Democrats are airing ads featuring audio of an election-eve assault on a reporter by Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate in a special House election.<\/b>
\nBOZEMAN, Mont. \u2014 Democrats scrambled on Thursday to snatch a last-minute upset in the closely watched House contest in Montana, airing radio and digital ads featuring audio of the election-eve assault on a reporter by the Republican candidate, Greg Gianforte.
Republicans, meanwhile, went public with scalding criticism of their own nominee.
In commercials produced overnight, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee accused Mr. Gianforte of being \u201cunhinged.\u201d Accompanied by the jarring sounds of his altercation with The Guardian\u2019s Ben Jacobs, which sent the reporter to the hospital, the spots captured Mr. Gianforte screaming, \u201cI\u2019 m sick and tired of you guys!\u201d
It was too late to place the advertising on television, but Democrats expressed hope that the episode, which immediately went viral on Wednesday night, could persuade enough undecided voters in red-tinted Montana to cast their ballot for the Democratic nominee, Rob Quist, a banjo-playing country singer and songwriter.
But the prospects that the altercation would tip the race to Mr. Quist were complicated by Montana\u2019s early-voting tradition: More than half the estimated total ballots in the contest had already been returned.
Regardless of the winner, the specter of a June court date for Mr. Gianforte on a misdemeanor assault charge was a humiliating coda for Republicans at a difficult moment. The party had already been forced to spend millions of dollars to prop up its nominee in a race being pored over for clues about the national political environment in the tumultuous first months of Donald J. Trump\u2019s presidency.
On Thursday, Mr. Gianforte\u2019s conduct appeared to be a last straw.
\u201cHe\u2019s the problem, \u201d Corry Bliss, who runs a \u201c super PAC \u201d aligned with House Republicans, said of Mr. Gianforte. When the contest began, Mr. Bliss said, private polling showed that Mr. Gianforte was as unpopular as he was popular, a leftover result of his failed campaign for governor last year.
\u201cThis race was essentially an unpopular incumbent trying to get re-elected, \u201d said Mr. Bliss, whose Congressional Leadership Fund spent nearly $2.7 million on Mr. Gianforte\u2019s behalf. \u201cAnd in this environment, C-minus candidates aren\u2019 t going to cut it.\u201d
Elected Republicans in Washington also expressed frustration, publicly scolding Mr. Gianforte.
The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, called on him to apologize and predicted that Mr. Gianforte, a wealthy former software executive, would publicly address the episode.
\u201cShould the gentleman apologize? Yeah, I think he should apologize, \u201d Mr. Ryan said. \u201cI know he has his own version, and I\u2019 m sure he\u2019s going to have more to say, but there\u2019s no call for this, no matter what \u2014 on any circumstance.\u201d
Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the state\u2019s most prominent Republican and a former employee of Mr. Gianforte\u2019s, said in a television interview that he was \u201cvery surprised\u201d by his colleague\u2019s behavior.
\u201cI think Greg should apologize, \u201d he told NBC News. \u201cThat\u2019s warranted. And we\u2019 ll let the people of Montana decide what happens tonight.\u201d
Mr. Gianforte\u2019s outburst placed Republicans in a distinctly awkward position as ballots were being cast, with victory in the race suddenly looking as uncomfortable as defeat. Should Mr. Gianforte lose, it would be an embarrassing setback and would encourage Democrats hoping to take control of the House next year.
But if Mr. Gianforte won, it would force Republicans in Congress to interact with, and address the behavior of, a man summoned to the Gallatin County Courthouse on June 7 to answer an accusation that he \u201cpurposely or knowingly\u201d caused \u201cbodily injury to another.\u201d
National Democrats, long skeptical of their prospects in Montana, said they would target Mr. Gianforte in 2018 if he prevailed on Thursday, given his fresh political vulnerabilities.
In the past, lawmakers have been pressed to defend or denounce colleagues of the same party ensnared in scandals, like former Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York, the Democrat caught sending lewd photographs online.
Republicans had hoped to spare themselves much of the anxiety and expense of a contentious special election campaign by nominating Mr. Gianforte, who was well known in Montana and wealthy enough to advance himself politically.
Yet Mr. Gianforte also carried considerable baggage: While the governor\u2019s race raised his profile, Montanans also spent months watching Democrats\u2019 negative commercials attacking Mr. Gianforte\u2019s views and branding him as a self-interested tycoon with no roots in the state or respect for its traditions.
While private polling has consistently shown him ahead of Mr. Quist, Republicans have fumed for some time that Mr. Gianforte seemed unable to establish a dominant lead in the race.
Though the prospect of Mr. Gianforte\u2019s arrival in Washington as a congressman-elect unsettled some Republicans, House leaders gave no indication on Thursday that they might block him from being seated.
If Mr. Gianforte wins, Mr. Ryan said, \u201che has been chosen by the people of Montana.\u201d
In Montana, the news of the altercation Wednesday evening at Mr. Gianforte\u2019s campaign headquarters spread like a Big Sky wildfire. It dominated newspaper front pages and local television news in Bozeman, Mr. Gianforte\u2019s adopted hometown, and across the sprawling state. Three of the largest daily papers in the state rescinded their endorsements of him.
Mr. Gianforte was silent on Thursday, and his campaign aides did not respond to messages.
Democrats here expressed newfound hope about their chances but stopped short of predicting victory, given that more than 250,000 votes had been cast by Wednesday. There are fewer than 700,000 voters in the state, and few political veterans expect turnout to reach much higher than 60 percent.
\u201cThere are a considerable number of independent voters in Montana who, unfortunately, make up their mind at the last moment, \u201d said former Representative Pat Williams, the last Democrat to represent the state in the House, more than 20 years ago. \u201cThis event could have some effect on them.\u201d
But in downtown Bozeman, many said they had already voted \u2014 or were unmoved.
\u201cI was already going to vote for Rob Quist, \u201d said Ariel Lusty, a 22-year-old graduate student at Montana State, who sported an \u201cI Voted\u201d sticker as she sat inside Wild Joe\u2019s Coffee Spot.
And Richard Shanahan, a 75-year-old architect in Bozeman, said he had already voted by mail for Mr. Gianforte and was largely unbothered by the ugly end to the campaign.
\u201cIt doesn\u2019 t change my mind at all, \u201d said Mr. Shanahan, who remarked on how ubiquitous the news had become overnight. \u201cI think it\u2019s being blown out of proportion.\u201d<\/p>\n

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