Updated at 10:47 p.m.Montana’s 2024 election season is heading toward a close Tuesday evening. As polls close at 8 p.m. and election officials across the state begin to report results, Montana Free Press reporters stationed across the state will update this story periodically with the progress and results of Montana-level races and ballot questions.We expect our election night reporting to include early vote counts as they are released by local election officials as well as race call predictions issued by The Associated Press and statements from winning and losing campaigns.While the AP and other national news organizations commonly predict race outcomes based on partial vote counts and statistical models predicting the partisan breakdown of uncounted votes, it is likely that the outcomes of some close races won’t be clear on election night. Even in races with clear outcomes, vote counts are considered unofficial until election officials complete the post-election canvass process in the weeks after Election Day.Readers may also be interested in our live vote count dashboard courtesy of The Associated Press and our overview of the process that election workers use to translate cast ballots into published vote counts. For more information on specific candidates, see MTFP’s 2024 election guide and the thousands of words of material we’ve published over the course of this long election season.FEDERAL OFFICIALSU.S. Senate (Click to go to live AP race results)Tom Lutey is covering the race from Great Falls.U.S. Sen. Jon Tester encouraged Montanans still waiting to vote to stay in line, saying he doesn’t expect the outcome to be known for several hours and that every vote counts.Long lines were reported in Gallatin and Yellowstone counties at 9:30 p.m. Montana polls officially closed at 8 p.m., but people waiting in line at that time have a right to vote. In Yellowstone County at 9:30 p.m. there was still a five-hour wait to vote, elections official Ginger Aldrich told observers. Yellowstone and Gallatin rank first and second among Montana counties for the largest numbers of voters.“There’s a lot of people standing in line all over the state of Montana still waiting to vote,” Tester said. “My message to them is this, continue to stand in line because, quite frankly, your vote matters and you need to vote because our right to vote is fundamental to democracy.”Tester’s gathering at the Holiday Inn Convention Center in Great Falls drew about 60 people. Tester’s campaign cut off his election-watch party shortly after 10 p.m. Tester said he was going to bed. In Bozeman, Republican challenger Tim Sheehy had yet to take the stage. Montana’s secretary of state reported Sheehy leading with about 80,000 votes counted. Of Montana’s 727 precincts, 42 were fully counted and 140 partially counted as of 10 p.m. Sheehy had 58% of the early vote to Tester’s 40%. Libertarian Sid Daoud and Green Robert Barb each had 1% of the early vote.Montana’s U.S. Senate race between three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican political newcomer Tim Sheehy has unfolded under watchful national eyes — and within a flood of record-setting expenditures — given the result’s potential to change the balance of partisan power in the U.S. Senate. It’s been six years since a Democrat — Tester, in 2018 — won a single statewide race in Montana. Nine out of 10 polls tracked by 538 ABC News since July favor Sheehy.Background reading:Is Tester’s time up?  Who is Tim Sheehy now? Tester, Sheehy make closing arguments at Missoula debateU.S. House MT-01 (Western District) (Click to go to live AP race results)Katie Fairbanks is covering the race from Missoula and Justin Franz is covering it from Whitefish.For the second time in two years, Democrat Monica Tranel is challenging Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke for Montana’s western congressional seat. Libertarian Dennis Hayes, of Townsend, is also vying for the position. Zinke bested Tranel by four percentage points in 2022. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL from Whitefish, has moved further to the right throughout his political career. After two terms in the Montana Senate, Zinke won his first seat in Congress in 2014. He was reelected in 2016, but was soon appointed as Secretary of the Interior under president Donalid Trump. Zinke resigned in 2018 in the wake of several ethics investigations and worked in the private sector before running for the western Montana U.S. House district seat in 2022. Tranel, a Missoula-based energy attorney and former Olympic rower, ran for the Public Service Commission in 2004 as a Republican and in 2020 as a Democrat. She has spent much of the campaign focused on the state’s housing crisis, while criticizing Zinke. The candidates faced off in one debate on Oct. 12, sparring over housing, immigration and abortion.Background reading:Montana’s undercard U.S. House race