Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up July 30, 2026 The deadline for dropping out of Montana’s U.S. Senate race is less than two weeks away, and persuasion campaigns to drive out either Democrat Alani Bankhead or independent Seth Bodnar are heating up. The name of any candidate who doesn’t withdraw before the Aug. 9 deadline will be printed on the general election ballot, where presumably it will siphon votes from the competing candidate not named Kurt Alme. Text message campaigns are urging voters to tell Bankhead to withdraw, and ads are questioning her credibility. Bodnar faces an intense barrage of attack ads from Republican PACs. Bankhead enters August with spirited support from Montana’s small Democratic base, but only a few thousand dollars to campaign with. Bodnar has raised the most money of all the race’s candidates, as well as support from top Democratic power brokers and some high-profile former Republican officeholders. Largely battling each other to split the pool of Democratic and leftish independent voters, the two candidates are likely to pave the way to a win by Republican Kurt Alme unless one of them drops out.  “I will never drop out, for a number of reasons,” Bankhead told Capitolized by text message Wednesday. “Forty-eight thousand Montanans voted for me using the democratic process as set forth by Montana law. The split vote was created by the independent. Therefore, it’s his problem to fix by dropping out.” Team Bodnar tells Capitolized he isn’t quitting either. Is There Even an Exit Ramp? Alme’s campaign on Wednesday circulated an article by the digital news service Semafor stating that Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, a Republican, will require Democrats to replace Bankhead if she withdraws from the race before the Aug. 10 deadline.   Several Montana attorneys have attempted to advise the party not to be cowed by Republican state officials into replacing Bankhead, should she withdraw, and to back Bodnar if preventing Alme from being elected is the party’s priority. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows the party to choose not to replace a candidate, the attorneys argue. Political parties in Montana and other states have already opted not to replace candidates who withdrew. “Political parties are free to choose who represents them,” the attorneys advised. “And in 2026, Montana Democrats can do just that: and choose to advance their platform rather than feel cornered to nominate a Democratic candidate who cannot win a head-to-head match up with the hand-picked Republican nominee.” The attorneys who authored the letter are Jori Quinlan, Missoula; Larry Anderson, Great Falls; Betsy Brandborg, Helena; Cliff Edwards, Billings; Kaylee Hafer, Butte; Doug James, Billings; Jesse Kodadek, Missoula; Nate McConnell, Missoula; and Roger Sullivan, Kalispell. The Montana Democratic Party told Capitolized it didn’t respond to the attorneys. As recently as 2020, the Montana Libertarian Party chose not to replace U.S. Senate candidate Susan Geise, who withdrew from the race early enough that her name didn’t appear on the general election ballot. State law says that in order to avoid appearing on the general election ballot, a candidate must drop out at least 85 days before the general election. This year, that deadline is Aug. 9. The law says that a political party shall choose a replacement for withdrawn candidates, as provided by party rules, no later than 76 days before the general election. But in 2020, Libertarian leadership considered replacements and voted “none of the above,” declining to replace Geise. Corey Stapleton, Montana’s Republican secretary of state at the time, stayed out of it. Stapleton’s chief of staff in 2020 was current Secretary of State Jacobsen. That election, Republican incumbent Steve Daines defeated Democrat Steve Bullock, then governor, for a second term. Daines chose not to seek reelection this year, but served as a political scarecrow for Alme, remaining on the ballot until minutes before the March 4 candidate registration deadline. The state’s Republican Party has a history of leaning on opponents to drop out of U.S. Senate races. In 2024, supporters of Sen. Tim Sheehy flew Kalispell-based Libertarian candidate Sid Daoud to Bozeman for an in-person visit with Donald Trump, who asked Daoud to leave the race before the Libertarian was seated off stage for Trump’s rally. That ask was made Aug. 9, 2024. The deadline to withdraw that year was Aug. 12. Daoud declined.  In 2018. Libertarian Rick Breckenridge withdrew from the U.S. Senate race in October and endorsed Republican Matt Rosendale at a press conference attended by both candidates. Breckenridge’s decision came too late for his name to be omitted from the ballot. Rosendale lost the general election to then-incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.  This election, Republicans have steadily offered Bankhead signs of hope in the form of favorable polling summaries and political analysis, even as some members of Bankhead’s own party encourage her to drop out.  Dems Say Go. Republicans Say No.  A group of Democratic state legislators wrote Bankhead in July asking that she meet with Bodnar and decide which of them would exit the Senate race.  Nancy Keenan, a former Montana Democratic Party chair and past president of the national abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, called Bankhead after the June 2 primary to ask the candidate to step down. Keenan revealed the call in an open letter in which she endorsed Bodnar. “A harsh truth remains  — there is not a viable path for a Democratic victory in this race,” Keenan wrote.  