weaker than they’ve been in modern times with Native Americans and no longer have a working-class coalition of white Democrats to even win down ballot races with.

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Opportunities for Election Manipulation

Here is how these three states rank with regard to my most commonly assessed demerits.

· Voter ID – All three states have strong photo ID laws.

· Same Day Registration – All three of these states permit same day voter registration. In Wyoming, same day registration frequently results in more ballots being cast statewide than the state had registered voters prior to Election Day.

· Ballot Harvesting – These three states have weak ballot harvesting laws (Wyoming has none). Idaho and Montana have restrictions on who can return ballots, and how many, but as with other states, there seems to be no valid way to prevent unauthorized returns. The good news here is that these three states, aside from just a few cities, are devoid of population dense areas; however, harvesting on reservations is easy under current laws.

· Ranked Choice Voting – Not present in any of these states, and banned in Montana and Idaho.

· Automatic Voter Registration – None of these states operate AVR.

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The Pathway Ahead

These states will reliably produce Republican electoral votes as far out into the future as my mind can foresee, and now that Tester is gone, two Republican U.S. Senators, as well. As with all reliably Republican states, the key is not to get passive and fail to scrutinize poor candidates for lay-up races, who will win against any Democrat so long as the letter R appears beside their names on ballots. Election integrity advocates in these states need to ensure no ideas impacting states in the west reach committee hearings, let alone the floor of the legislature. This includes Automatic Voter Registration, expanded mail-in balloting, and Ranked Choice Voting, which is banned in Montana and Idaho. All three of these states need harsher laws to discourage ballot harvesting, which has reportedly been key to reelecting Tester in Montana by taking advantage of or bribing Native American voters on reservations, and should also eliminate same day voter registration.

I have worked with election integrity activists in all three states, include Jane Rectenwald, who lived her last years fighting for fair elections in Montana. She, along with Brad Tschida, Carrey Hirt, and others, have done great work despite large Republican margins that lead others to believe all is well, and could never change in the wrong direction.

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Final Grades and Closing Commentary

With booming Trump margins, and Harris lagging Biden in all three states, I do not believe any additional manipulation was applied to the 2024 presidential race on top of what was likely present in 2020, especially in urban areas like Boise or Missoula that is likely baked in through the voter rolls, which got a proper purging in Wyoming. Some political problems do exist, such as Yellowstone attracting rapid urban and suburban growth in Bozeman, which could produce an Austin effect and create a problematic liberal hive in the heart of a red state if shrugged off.

The Top 5 Election Integrity Targets in the Upper Rockies are (in no order):

· Ada County, ID

· Canyon County, ID

· Gallatin County, MT

· Missoula County, MT

· Albany County, WY

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Idaho receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws, although Ada County must be monitored so as not to offer Democrats a beachhead in Idaho. Idaho needs tighter ballot harvesting laws and should move to eliminate same day voter registration.

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Montana receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws, although its urban centers appear to have absorbed an abnormally high Democrat vote count. Montana needs tighter ballot harvesting laws and should move to eliminate same day voter registration.

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Wyoming receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws. Wyoming needs tighter ballot harvesting laws and should move to eliminate same day voter registration.

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.