Housing and the western district House raceU.S. House MT-02 (Eastern District) (Click to go to live AP race results)Tom Lutey is covering the race from Great Falls.At 10:47 p.m., Republican Troy Downing had a strong early lead in Montana’s eastern U.S. House district race.Shortly after polls closed, Downing, who is currently state auditor, gave a victory speech at the Billings DoubleTree hotel. In a district where Republicans have held double-digit margins in federal elections for decades, the outcome wasn’t in doubt.Downing had 68% of the early count, totaling 46,030 votes. Democrat John Driscoll had 32% of the vote, or 14,572. Six of the district’s 38 rural counties had reported results, but the more populous counties of Cascade, Lewis and Clark and Yellowstone had yet to report. The 38 rural counties in Montana’s eastern House district produced 47,432 votes in the nine-candidate Republican U.S. House primary in June, accounting for 47% of the eastern district GOP results. Three urban counties, Cascade, Lewis and Clark, and Yellowstone, accounted for the rest. Troy Downing, Montana’s state auditor, won the nomination. The four-candidate Democratic primary that John Driscoll won, on the other hand, drew 12,803 voters in those same 38 rural counties. Including Yellowstone, Lewis and Clark and Cascade counties, the Democrats’ eastern district primary drew 40,290 votes to the Republicans’ 100,411. Incumbent Rep. Matt Rosendale, who isn’t seeking reelection, won 56% of the eastern district vote in 2022, while Democrat Penny Ronning finished with 20% of the vote behind independent Gary Buchanan, who captured 21% of the vote as a self-described moderate alternative for centrist Dems and Republicans disenfranchised by MAGA politics. Democrats argue that primaries aren’t prologue to general election results, though in five of the last eight general election races for U.S. House, the average Republican margin of victory in eastern district counties is greater than 20%.Former Democratic state legislator Reilly Neill, of Livingston, has run a write-in campaign.Background reading:Eastern Montana House race light on suspense    BALLOT INITIATIVESCI-128 (Click to go to live AP race results)Mara Silvers is covering the vote from Bozeman.Constitutional Initiative 128 would amend the Montana Constitution to codify Montanans’ specific right to make decisions about their own pregnancy, including the right to an abortion. While abortion is currently legal in Montana under judicial interpretations of the constitutional right of privacy, backers of CI-128 say they want to strengthen Montana’s protections after the reversal of federal abortion rights in 2022. Nine other states have similar measures on the ballot this fall.The committee supporting the measure, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, is made up of Planned Parenthood of Montana, Forward Montana, the ACLU of Montana and The Fairness Project, a national ballot initiative group. Since its introduction last November, CI-128 has navigated a slew of legal hurdles. It has also drawn millions of dollars in donations from national PACs and wealthy out-of-state donors. Opponents of the measure include a mix of anti-abortion groups, conservative Catholic and Christian advocacy organizations, and prominent Republican candidates including Gov. Greg Gianforte and U.S. Senate contender Tim Sheehy.Background reading:Making sense of Montana’s abortion rights amendment From the pulpit, abortion initiative opponents urge congregations to vote against CI-128 Three constitutional initiatives’ long legal road to the ballotCI-126 (Click to go to live AP race results)Alex Sakariassen is covering the vote from Missoula.Constitutional Initiative 126 would amend the Montana Constitution to replace the state’s currently separate party-specific June primary ballots with a single multi-party primary ballot, and the top four vote-getters in each race would advance to the general election. The change would apply only to elections for federal, statewide and legislative offices.The initiative — a companion to CI-127 (more on that below) — was advanced by the political committee Montanans for Election Reform, which has argued that the change would curtail outside influence and partisan extremism in Montana’s primary contests. The group’s messaging efforts to voters this year have been buoyed by millions in contributions from the national nonprofit Article IV and other organizations, tying Montana’s own initiatives to a national movement that’s given rise to similar initiatives in other states this year.Like CI-128, Montana’s 2024 abortion initiative, CI-126 experienced several legal hurdles on its way to the Nov. 5 ballot, including questions about whether signatures from voters listed as “inactive” were eligible to contribute to the initiative’s certification. Opponents including the Montana Legislature’s Freedom Caucus