the montana senate race is an absolute cluster***k

Ugh. You guys. I was really hoping to avoid having to write about this.

I was praying, naively as it transpires, for a birthday gift from the universe. That Alani Bankhead would read the room and drop out of the race before the August 10th deadline.

She did not.

Now even if she does come to her senses and drop out, her name will appear on the ballot.

So I guess we have to get into the weeds of this absolute shitshow of a race.

Let’s go back, back to the beginning. By which I mean March 4, 2026.

The filing deadline for the Montana Senate primary was at 5pm that day. Steve Daines, the incumbent Senator who had held that seat since 2014, and who won by a comfortable 55-45 margin in 2020, dropped out of the race literal MINUTES before the filing deadline.

Why does this matter?

Well, it meant that his hand-chosen successor, Kurt Alme, who also entered the race minutes before the deadline, had an open field. No serious establishment competition for the nomination.

It also meant that democrats with statewide name recognition who might have been interesting in vying for an open seat—but who were not interested in going up against a well-funded and well-known incumbent—did not have time to enter the race on the other side. Names like Steve Bullock (former Governor who lost to Daines in 2020) or Jon Tester (former Senator who lost to Sheehy in 2024).

Now, how much does this really matter? One could argue that if a Bullock or a Tester had wanted the seat or had planned on running for it, then they should have had the courage to do so regardless of who their competition might be. I actually happen to agree with that.

I have no inside knowledge of their thought process—or the thought processes of Kathleen Williams or Monica Tranel, both of whom have run and lost in recent years. Maybe these people never would have run, even if Daines had declared in January that he would not be seeking reelection. I truly do not know.

Tester actually said he wouldn’t have run anyway and would actually have preferred running against Daines. So maybe I’m way off base.

But would some other republicans without Alme’s insider knowledge have thrown their hats in the ring? Turning an otherwise decorous nomination process into an all-out street fight? Probably. There’s a big (well, relative to the nation) libertarian base in this state, and I think that primary could have turned into a brawl. Instead Alme got to save his cash and skate through, reputation unsullied.

But so okay, fine, the process was fakakta from the outset. (Thanks, Daines! What an excellent parting gift you have given us! A final shot across the bow at the democratic process! You love to see it.)

I would love to see some changes to this process—such as requiring incumbents to declare sooner? Though maybe that would have other negative downstream consequences, I don’t know. Let me know in the comments if you have a solution to this subversion of democratic principles.

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But WHATEVER. We rise above! We go high! We move it along!

Seth Bodnar is running as an independent candidate for senate.

42% of Montanan’s self-identify as independent.

In case the number does not speak for itself, that is a significant share of the electorate. 39% identify as Republican and 19% as Democrats.1

Seth graduated West Point shortly before the 9/11 attacks. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He was a Green Beret. He was the president of the University of Montana for eight years. He wants to end corruption—no more congressional stock trading, no more revolving door from Congress to to K-street, no more corporate PAC spending—and work with anyone from any party to improve the lives of working Montanans. Particular priorities include housing and affordability.

More importantly, Bodnar has an actual chance to win in a state where the D brand has become toxic in recent years.

(Though importantly, I want to push back against the notion that Montana is ‘ruby red.’ It’s not true. We may have gone for Trump by double digits, but we’ve elected statewide democrats in the recent past and we will again.)

Bodnar will have my vote in November.

Also, sorry, but he is hot and that matters!

She served in the Air Force. She moved to Montana in 2023 for….reasons? It’s unclear. I’ve accused the out of state republicans who “represent” us of being carpet baggers, so it’s only fair that I launch the same critique here. I call it like I see it!

But Julia, you may be thinking, you’re from Connecticut. Not exactly a dyed-in-the-wool mountain girl!

True enough! I have been in Montana for a mere 9 years, so who am I to critique newcomers for daring to seek to represent the hard working people of this great state? Well, I am not seeking statewide office. So there’s that.

But she won the democratic primary, you might be thinking. That’s democracy, baby! Who voted for Bodnar? No one! He should be the one to drop out!

Plus maybe you’re an identitarian and love voting for a woman. I do too, come to that! Just a few problems.

1. As noted above, the primary process was fucked from the start. Does anyone think she would have won against a serious field, had Daines dropped out earlier? I surely do not.

2. A ton of outside spending entered the race at the last minute, with a major push for Bankhead—$3.3 million spent by a PAC to support her, when she’d only managed to raise about $23k herself. I don’t know why that money came her way, and the nesting shell companies behind the PAC seem to have ties to conservative millionaires and billionaires. Is someone paying her to stay in the race as a spoiler? I’m just asking questions.

3. Bankhead won with 43.6% of the vote. A whopping total of 48,772 votes. For reference, there were 468,326 votes cast in our last off-year election in 2022 (that’s a 61.38% participation rate). Alme got 128,716 votes in his primary. She’ll need to spark a lot more interest than 49k to be competitive.

4. After she left the military she set up shop as a life coach. Enough said.

Look, if Bodnar were not in the race I would be enthusiastically supporting Bankhead. There’s nothing wrong with her as far as I can tell. There’s nothing so stunningly right with her either, and I don’t like the audacity of living here for all of five minutes before deciding you’re the best person for the job of representing a state you have no ties to, but FINE. It would be FINE.

However, that is not the case.

The case is MAGA. The case is a president who is robbing us blind, throwing away American life and treasure in another quagmire war in the middle east that he PROMISED not to start. Literally nothing else is relevant right now, and if her ego hands this seat to republicans—which it will—then her hope of a future career in Montana politics is over.

I care about NOT sending Alme to the Senate.

Bodnar is polling well ahead of Bankhead, particularly among young people and independent voters. He’s also leading her among democrats. He has out-raised her 32-to-1.

