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Trump Jr says Gaines is a go! They worked it out!!

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., will not be available at any point on Saturday to vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Instead, he'll be at his daughter’s wedding, Fox News has learned. The absence of the senator – expected to support the embattled nominee’s confirmation – throws a wrench into the works as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aims to push through Kavanaugh’s nomination to the high court. The decision means McConnell would need to obtain all of his available 50 Republican senators to vote for the judge. It would also push Vice President Mike Pence out of...

U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R) says he needs to be in Montana this weekend for his daughter's wedding, throwing Saturday's vote on Kavanaugh in doubt - NBCMT

BOZEMAN, Mont. – Republicans facing a blue wave might have found a new way to whip up their base – at least for the next few days, thanks to Brett Kavanaugh. “You know, Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a man of integrity with impeccable credentials,” Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday, to uproarious cheers and applause, at the end of a riff about other conservative judges President Trump has nominated. Pence’s lines about Kavanaugh got a bigger rise out of the crowd than anything he said about tax reform, Obamacare or even 2016’s most reliable rallying cry – a promise to...

Montana Sen. Tester says he will vote against Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the US Supreme Court - @frankthorp

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is "screwing" over his Democratic colleagues by keeping them in session this October and therefore keeping them off the campaign trail, according to Politico's Burgess Everett. "Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to keep the chamber in session for a significant portion of October if not four entire weeks, costing Democrats key campaign trail days and allowing the Senate to continue its work into the fall, according to five Republican officials," Everett writes . Yet, Republicans say two weeks is plenty of time for their Democratic colleagues to make their case to voters. Burgess Everett...

The Kentucky Republican identifies a large number of toss-up contests The 2018 midterms are setting up to be like a “knife fight in an alley,” according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Republican from Kentucky said he expects to see more of President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama on the campaign trail. But McConnell, asked about whether Trump should be talking about the prospects of Democrats trying to impeach him, said, “I don’t have any advice to give him about what he says at the rallies.” Speaking at a news conference Tuesday in Louisville, McConnell rattled off...

The new NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey, taken six weeks before Americans head to the polls, shows Democrats leading Republicans by 52 percent to 40 percent for control of Congress. If it holds, that 12 percentage point margin would suggest a "blue wave" large enough to switch control of not just the House but also the Senate.

<p>A tavern in Bozeman, Mont. that was supposed to host a campaign rally for Republican Senate candidate Matt Rosendale featuring Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle has announced that it will no longer host the event.</p> <p>In statements to a number of local news outlets in Bozeman, the Midtown Tavern said it will not host the event since the tavern does not wish to take sides in the hotly contested Senate race between Rosendale and incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.</p>

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D) holds a 7-point lead over Republican challenger and state Sen. Karin Housley ahead of November's midterms, according to a new poll publishing Monday. The Star Tribune/MPR News Minnesota poll found that Smith, who replaced former Sen. Al Franken (D) following his resignation in January, has the support of 44 percent of likely voters. Another 37 percent support Housley, while 15 percent of those surveyed say they remain undecided, according to the poll. Smith, the former Minnesota lieutenant governor, was tapped to replace Franken after he resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Smith now faces Housley...

Two incumbent red-state Democratic senators who have been the targets of some of President Trump's ire are facing increasingly tough odds to win re-election in November, a new poll shows, underscoring the challenges Democrats face in their bid to retake the Senate in November -- as well as Trump's continuing presence in key battleground states. Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill are locked in dead heats with their Republican challengers, according to the CBS News poll, with Tester leading Matt Rosendale by only two percentage points and McCaskill tied with Josh Hawley at 45 percent. Both results...

Campaign finance watchdog groups are planning to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking it to investigate whether Montana GOP Senate nominee Matt Rosendale and the National Rifle Association were illegally coordinating in the race.The Campaign Legal Center and Giffords, the nonprofit political arm of former Rep. Gabby Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) organization, said that they’re filing the complaint on Friday or on Monday. The complaint is being filed after a Daily Beast story published audio it obtained that suggests Rosendale knew the NRA would be involved in the marquee Senate race, saying it had obtained it from an unspecified...

Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has prompted one of the most contentious battles on Capitol Hill since Donald Trump became president. ... Chuck Schumer and the 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee threw every punch at Kavanaugh they could muster, not to mention a few knees in the groin. The party’s progressive wing demanded no less -- a failure to engage in this fight would have made them targets from an array of liberal groups and activists. But Senate Democrats faced another dilemma, too: The prospective justice’s confirmation process is occurring in the heat of a hotly...

Billings West High School senior Tyler Linfesty learned Thursday morning during first period that he had been selected for VIP treatment at President Donald J. Trump's rally at MetraPark. Linfesty had applied for tickets to the rally earlier in the week. After earning VIP treatment, he went to tell his friends. Fellow seniors Erik Hovland and Christian Dunlap were walking to class when Linfesty "approached us in the hallway looking pretty frantic, talking about how he gets the opportunity to get a picture with the president," Hovland said. *** Early on in the Trump rally, a Billings Gazette reporter saw...

The last time President Trump traveled to Montana, Democrat Senator Jon Tester welcomed him with open arms, placing full-page ads in 14 newspapers praising the President.This time, Tester won’t be so excited to see Donald Trump. With a big boost from the President at the Great Falls rally on July 5, Tester’s opponent has since gained ground in the race for the U.S. Senate.Prior to that visit, the Republican Senate candidate Matt Rosendale was trailing Democrat incumbent, Senator Jon Tester, by 8 points. Just one month later, the Republican candidate has flipped 10 points and now leads Tester 47...

President Trump bashed Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) during a campaign rally in his home state of Montana on Thursday night, accusing the incumbent senator of embracing the "swamp" in Washington, D.C. “Jon Tester will never drain the swamp because he happens to live in the swamp and he loves the swamp,” Trump said in Billings, Mont., while touting Tester's Senate GOP rival Matt Rosendale. "The problem is he’s never going to vote for me,” Trump added, referring to Tester. Trump attempted to tie the Democratic senator to his popular foils, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), House Democratic Leader Nancy...

For liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, it’s an easy choice regarding the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Both sides have made up their minds weeks before these hearings, which have devolved into total clown shows, started this week. With former Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl being tapped to serve the remainder of the late John McCain’s term, we have a decisive vote locked up. Kyl is probably going to vote for Kavanaugh. I’m betting McCain would have a “yea” vote as well if he were healthy. The point is the game is over. We have won. The votes are...

Watching the preparation for the rally tonight.

Montana state auditor Matt Rosendale leads Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Montana, according to a poll released Monday. Rosendale leads Tester, 47 to 45 percent, in a recent poll conducted by WPA Intelligence for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). Five percent of Montana voters remain undecided, and the race has a four-point margin of error. The survey questioned 600 likely Montana voters from August 20 through 22. Rosendale won the Montana Senate Republican primary in June, while Sen. Tester hopes to secure his third term in the Senate this November. Both...

Challenger Rosendale leads Tester by 2 points, within the margin of error Republican Matt Rosendale led Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester by 2 points, within the margin of error, in a Republican poll of the race conducted this month. Rosendale, the Montana auditor, was ahead, 47 percent to 45 percent, in the survey conducted by WPA Intelligence for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Five percent were undecided. Rosendale won the GOP nomination in June to take on Tester, who’s running for his third term. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Tilts Democratic.