and Montanans for Fair Elections have sought to discourage voters from supporting CI-126, arguing that including all candidates on a single ballot would strengthen the power of outside money and partisan influence in primary races. Background reading:Twin constitutional initiatives aim to make Montana elections more competitve Three constitutional initiatives’ long legal road to the ballotCI-127 (Click to go to live AP race results)Alex Sakariassen is covering the vote from Missoula.Like CI-126, Constitutional Initiative 127 would amend the Montana Constitution to alter how elections for federal, statewide and legislative offices are run, in this case with a focus on the general election. The initiative would require that a general election candidate receive a majority of the cast vote to win, and would direct the Montana Legislature to adopt a system to address scenarios where no candidate wins more than 50% of the electorate.What such a legislatively designed system might look like remains to be seen. Lawmakers could replicate strategies from other states that have implemented run-off elections or ranked-choice voting, by which voters rank general election candidates in order of preference and election officials eliminate low-performing candidates until a clear majority is established. Montanans for Election Reform argues that a majority-vote requirement will, like CI-126, reduce outside influence and partisan extremism by requiring candidates to appeal to a broader voter base, though the group has acknowledged that the unknowns associated with how the Legislature might handle its CI-127 directive have been challenging for voters to grasp.CI-127 met with fewer procedural hurdles last fall than Montana’s other two 2024 constitutional initiatives, but was caught up in the same legal battle over inactive voter signatures this summer. And the same groups opposing CI-126 have taken issue with CI-127’s implications, with the Montana Legislature’s Freedom Caucus recently circulating an animated ad on social media asserting criticizing ranked-choice voting.Background reading:Twin constitutional initiatives aim to make Montana elections more competitve Three constitutional initiatives’ long legal road to the ballotSTATE OFFICIALSGovernor (Click to go to live AP race results) Mara Silvers and Amanda Eggert are covering the race from Bozeman.The Associated Press called the governor’s race in favor of Republican incumbent Gov. Greg Gianforte shortly after 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, even before major counties reported vote outcomes in Gianforte’s contest against Democrat Ryan Busse. Speaking to a crowded Republican watch party in Bozeman, Gianforte celebrated that decision and welcomed the chance to govern the state for “another four years.” A spokesperson for Busse did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the AP race call. Gianforte, a former tech company founder and former U.S. House representative from Bozeman, has campaigned as a champion of Montana’s economic future and an effective conservative leader. He has listed income and business tax cuts, investments in behavioral health services, public lands management and a decrease in the state’s foster care caseload among his first-term achievements.  Busse criticized the governor for failing to address last year’s sharp increase in residential property taxes, signing multiple abortion restrictions into law during his first term, not meaningfully improving public education funding and teacher pay, and weakening the services of state agencies such as Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Department of Public Health and Human Services. The two candidates appeared in only one joint public debate forum this election cycle.Background reading:In reelection bid, Gianforte’s economic record is on the ballot Ryan Busse’s mission to convert Republican votersSecretary of State (Click to go to live AP race results)Alex Sakariassen is covering the race from Missoula.Shortly after 9 p.m., with the Associated Press reporting less than 10% of the vote counted in Montana, Republican incumbent Christi Jacobsen took the stage at an event in Helena to deliver an acceptance speech declaring herself the winner of her race for a second term as the state’s top election official. According to a video of the speech captured by NonStop Local and shared with MTFP, Jacobsen told supporters, “this victory is ours.” “Tonight you have shown that you want to keep Montana’s future in our hands, and I will continue to defend your trust,” Jacobsen said. “Montanans approve of my job performance. I think the numbers speak for itself.”Jacobsen’s campaign did not respond to an email seeking further comment on her declaration of victory. The Associated Press had not yet called the race as of 10:30 p.m., with roughly 16% of the statewide vote counted and voters in several large counties are still casting ballots. Democratic challenger Jesse Mullen confirmed that he had posted a concession on social media but removed it.