DAY 127: Montana special election: Republicans lose 18.88% of their vote because of Trump

While the Republicans won the at-large House seat in the Montana special election yesterday, the Republicans lost 18.88% of their vote a mere six months after Donald Trump won the presidential election. In other words, once again Trump is making the Republicans lose votes.

These are the official results of the election according to the Montana Secretary of State:

Republican: 189,473 (50.20%)
Democrat: 166,483 (44.11%)
Libertarian: 21,509 (5.70%)

Both, Republicans and Democrats, lost votes compared to 2016 in the at-large district. But the Republicans lost A LOT of votes. While the Democrats lost 7.77% of their 2016 votes (-39,436), the Republicans lost 18.88% (-95,885). To put it into perspective, for every vote the Democrats lost, the Republicans lost almost 2.5 votes.

Compared to a midterm election, the Republicans lost 3.91% of their vote (-14,398), but the Democrats increased their vote by 4.84% (+17,793).

And this is in a state that has a Republican majority.

What changed from 2016 to 2017? Donald Trump is president. That's what changed. And now, clearly because of Trump, even Republicans don't want to vote Republican.

Again; while the Republicans may have won the House seat, they did so with a huge vote decrease. If this pattern repeats in 2018 throughout the country, the Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.