BILLINGS — Independent U.S. Senate candidate Seth Bodnar held a press event Friday to tell a dozen or so supporters and a gaggle of journalists in Billings that he won’t be dropping out of the race. The deadline to withdraw and not appear on the November ballot is Monday. “My commitment is and always has been to the people of Montana,” Bodnar said. “I believe that Montana voters deserve the freedom to send a message to Washington that they reject a broken political system, that they deserve leadership that’s focused on bringing us together to solve problems rather than just tearing us apart to win elections.” Bondar’s own supporters are concerned about his chances of winning if Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead remains in the race and siphons off a significant fraction of the non-Republican vote. Several high-profile Democrats have gravitated to Bodnar’s campaign, including Jon Tester and Max Baucus, Montana’s most recent two Democratic senators. Some democratic donors and unions have migrated their support to the Bodnar campaign as well, creating animosity with party members supporting Bankhead, who ended June with just $21,000 in her campaign account. Bodnar described Bankhead as “unvetted” and a beneficiary of PAC spending during the Democratic primary that produced several million dollars worth of mostly favorable advertising. Bankhead won the four-way Democratic primary with 43.7% of the vote. One of the PACs was Progressive Vet, a pop-up committee that Democratic primary candidate Reilly Neill accused of manipulating the race to Bodnar’s advantage. Progressive Vet, which spent $3 million mostly in Bankhead’s favor, had a donor and a treasurer previously supportive of former U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, now a Bodnar supporter. The other PAC in the race was More Jobs, Less Government, a conservative PAC that spent $1.8 million in the Democratic primary, including $866,000 in ads supporting Bankhead.  “On the Democratic side, millions of dollars of outside dark money poured into a primary to determine an outcome,” Bodnar said Friday. “Now they have a candidate who’s unvetted and who believes, to use her very own words, that ‘if you are poor right now, it’s because you decided you wanted to be poor.’” The poverty comment comes from a Bankhead podcast in late 2025. Bankhead told MTFP on July 29 that the comment has been taken out of context.  “There’s a big difference between the client who makes $300 saying she’s poor and the government systematically exploiting and extracting money and life from everyday Montanans,” Bankhead said. There are five candidates running for U.S. Senate: Republican Kurt Alme, Libertarian Kyle Austin, Bankhead, Bodnar, and write-in candidate Jami Woodman, who managed the primary campaign of Democrat Reilly Neill.   There’s a campaign, driven by a pro-Bodnar PAC and some traditionally Democratic boosters, to get Bankhead to withdraw and clear a path for Bodnar, whose campaign is much better funded than Bankhead’s. Bankhead has publicly asked Bodnar to leave the race on several occasions.  Like Bodnar, Bankhead has insisted repeatedly that she’s not going anywhere. The Montana Freedom PAC, a committee independent of candidates, has been running ads casting doubts on Bankhead’s credibility and circulating yard signs encouraging the candidate to “stand aside.”  Friday, the national anti-authoritarian group Indivisible, best known for organizing the “No Kings” movement, circulated a letter pointing to polls suggesting Bodnar is the only viable non-Republican in the race. Indivisible asked Bankhead to leave the race. The two candidates have met in recent weeks to, according to a Montana Democratic Party spokesperson, discuss the election proceeding with only one of them as a candidate. Bodnar said Friday that he’s never asked Bankhead to withdraw.  “I’ve never asked Alani Bankhead, or Kurt Alme, or Kyle Austin to drop out of this race. We’re running the race that we’re running. Our campaign has never called for that,” Bodnar said.  As Bodnar spoke, fellow independent Michael Eisenhauer, a candidate for Montana’s Eastern U.S. House District, stood with a group of supporters behind him. Gary Buchanan, an independent who ran in the Eastern House District in 2022, was also present, holding a Bodnar campaign sign. Like Bodnar, Eisenhauer has a large financial edge over his Democratic opponent, Brian Miller, though Republican incumbent Rep. Troy Downing remains the presumptive frontrunner.  In Billings, Bodnar took several questions about President Donald Trump, the Iran war, the economy and immigration.  A former Green Beret, Bodnar said the president has mishandled the Iran war to the detriment of the U.S. economy. Bodnar also said Congress needs to exert its war powers authority and end the conflict.  “I think we have a failing strategy in Iran,” Bodnar said. “I don’t think we had a clear plan. I don’t think we had a clear exit strategy. And I think Congress failed in its obligation.” The candidate said that Trump tariffs have been bad for Montana agriculture, which is heavily dependent on trade with other countries. “The only way to describe what we’re seeing in Montana right now in the agricultural community is crisis,” Bodnar said. “Export markets that have been crushed by nonsensical tariffs … farm bankruptcies last year in this country are up 46%. We’re now a net importer of food.” Bodnar said he supports President Trump’s goal of border security, but disagrees with the tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. “I think if we had a room of a hundred Montanans and we said three things that we need to have,” Bodnar said, “We need to have strong borders, we need to enforce our immigration policies, but that we can do so without a masked, untrained, unaccountable force running through our cities. We need to provide pathways for people to be here legally.” The post Bodnar in Billings: Not bowing out appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less