Polls close in Montana as GOP House hopeful faces charges
Has until June 7 to appear in court
Montana polls were closing a day after Republican candidate Greg Gianforte was charged with assaulting a reporter.
Witnesses say Mr. Gianforte, a wealthy technology executive, grabbed Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, by the neck on Wednesday in a Bozeman office and threw him to the ground.
The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office cited him for misdemeanor assault and he has until June 7 to appear in court.
Audio of the apparent attack went viral and Montana’s largest newspapers rescinded their endorsements less than 24 hours before polls were set to close.
Mr. Gianforte was keeping a low profile Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
He’s running against Democrat Rob Quist and Libertarian Mark Wicks.
Mr. Gianforte hadn’t been seen or heard from Thursday as voters went to the polls.
As polls closed Thursday evening, both Democrats and Republicans were seeing possible roads to victory in the state’s special congressional election.
In addition to the latebreaking news, turnout patterns and a notoriously slow-paced ballot count had turned what once seemed to be a safe Republican seat, into one Democrats hoped they could snatch away.
Nonetheless, Democrats prepared to claim victory no matter the outcome.
A win for Mr. Quist, would be seen as giving his party its first major victory during the Trump presidency — and deliver a House seat held by Republicans for more than 20 years.
A victory for Mr. Gianforte, if narrower than President Donald Trump’s 20point victory last fall, would be spun as fresh evidence of GOP decline.
Republicans, meanwhile, were seen as preparing to attribute a Quist victory to Mr. Gianforte’s confrontation and call it a fluke produced by flawed candidate recruitment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gianforte had plenty of prominent allies who either blew off or strongly hinted justification for the “manly, obviously studly” Mr. Gianforte’s alleged assault on the “obnoxious, dishonest” journalist, Ben Jacobs, who had asked him about health care policy.