Paula McKenzie started telling volunteers at the Madison County polling place in Virginia City they could head home around 12:30 a.m. on Wed. Nov. 6 as the final ballots of the night were counted and black ice hardened on roads throughout the county. 

In two of the most competitive races on the ballot, Rhonda Boyd of Alder, Brian Conklin of Ennis and Dustin Tetrault of Twin Bridges were elected to serve on the Madison County Government Study Commission. Boyd claimed the most votes, with 1,835.

The Virginia City Government Study Commission will include top vote-getter Abby Thomas, plus Darrell Schulte and Donald Mefford. In Ennis, only two candidates for its Study Commission were on the ballot. Brittany Hirsch received 346 votes and Lisa Roberts received 273. 

In the statewide offices—governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor and superintendent of public instruction—Madison County divided down party lines, with Republican candidates claiming roughly three times as many votes as the Democrats on the ballot. 

That pattern extended to the federal races, though the expensive contest between Tim Sheehy and Sen. Jon Tester was a little tighter as some Republican votes flowed to the dirt farmer from Big Sandy. 

In the race for Montana’s western Congressional seat, Ryan Zinke pulled in 4,471 votes in the county, compared to 1,732 for Monica Tranel. At 1 a.m., as the remaining poll workers tidied up the meeting room in VC, Tranel held a narrow lead over Zinke statewide with just 45% of precincts reporting. 

For president, Madison County was resolutely pro-Trump, casting 4,569 votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 1,673. 

For Montana Supreme Court Justice, Madison County favored Cory Swanson, and for Supreme Court Justice #3 Dan Wilson who bested Katherine Bidegaray by 215 votes. 

The two election reform constitutional initiatives—CI-126 and CI-127—were rejected by Madison County voters. 
But CI-128 fared better. Madison County narrowly supported the creation of a new section of the Montana Constitution that explicitly establishes a right “to carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion." It won over local voters, edging out those who marked “no” by just 106 votes.