So my question is: Who wants this? Who exactly is she running for? If it’s for the people of Montana, then she has missed her mark. Most of us want her out. We have signed petitions asking her to drop out. The state legislators sent a letter to her and Bodnar, begging them to come to an agreement and have one of them please, for the love of god, set their ego aside and care about the bigger picture for a minute and a half.

Do I like that it needs to be the woman setting her ego aside? No, not especially.

But Bodnar is the one with a shot to win.

He has the money. He has to endorsements. He has the support. He has connections to this state, dammit!

She has nothing.

When Alme wins the Senate seat, Bankhead will lose more than an election. She will lose any hope of ever receiving my vote for any office in the future.

There, I said it. Boycott Bankhead.

Not that it will matter much to her—she’s a citizen of the world type and will no doubt find a new state to call home and run for office there. Best of luck to her.

He’s a Harvard-trained lawyer who, to his credit, is from Montana and has experience working in the state government.

In an April interview with Fox News, Alme admitted that Daines called him a few days before the March 4 filing deadline. Daines told Alme that he wanted to retire but did not want Democrats to take the seat. Then, on the morning of the deadline, Daines told Alme he would withdraw if Alme stepped up. Alme resigned as U.S. attorney and filed eight minutes before the deadline.

He immediately received endorsements from Sheehy, Gianforte, and Daines.

That’s pretty corrupt, no?

He was the hand-picked and anointed successor, without giving any Montana voters a chance to weigh in.

I would love to smear Alme with some juicy personal scandal, but unfortunately he seems generically bad rather than specifically bad.

I guess I could, as JD Vance advises, make something up that is directionally true even if literally false, just to get the media talking about it. Let’s try it. Alme has personally eaten so many cats and dogs!2

But no, to be fair, unlike many of the Republicans running in this cycle, Alme does not appear to be a wife beater or a child abuser (cough Max Miller). He does not have a history of physically assaulting those who disagree with him (see Sheehy and Gianforte), and does not appear to be a secret Nazi or massively corrupt in his use of public funds (see Duncan Hunter, Matt Gaetz, George Santos, Cory Mills, Ken Paxton…)

In a March interview he said he was “very pleased” with Trump's preemptive military action. Now things have obviously gotten dramatically worse since then, but Alme is not in any way critical of Trump. He has Trump’s endorsement and will be a rubber stamp to his policies if we send him to Washington.

In a Q&A with Ballotopedia, Alme writes, “As Revenue Director, I spearheaded the largest income tax rate cut in state history – cutting the top rate nearly 40%.”

He was also involved in creating Montana's capital-gains tax credit, which preferentially taxes investment income compared with wage income and has long been criticized as disproportionately benefiting higher-income households.

Running on cutting the top tax rate, in this economy, is a bold fucking move, my guy. In a place where out-of-state money is pricing locals out everywhere. Where “Yellowstone Club” is a curse word. Where people can’t afford housing but second-home mansions sit vacant 11 months of the year.

Alme claims to care about affordability in a state transformed by wealthy newcomers. Yet his record includes cutting top tax rates specifically to attract entrepreneurs from elsewhere.

Look, here’s the thing. I’m not an investigative reporter. (Are you shocked?) But because of the nefarious manner in which Alme entered the race, he has not had to be vetted properly.

I did learn, for instance, that he has a college paper out there titled “Custer’s Last Stand: The Truth.”

I have not been able to locate the text of this paper, but I am deeply curious as to what he thinks the truth about Custer is! If it’s anything other than “Custer was a reckless asshole and Native people were defending themselves,” then I think the voters of Montana would be curious to hear it. (We are blessed to have a significant Native population in this state.)

Alme worked for the National Christian Foundation from 2022-2024. In 2022 NCF reported about $2.44 billion in revenue and $4.62 billion in net assets. Its filing lists Alme's compensation at roughly $396,000 plus about $30,000 in additional compensation/benefits. NCF has routed very large sums to organizations including Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College and numerous groups involved in Project 2025. One analysis of tax filings calculated nearly $134 million from NCF to 32 Project 2025 participant organizations in recent years.

I don’t know what involvement Alme had in this during his tenure, but no one seems to be asking him the question. Was he helping to fund anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion groups?

These are the things we might know if he’d had to survive a contested primary.

Alme included “keeping boys out of girls sports” as one of the main reasons he’s running for this seat.

Want to know how many boys play in girls sports in Montana?

Well me too I guess (actually no, I don’t care), but the numbers don’t seem to be available. I’d place it near or about 1.

We have no professional major league sports teams here.3 This is not an issue in this state. Who cares? Gianforte already signed a bill about this in 2021. It’s stupid. It was stupid then. It remains stupid now. Leave people alone.

As mentioned previously, we have a strong libertarian streak here. It’s why abortion rights are enshrined in our state constitution, and why ballot measures protecting abortion rights win on the same tickets that elect republicans up and down the ballot. The message is simple: Government, stay off my lawn and out of my pants.

I cannot believe that this is an issue Montanans care about. I refuse to believe it.

And even if you’re conceptually in favor, in practice the logistics come down to: subject adolescent girls to invasive testing and increased body scrutiny. Maybe there should be a panel of men who have to inspect the breast buds and vulvas of all aspiring athletes? I bet Trump would volunteer for a seat on that board.

Unfortunately, smart money is on Alme to win this race.

With Bankhead and Bodnar splitting the vote, it’s hard to envision any other outcome.

I’ll still vote Bodnar, but I’m pinning my hopes on Sam Forstag to deliver some election night relief this fall.

Meanwhile, I’m off to send her another email asking her to drop out 🙃

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