Who is the “most” conservative House candidate? The data--not so much.

Sometimes data illuminates and makes patterns easier to see. Other times, data do not illuminate and instead confuse. When it comes to understanding the ideologies of the Republicans running for the House here in Montana, it seems to obfuscate more than clarify.

Mike Brown over at the Western Word opines thusly about the upcoming Republican House primary:

“Republicans across Montana can be heard saying, “Candidate, candidate on the ballot, who is the purest conservative of them all.”

One of the problems with primary elections is they are, by their very nature, low information environments. This makes it hard for voters to distinguish clearly the ideologies of the candidates. I said in a recent interview with Chuck Johnson that endorsements matter a lot in this type of environment because they provide easy cognitive shortcuts for voters to make decisions.

One possible way to help sort this out is by looking at empirical data. I propose using endorsements and the state NOMINATE values generated by Boris Schorr and Nolan McCarty to put three of the House Republican candidates (Else Arntzen, Matt Rosendale, and Corey Stapleton) on a left-right spectrum to decide who is the “purest” conservative of them all. In an earlier blog, I used these same data to conclude that John Bohlinger’s voting record in the legislature suggests he would be quite a conservative Democrat if elected to the United States Senate.

Corey Stapleton and Elsie Arntzen served in the state legislature before 2011, so they actually have NOMINATE scores based upon their votes. Stapleton had a score of .934 as a representative and 1.032 as a senator—averaging the two scores gives us a .983 for Stapleton. Arntzen had a score of .795. 

Rosendale is not included in the Schorr and McCarty data. I have, however, generated a score from him based upon the 11 legislators who have endorsed him and have NOMINATE scores in these data. Note that Rosendale has more than 50 current and former state legislators who have endorsed him, so this is only a slice of his total endorsement haul. The endorsements were culled from Rosendale’s campaign website. Averaging the scores of these 11 gives us a value of .872.

Again, the higher the value, the more conservative. The mean value of Republican state legislators for the entire period is .976. According to this analysis, that would place Elsie farthest to the left, followed by Rosendale, and then Stapleton—with only Stapleton to the right of the average state legislator.

Finally, there is the case of Ryan Zinke. As far as I can determine, he has no public endorsements from state legislators, current or former. Chuck Johnson of Lee Newspaper reported none, I found none listed on Zinke’s website, and an e-mail to Zinke’s campaign manager requesting a list has received no response. 

So, using this method, I can’t evaluate Zinke’s conservatism relative to Arntzen, Rosendale, and Stapleton.

But I CAN use Common Space scores calculated by Poole andRosenthal to help us pin Zinke down. Zinke received the endorsement of former U.S. Senator Conrad Burns. Rosendale received former Congressman Ron Marlenee’s blessing, and Artnzen landed former Congressman Rick Hill’s support. Stapleton, unfortunately, has not received the support of a former federal officeholder, so again, I’m left without complete information.

Using this metric, Arntzen comes out the most conservative as Rick Hill’s score of .448 is the most conservative, followed by Marlenee’s .397, and Burns’ .364. This suggests a ranking from least to most conservative of Zinke, Rosendale, and Arntzen with Stapleton as indeterminate.

One method finds Arntzen the most conservative, and another Stapleton. What do we make of this?

I’d put a bit more stock in the method based upon legislative voting records if only because there are more data points available for analysis compared to the voting records of only three federal officeholders. It is clear to me that Zinke is the hardest to pin down ideologically—and while that may provide him with a clear advantage in the general election, it may serve to give some Republican voters pause in the Republican primary.

Unfortunately, the mirror on the wall doesn’t give us a clear answer as to who is the “purest” conservative of them all. Instead, it leaves us with a blurry image of the voting records and beliefs of all three candidates.  

2014 Montana House Race: How the Fundraising Numbers Stack up

*UPDATE: I originally posted this blog last week, but there were errors in the numbers that were my fault. I have corrected those mistakes and now actually have all the data from the candidates filing their April quarterly reports from the FEC. My apologies, but the good news is the substantive interpretation does not change.

Candidates for the open Montana House have released their first quarter fundraising numbers for 2014. It is important to put these numbers into some broader context instead of merely focusing on who is doing better relative to others in each quarter.

Fortunately, the 2012 House seat was an open seat race--as the seat is for this cycle. That helps us make apples to apples comparisons.

First, let's look at fundraising in the 2012 cycle compared to the 2014 cycle, quarter by quarter to date. Note that we still have yet to hear from one of the House candidates (Driscoll) as to what their April numbers look like:

Click the picture above to zoom in and check out the numbers.

Four points. Look at Zinke and Lewis' fundraising totals relative to the 2012 nominees. Zinke has already raised more money in the cycle YTD than Daines did in 2012. And, more impressively, he's done it much less time. John Lewis, in the three quarters he's been raising money, has more than doubled Kim Gillan's take and raised more than the top two vote getters in the 2012 Democratic Primary, Gillan and Wilmer. Finally, note the steep decline in Stapleton's numbers. It certainly suggests to me he's fading quickly. I felt that the emergence of Ryan Zinke really put a dent in his candidacy--at least, I'm not sure what Stapleton's niche among Republican primary voters is. Finally, Rosendale's campaign is largely self-funded. This presents a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can concentrate on campaigning instead of raising money. On the other, it is important to connect with the activist-donor base of the party--and if you aren't, that's potentially an issue. Even Stapleton outraised Senator Rosendale in individual contributions for the quarter.

John Lewis, relative to the Democratic House candidates in 2012, is performing much stronger. He's raised almost as much as all 2012 Democratic candidates, and in less time. And, financially, Ryan Zinke is clearly the strongest candidate as evidenced by his performance relative to the Republican nominee in 2012, Steve Daines.

Let's look at the numbers in a slightly different way.

Here I totaled the amounts by party. Note that in 2012, Steve Daines raised more than all the Democratic House candidates combined through the first quarter of the election year--but the difference between the parties was a relatively modest $130,000 or so.

In this cycle while John Lewis has raised about $700,000 (note John Driscoll's numbers aren't available yet, but I'm not expecting much at all from him in terms of contributions), it is only 34 percent the combined total of the Republican candidates! That suggests to me, at least, an enthusiasm gap among Republican and Democratic donors--an enthusiasm gap that seems to favor the Republicans. Midterm elections tend to favor the party opposing the president--and perhaps the fundraising numbers are indicative of that fact. At least, donors tend to be politically sophisticated and certainly understand this.

Republicans will need to spend much of their money fighting for the primary nomination, but conducting an expensive primary election doesn't necessarily mean you will be ill-prepared for the general election. In fact, Marquette Political Science Professor Amber Wichowsky (a fellow graduate of the University of Wisconsin) finds little evidence that a tough primary hurts candidates in general elections. See the NPR story here or her research paper here.

I tell my students this repeatedly: Having the most money does not mean you win an election. You only need enough. But in an open seat contest, having the most helps considerable because it allows one to build much needed name recognition both in the primary and in the general election.

Others 2012 Zinke 2014 Lewis 2014 Rosendale 2014 Stapleton 2014 Arntzen 2014 Driscoll 2014 140151 26435 91881 32692 189571 286437 67751 26349 447610 204899 320899 30796 61995 460760 300000 ? ? ? 147471 908370 504899 320899 30796 ? ?