Regardless, Republicans have steadily messaged that Bankhead is the most popular voter choice of the non-Republican candidates.  Wednesday, the Republican-aligned Washington Reporter suggested that 30% of polled Montana voters intended to vote for Bankhead, and just 15% for Bodnar, with Alme claiming 45%. The National Republican Senatorial Committee paid for the data, according to the D.C. newsletter. The Washington Reporter is published by Matthew Foldi, a former Republican candidate for U.S. House in Maryland. Two weeks earlier, the publication reported on a top sheet of polling takeaways suggesting that Bodnar’s approval rating was declining, “opening a door” for Bankhead to become competitive. That July 14 Washington Reporter report came the day before second-quarter campaign finance reports revealed that Bankhead had ended June with $21,000 in the bank, while Bodnar had $1 million to spend and Alme $1.4 million. On June 18, the summary from another Republican poll suggested that Bankhead had an edge on Bodnar, and that Alme, with less than 50% of the vote, could be vulnerable if the Democrat and independent weren’t splitting the progressive vote. That poll was released three days after Bankhead held a press conference to say that not only was she not dropping out, but that Bodnar should. Two weeks later, the PAC that spent millions promoting Bankhead in the primary withdrew its support, saying her race wasn’t winnable. Bodnar points to two recent polls that have him winning a head-to-head matchup with Alme. Turning up the Heat on Bodnar Seth Bodnar, independent candidate for U.S. Senate, talks to prospective voters during a meet-and-greet event at Benny’s Bistro in Helena on March 7, 2026. Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local/Report for America Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local/Report for America What Republicans haven’t done post-primary is spend money on advertising opposing Bankhead. Their ad focus is on Bodnar. TV advertising contracts show that two Alme-supporting PACs, American Leadership Fund and More Jobs, Less Government, recently placed $750,000 in cable ads against Bodnar. The ads, scheduled to run through the Aug. 9 withdrawal deadline, target Bodnar’s tenure as University of Montana president, which Bankhead zeroed in on in mid-June. Far-right outlet Breitbart reported this week that anonymous Republican sources expect Bodnar to drop out soon. Bodnar’s campaign denied the report. “Seth isn’t focused on political games. He’s focused on winning,” said Abigail Tracy, a Bodnar spokesperson. “Seth is campaigning across Montana every day, building the winning coalition it will take to defeat Kurt Alme in November.” A PAC that’s mostly purchased ads promoting Bodnar started running ads against Bankhead in July.  Bankhead’s Surprising Rise  Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alani Bankhead. Credit: Tom Lutey/MTFP Credit: Tom Lutey / MTFP Bankhead lacks the campaign funds and PAC support that usually drive far-reaching political ad campaigns. She does have a steady drip of $25 ads on Facebook.  Bankhead was unknown to 70% of voters polled by Montana Free Press in the 10 days before primary ballots were mailed out in May. She benefited from a pop-up political committee, Progressive Vet PAC, that spent $3.3 million promoting Bankhead and opposing better-funded competitor Reilly Neill. A Republican PAC called More Jobs, Less Government spent $1.8 million on ads simultaneously portraying Neill as a stereotypical liberal and Bankhead as a Trump-friendly moderate willing to work with the president on immigration enforcement.  After the primary, Progressive Vet declared the race unwinnable for Bankhead and exited the race. Enthusiasm for Bankhead was low. The 48,000 votes that carried her to a win in the four-way race was the second-lowest vote total for a Montana Democrat in a U.S. Senate primary since 1994. The Independent Moment Montana is not the only state where poorly funded Democratic congressional candidates are being squeezed by well-funded independent campaigns. The trend started in Nebraska in 2024, where independent Dan Osborn, a labor organizer, challenged incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer and captured 46.5% of the vote, the most of any Senate candidate running against a Nebraska Republican in the last 24 years. The Democratic candidate that year withdrew from the race.  Osborn is on the ballot again this year, challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts. The Democrat in the race, Cindy Burbank, registered her withdrawal July 17. Similar to Bankhead, Burbank was running a five-figure campaign. Burbank eventually called the race unwinnable. In Idaho, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate David Roth ended his campaign Tuesday, saying his time is better spent campaigning for Democrats down ballot. Independent Todd Achilles, an Army veteran and former Democratic state legislator, is left as the main challenger to Republican incumbent Sen. Jim Risch. Polling by MTFP shows about 42% of Montanans identifying as independent, 39% identifying as Republican and 19% identifying as Democratic. The poll was taken during the 10 days before absentee ballots were mailed to Montana voters in early May, and were similar to results from December polling. Polls in previous election cycles have suggested that Democrats could account for as much as 26% of the electorate, though voters identifying as Democrats are usually closer to 22% of those surveyed. —Tom Lutey The post Bankhead, Bodnar, and the Battle over Bowing Out appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less