“We’ll wait for the official results before we make our official statement,” Mullen told MTFP in a phone call.Republican incumbent Christi Jacobsen is seeking to fend off challenges from Democrat Jesse Mullen and Libertarian John Lamb. The results of the election will determine which will spend the next four years as the state’s top election official and head of the office’s business services division, which caters to the registration and filing needs of Montana business owners. The secretary of state also sits on the Montana Land Board, voting on matters related to state-owned public lands.Jacobsen began her term in January 2021 after serving as deputy secretary of state under her Republican predecessor, Corey Stapleton. During her tenure, Montana’s elections have come under fire from conservative lawmakers and activists who allege the electoral system suffers from significant vulnerabilities. Jacobsen rebuffs such claims and says Montana’s elections are a “gold standard” for election integrity in the U.S. Jacobsen is also in the process of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Montana Supreme Court ruling that struck down several 2021 election laws Jacobsen supported, among them the elimination of same-day voter registration.Mullen came to the race from a background in journalism, having co-founded the Mullen Newspaper Company, which now owns roughly 20 newspapers across the Rocky Mountain West. A Deer Lodge resident, Mullen has said he intends to instill more transparency and accountability in the secretary of state’s office and support the needs of local election workers. He’s criticized Jacobsen’s defense of Republican-led laws deemed unconstitutional by state courts and argues that the functionality of online services for Montana businesses has suffered under her charge.John Lamb owns and operates two Montana businesses and ran as the Libertarian candidate in Montana’s western congressional district race in 2022. Lamb has said his goal is to approach the office in a nonpartisan manner and continue administering secure elections and robust business services to Montanans regardless of their political beliefs. Like Mullen, Lamb disagrees with Jacobsen on several key positions in election policy, including same-day voter registration, which he said he supports. Background reading:The race for Montana’s top election administratorAttorney General (Click to go to live AP race results)Tom Lutey is covering the race from Great Falls.Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen held a strong lead in his race against Democrat Ben Alke as of 10:45 p.m. Knudsen had a 66% vote share, clocking 62,556 votes to Alke’s 32,762, with 10 of Montana’s 56 counties reporting results.Montana’s attorney general race features an incumbent self-branded as a defender of women and children versus a challenger who says the state’s justice department has been thrown into chaos under current leadership.Attorney General Austin Knudsen presents himself as a hands-on defender of the weak, emphasizing the multiple lawsuits he’s brought with other Republican attorneys general against the federal agencies of Democratic President Joe Biden. Democratic challenger Ben Alke argues that behind Knudsen’s rhetoric there’s disarray at Montana’s Department of Justice. A Helena native who now practices law in Bozeman, Alke points to Knudsen’s low marks as a manager by the Montana Highway Patrol and the attorney general’s hearing last month on 41 counts of professional misconduct, which led to a Commission on Practice recommendation, pending a decision by the Montana Supreme Court, to suspend Knudsen’s law license for 90 days.Background reading:Lawyer versus lawyer to lead Montana’s Department of Justice Superintendent of Public Instruction (Click to go to live AP race results)Alex Sakariassen is covering the race from Missoula.With Republican state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen approaching the end of her second and final term, the Nov. 5 ballot will decide who heads Montana’s Office of Public Instruction next: veteran Democratic lawmaker Shannon O’Brien or local school administrator turned Republican gubernatorial appointee Susie Hedalen.Both candidates have deep ties to education, each having worked as a public school teacher in the past. O’Brien later served as education policy adviser to former Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, and has spent the past two legislative sessions crafting bills on several education committees as a state senator from Missoula. Hedalen, a former OPI deputy superintendent under Arntzen, is currently superintendent of the Townsend School District — the most recent of several Montana districts she’s led — and serves as co-chair of Montana’s Board of Public Education.While