Twenty-two Montana Democratic lawmakers asked Alani Bankhead to drop out. She refused. Here’s the inside story of the party fight — and looming legal battle — reshaping Montana’s Senate race.
Montana’s open Senate race has evolved from a competitive general election into an open intraparty conflict, after 22 Democratic state legislators formally called on nominee Alani Bankhead to abandon her campaign — and she refused.
How the Pressure Campaign Escalated
The push to clear the field for independent candidate Seth Bodnar didn’t emerge overnight. A month before the formal August 7 letter, 17 Montana lawmakers had already written to both Bankhead and Bodnar urging the two to meet and find a way to unite anti-Republican voters. When that failed to produce a resolution, seven state senators and 15 House members escalated to a direct, public letter — first reported by CNN — stating they were “united in believing that Seth Bodnar is the candidate who shares our Democratic values and has the experience, knowledge, resources and capacity” to defeat Republican nominee Kurt Alme.
Bodnar, a former University of Montana president, has significant institutional advantages: he leads all candidates in fundraising, and has drawn endorsements from former Democratic Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus as well as former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot — an unusually broad, cross-partisan coalition for a Montana Senate candidate. Notably, Bodnar’s campaign has said it never directly asked Bankhead to exit the race, with Bodnar stating publicly, “I’ve never asked Alani Bankhead to drop out of this race, I’m not asking her to do that right now.”
Twenty-two Democratic members of the Montana Legislature formally asked Senate nominee Alani Bankhead to drop out in favor of independent candidate Seth Bodnar. Bankhead refused before the August 10 withdrawal deadline, setting up a potential legal battle over whether Montana Democrats must name a replacement nominee.
Bankhead’s Refusal and Her Case for Staying
Bankhead, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and first-time candidate, held firm through the August 10 withdrawal deadline, telling reporters at a press conference in East Helena, “I am in this race to win it, and I am staying through Nov. 3.” She has framed both of her rivals — Bodnar and Alme — as beneficiaries of corporate PAC and “dark money” influence, arguing that “Montana doesn’t want politicians who are bought and paid for.”
Her financial position underscores the unusual nature of her candidacy: Bankhead won her primary with 47.3% of the vote thanks largely to more than $4 million in outside advertising from Progressive Vet PAC — support that evaporated once the primary concluded. She has since raised just under $60,000 on her own, a fraction of what Bodnar and Alme have brought in, and has pointed to small-dollar moments, like holding up a $5 bill from a Glendive supporter, as evidence that “money doesn’t always win elections.”
The dispute has also turned personal and, at times, ugly. Bodnar’s campaign has accused unnamed groups — which Bodnar attributed to “Republican dark money groups” tied to Sen. Steve Daines and Alme — of contacting candidates’ family members, calling the behavior “completely f-ed up” and something that both parties should reject regardless of political affiliation.
The Legal Fight That Could Follow
Because Bankhead did not withdraw by Monday’s deadline, she will appear on the November ballot — but the underlying legal question of what would happen if she had withdrawn, or if circumstances change, remains contested. A group of Democratic-aligned lawyers issued a memo arguing Montana state law does not require the party to name a replacement nominee if a candidate exits, while Republicans — circulating a memo from the state’s former solicitor general — have argued the opposite: that state law would require Democrats to select a successor. That unresolved legal question could resurface if pressure on Bankhead continues in the final months of the race.
Why the Four-Way Field Matters Nationally
Political scientists in the state, including Carroll College’s Jeremy Johnson, have noted the mechanical reality of the standoff: with both Bankhead and Bodnar competing for an overlapping pool of anti-Republican voters, “it would be hard not to somehow split the vote” — a dynamic that most analysts believe favors Alme. Montana’s Senate seat is open for just the third time in 40 years, following Daines’ retirement, and Democrats already lost the seat decisively in 2024, when Sen. Jon Tester was defeated by more than 43,000 votes. A second consecutive Democratic Senate loss in Montana — this time complicated by an intraparty fracture — would be read nationally as a cautionary tale about the cost of unresolved candidate disputes in competitive states.
Discover more from Opinion Articles
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
