HELENA, Mont. (AP) - The Latest on Montana’s primary elections (all times MDT):
9:56 p.m.
Matt Rosendale has won the Republican nomination for Montana’s sole U.S. House seat.
Rosendale defeated five opponents to win Tuesday’s primary election. He will face former state Rep. Kathleen Williams, the winner of the Democratic primary, in November’s general election.
The 59-year-old Rosendale is the Montana state auditor and commissioner of insurance. He lost a high-profile campaign for Senate in 2018 against incumbent Democrat Jon Tester.
Rosendale is campaigning to keep a House seat that Republicans have held since 1997.
The seat is open after U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte decided to run for governor.
Rosendale defeated former Montana Republican Party Chairwoman Debra Lamm, Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, Joe Dooling, Mark McGinley and John Evankovich.
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9:37 p.m.
Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney has won the Democratic nomination for Montana governor.
Cooney defeated first-time candidate Whitney Williams in Tuesday’s primary election. He will face U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, the winner of the Republican primary, in November’s general election.
The 65-year-old Cooney has a long resume in Montana politics. He was a two-term secretary of state, a former state representative and the president of the Montana Senate. He unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2000.
Cooney became outgoing Gov. Steve Bullock’s third lieutenant governor in 2016.
He will now run to win an office that has been occupied by a Democrats since 2005.
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8:58 p.m.
Kathleen Williams has won the Democratic nomination for Montana’s U.S. House seat for the second consecutive election.
The 59-year-old former state legislator defeated current state Rep. Tom Winter in Tuesday’s primary election.
Williams will face the winner of the Republican primary in November’s general election. The GOP primary was a six-way race led by State Auditor Matt Rosendale and Secretary of State Corey Stapleton.
Williams will once again attempt to win a House seat that has been held by a Republicans since 1997.
In 2018, she came closer than any Democrat has over that period. She captured 46% of the vote but lost to incumbent Republican Greg Gianforte.
The House seat is now open with Gianforte running for governor.
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8:50 p.m.
U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte has defeated Attorney General Tim Fox and state Sen. Al Olszewski to win the Republican nomination for Montana governor.
The 59-year-old congressman from Bozeman will face the winner of the Democratic primary between Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney and first-time candidate Whitney Williams.
Gianforte is a former businessman who sold a start-up company to technology giant Oracle in 2011 for $1.8 billion. He lost the first time he ran for Montana governor in 2016 against incumbent Democrat Steve Bullock, though President Donald Trump won Montana by a 20-point margin.
Gianforte, who was ambivalent toward Trump in the 2016 campaign, has since reframed himself as a staunch ally of the president.
Gianforte is perhaps best known outside Montana for assaulting a reporter the day before a 2017 special election to fill Montana’s vacant U.S. House seat. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after slamming Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs to the ground and breaking the reporter’s glasses.
Republicans are attempting to win the open seat after 16 years of Democratic governors. Bullock can’t run again due to term limits and is challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.
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8:28 p.m.
Steve Daines has won the Republican nomination for Senate in Montana.
Daines, a first-term senator, defeated Daniel Larson and John Driscoll in Tuesday’s GOP primary.
The 57-year-old Daines will move on to the general election in November, where he will face Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
Bullock won the Democratic nomination in a race that could play a factor in determining which party controls the Senate.
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8:25 p.m.
Gov. Steve Bullock has won Montana’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary.
Bullock’s win Tuesday sets up a general election race between him and incumbent Republican Steve Daines.
The Bullock-Daines race is expected to be a key election as Republicans defend their slim four-seat majority in the Senate.
Bullock, 54, entered the race in March, months after ending his long-shot presidential campaign. The popular two-term governor had repeatedly said he wouldn’t run against Daines, but national party figures pleaded with him to change his mind.
Bullock defeated first-time candidate John Mues in the primary.
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8:17 p.m.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has won Montana’s Democratic presidential primary.
The results Tuesday night were expected with Biden the party’s presumptive nominee.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren remained on the Montana ballot despite previously suspending their campaigns and endorsing Biden.
Montana has 25 Democratic delegates. Nineteen are allocated based on the results of the primary and six are so-called super delegates.
President Donald Trump was unopposed in the Montana GOP presidential contest.
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8 p.m.
Polls have closed as Montana picks party nominees in a primary election topped by open seats for governor and U.S. House.
Montana, which is holding a mostly mail-in election because of the coronavirus pandemic, stopped accepting ballots at 8 p.m. Tuesday.
As of early Tuesday evening, 367,463 people had turned in ballots. That’s a record for a primary election in Montana.
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