Hedalen and O’Brien have each taken issue with the other’s qualifications, the two express similar core values when it comes to the K-12 public school system: valuing teachers, supporting students, recognizing the interests and contributions of parents. O’Brien has pledged to leverage her legislative network to press for more funding for education; Hedalen has vowed to apply the insights she’s gleaned in local schools when addressing their daily challenges. Both have prioritized the need to rebuild the Office of Public instruction, an agency that’s experienced considerable staff turnover and public controversy over the past eight years.Background reading:The race to replace ArntzenState Auditor (Click to go to live AP race results)Amanda Eggert is covering the race from Bozeman.Republican James Brown and Democrat John Repke are facing off for an open seat as the top consumer watchdog in Montana. The winner will regulate the insurance industry, investigate fraud targeting seniors and other vulnerable citizens, and assume a seat on the Montana Land Board, which oversees the state trust lands that contribute income to Montana’s public schools.Brown is currently president of the state Public Service Commission, which regulates monopoly utilities operating in Montana. Brown has foregrounded his rural Montana roots — he graduated from Beaverhead County High School — in campaign materials. He also highlighted his regulatory experience on the PSC and his familiarity with the challenges small business owners face. An attorney by trade, Brown maintains a small law practice in Helena.Repke holds a master’s degree in business finance and has four decades of private-sector experience working for companies including SmartLam, a timber products manufacturer, and Allied Waste, a Fortune 500 company working in garbage and recycling. In campaign materials, Repke argued that he has the independence, experience and political will to protect Montana consumers from the threats posed by surging insurance rates and the pending potential sunset of Medicaid expansion.Whoever wins the seat will take the place of outgoing auditor Troy Downing, who is running for Montana’s eastern district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Background reading: Surging insurance rates put spotlight on race for state auditorMontana Supreme Court (Click to go to live AP race results)Mara Silvers is covering the court races from Bozeman.Four nonpartisan judicial candidates are vying for two open seats on the Montana Supreme Court, as Chief Justice Mike McGrath and associate Justice Dirk Sandefur prepare to retire. The competitors for the chief justice position are former federal magistrate judge Jerry Lynch and Broadwater County Attorney Cory Swanson. State district court judges Katherine Bidegaray of Sidney and Dan Wilson of Kalispell are running for the associate Justice seat. While judges and judicial candidates are required to be nonpartisan, third-party groups have historically flocked to judicial races to paint candidates as supportive or hostile to their respective political interests. This cycle, the Montana GOP has been one of the most prominent groups spending money on messaging that supports Swanson and Wilson and opposes Lynch and Bidegaray. Progressive interest groups, on the other hand, have poured funding into casting Lynch and Bidegaray as defenders of public lands, abortion rights and the Montana Constitution more broadly, while depicting Swanson and Wilson as threats to those causes.In public forums across the state, all four candidates have repeatedly said that, if elected, support and opposition from outside interest groups will not sway their judicial decision-making. Background reading: Supreme Court candidates dodge, and leverage, political rhetoricMontana Public Service Commission (Click to go to live AP race results)Amanda Eggert is covering the races from Bozeman.Three seats on the Public Service Commission, which regulates monopoly utility companies like NorthWestern Energy, are up for election this year. In interviews and campaign materials, candidates for the PSC discussed the future of energy in Montana as a mix of private-sector investments, court rulings, and federal and state laws that influence electricity generation, transmission and regulation.The sole incumbent running for reelection this cycle is District 4’s Jennifer Fielder, a Republican from Thompson Falls who has served as the commission’s vice chair since 2021. She is facing a challenge from Elena Evans, a Missoula-based environmental health professional who gathered the requisite voter signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate. District 4 encompasses Montana’s far northwestern corner and includes parts of the Missoula, Bitterroot and Flathead valleys.In District 3, which includes all of southwestern Montana and a slice of central Montana, longtime Republican