The Supreme Court
Justices Alito and Thomas are both in their late 70s. If either seat opens, the Senate decides who fills it, and whether a conservative majority is locked in for decades.
Deadline: August 10. We can't hand a free Senate seat to the corrupt, Trump-endorsed Republican.
Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent Seth Bodnar are splitting the anti-Alme vote. Polls show only Bodnar can beat Alme head-to-head. By withdrawing, Bankhead could unite voters behind a candidate who supports most of the same agenda but appeals to Montanans who would never vote for a Democrat.
Alani Bankhead can be a hero if she drops out of the election by August 10.
Three major candidates are running: Trump-endorsed Republican Kurt Alme, Democrat Alani Bankhead, and independent Seth Bodnar. Bankhead and Bodnar are competing for the same voters. If both stay in, they split the anti-Alme vote and Alme wins by double digits.
A head-to-head race is a different story. If Bodnar drops out, polls predict Bankhead would still lose to Alme, 41% to 50%. Bankhead is a good candidate, but most Montanans simply won't vote for a Democrat. Jon Tester was a three-term incumbent, and he lost by 7 points in 2024.
But Bodnar has a real chance, a 50:50 shot at beating Alme, because an independent can reach voters the Democrats can't. In 2024, independent candidate Dan Osborn showed this by outperforming Harris by 14 points in Nebraska.
“If it's head-to-head between Bodnar and Alme, Bodnar wins the damn race.”— Jon Tester
The only chance Montanans have to defeat Alme is for Bankhead to drop from the race before August 10 and unite the vote behind Bodnar.
This simulation lets you take either candidate off the ballot to see where their voters go.
Illustrative simulation built from an average of recent statewide polls (three-way and head-to-head matchups); vote transfers are estimates. The remaining share is undecided. Full toplines (PDF)
Seth Bodnar is a West Point graduate, Army veteran, and Rhodes Scholar who served as president of the University of Montana, a job he resigned to run for this seat. He qualified for the November ballot by petition, gathering more than double the required signatures.
He's backed by a cross-partisan group of Montana leaders: former Democratic Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus, and former Republican Governor Marc Racicot.
“For me, Montana comes first and the party comes second… Seth Bodnar is best for Montana.”— Max Baucus
Bodnar wouldn't be a rubber stamp for either party, but on the issues Montana Democrats care about most, he's with you, and he's the one who can win.
Montanans have shown they aren't interested in Democrats, no matter who it is. Groups who supported Bankhead have pulled out:
“A Democrat does not have a viable path to winning the Montana Senate seat.”— Progressive Vet, who supported Bankhead in the primary
“At VoteVets, we support winners.”— Gen. Paul Eaton, VoteVets Senior Advisor
“The DSCC partners with viable campaigns who have a path to victory, which Ms. Bankhead does not.”— Devan Barber, Executive Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
“Seth is the only candidate with a legitimate path to victory who still shares our members' values.”— Erika McMillin, Board Member for the Montana Federation of Public Employees, voted for Bankhead in the primary
Control of the Senate is likely to come down to one or two seats. Whoever holds it decides who sits on the Supreme Court and who runs the federal government.
Justices Alito and Thomas are both in their late 70s. If either seat opens, the Senate decides who fills it, and whether a conservative majority is locked in for decades.
Agency heads have to be confirmed by the Senate, and the margins are razor thin. Hegseth was confirmed 51-50, saved only by the vice president's tie-breaking vote. Bodnar could be the vote that blocks the next one.
In a Senate this closely divided, an independent beholden to neither party becomes one of the most powerful votes in the chamber, and Bodnar answers only to Montana.
Under Montana law, a candidate can't withdraw once there are fewer than 85 days until the election. That puts the deadline at August 10.
From May 14 to June 30, Bodnar raised over $1.1 million and Alme about $800,000. Bankhead reported just under $35,000 in her most recent filing. Winning a Montana Senate race on that budget is not realistic.
A primary and a general are completely different. A primary is a small, low-turnout race decided by those faithful to each party. Only about 112,000 people voted in the Democratic primary. In the last election, over 600,000 Montanans voted, and November will be a very different, and much tougher, electorate.
But also, her campaign wasn't actually cheap: a Super PAC called Progressive Vet spent roughly $3.3 million boosting her and attacking her better-funded rival, Reilly Neill. At the same time, a Republican PAC called More Jobs, Less Government spent another $1.8 million on casting Neill as a stereotypical liberal and Bankhead as a pragmatic, Trump-friendly moderate. That's Republican money shaping the Democratic primary toward who they preferred to face in November.
Probably not. The Montana Democratic party would need to change its bylaws such that it would not be required to replace a nominee who drops out, but Montana Dem party leadership have expressed willingness to do so. A group of lawyers has analyzed the Montana Democratic Party's bylaws, the Montana constitution, and other similar situations and concluded that, no, they don't have to nominate one and would likely win a lawsuit if challenged. Here's their analysis (PDF).
Bodnar's position is that “The government has no business in our bedrooms, has no businesses in our doctor's office…” And according to his campaign, while he was president of the University of Montana, female deans went from one to seven, and 78% of campus employee promotions went to women.
Furthermore, Nancy Keenan (past president of NARAL Pro-Choice America and former Montana Democratic Party chair) asked Bankhead to step down, endorsed Bodnar, and said, “A harsh truth remains — there is not a viable path for a Democratic victory in this race.”
Only one thing will determine whether these rights are won or lost: whether Republicans control the Senate and, therefore, will confirm Trump's nominees as federal judges and Supreme Court justices. If Bankhead drops out, we have a much better chance of denying them that majority. If she stays in, Kurt Alme would be a rubber stamp for Trump's agenda. Bodnar would not.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021 against the University of Montana and the Montana University System — not against Bodnar personally — by 18 women who worked at UM. The University, not Bodnar, settled it in 2024 for $350,000. There was no finding of wrongdoing against Bodnar. Some of the allegations concerned a campus culture that predated Bodnar's arrival in 2018.
Bodnar is backed by former Democratic Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus. His campaign is staffed by veterans of Tester's team, and he's committed to codifying Roe, protecting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, ending gerrymandering, and overturning Citizens United. On the issues that matter most to Montana Democrats, he's an ally.