lawmaker and trailer dealership owner Jeff Welborn of Dillon is running against Democrat Leonard Williams, an electrician and union organizer who lives in Butte. This is Williams’ first bid for elected office.Finally, voters in south-central Montana’s District 2 are choosing between political newcomer Susan Bilo, a Democrat who teaches courses on renewable energy technologies in Bozeman, and longtime Republican lawmaker and former PSC commissioner Brad Molnar, from Laurel. Background reading:District 4: Independent candidate challenges incumbent Republican for Montana utility board seat Districts 2 and 3: Colstrip, climate and electricity rates loom large in utility board raceMontana LegislatureEric Dietrich, Zeke Lloyd and Jacob Olness are monitoring legislative races from Helena and Billings.Both Republicans and Democrats expect the state’s new legislative district map, which was redrawn following the 2020 census and formally adopted last year, to give Democrats a chance to edge into Republicans’ current legislative supermajority. Neither party expects Democrats to have a viable shot at winning an outright majority in either the House, where Republicans currently hold 68 of 100 seats, or the Senate, where Republicans hold 34 of 50 seats. A narrowed Republican majority would give Democrats more negotiating leverage in next year’s legislative session, particularly on issues that could drive a wedge between the hardline and comparatively moderate wings of the large Republican caucus.Because most of the state’s legislative districts tilt heavily toward one of the two major parties, the composition of the 2025 Legislature is likely to be determined by the outcomes of a relatively small number of races. Based on political data from Dave’s Redistricting and interviews with Democratic and Republican observers, MTFP will be watching the following races in particular as results come in:MONTANA SENATE (Click to go to live AP race results)Whitefish, Columbia Falls and West Glacier’s Senate District 2, where current Democratic state Rep. Dave Fern is facing Republican Doug Adams. Hardin and the Crow Reservation’s Senate District 21, where longtime Democratic state lawmaker Sharon Stewart Peregoy is facing Hardin business owner Gayle George Lammers. Downtown and South Billings’ Senate District 24, where Republican state Rep. Mike Yakawich is facing Democrat Mark Nicholson.MONTANA HOUSE (Click to go to live AP race results)North Whitefish and West Glacier’s House District 3, where former Democratic state representative Debo Powers is facing Republican Cathy Mitchell. House District 4, which spans Columbia Falls and southeast Whitefish, where Republican Lyn Bennett is facing Democrat Lindsey Jordan. Downtown Great Falls’ House District 19, where Republican Hannah Trebas is facing Democrat Jane Weber. House District 20 in east-central Great Falls, where Republican Melissa Nikolakakos is facing Democrat Rina Fontana Moore. House District 22 in eastern Great Falls, where current Republican state Rep. George Nikolakakos is facing Democrat Ron Paulick. House District 23 in south Great Falls, where Republican Eric Tilleman is facing Democrat Sandor Hopkins. Havre’s House District 27, where Democratic state Rep. Paul Tuss is facing former Republican lawmaker Ed Hill in a Republican-leaning district. South-central Billings’ House District 48, where Republican Curtis Schomer is facing Democrat Anne Ross. House District 57, which stretches from eastern Bozeman around Livingston to Cooke City, where current Republican state Rep. Marty Malone is facing Democrat Scott Rosenzweig. Lolo’s House District 89, where two current state representatives, Republican Lyn Hellegaard and Democrat Mark Thane, are vying for a single seat.We’ll update this listing with race outcomes as they become clear.Background reading:Explaining the why and the where of Montana’s new legislative districts MTFP’s comprehensive listing of candidates for the Montana Legislature, including maps of their districts LATEST STORIES Election Day with MTFP What to expect from Montana Free Press on Election Day 2024. by Brad Tyer 11.05.202411.05.2024 How Montana ballots become election results Montana’s voting procedures have been the subject of curiosity and even criticism in recent years. So what does happen to a ballot once it’s filled out, and how do the bubbles inked in by voters turn into election night results? We explain. by Alex Sakariassen 11.04.202411.05.2024 Are you Team Dressing or Team Stuffing? The very best dressing needs to combine the right bread, evocative aromatics, plenty of fall-leaning herbs, some fat for flavor, a bit of texture, and a pop of sweetness. That is how I developed this “Intermediate Chef Dressing,” which has become standard fare for every holiday menu I craft. by Jon Bennion 11.04.202411.04.2024 The post Montana’s 2024 general election results appeared first on Montana Free Press.