Mr. Bodnar,

We are writing about the recent news coverage of your potential run for the U.S. Senate. If you are seriously considering such a run, we urge you to run as a Democrat rather than as an Independent. 

Those urging you to run as an independent because a Democrat “can’t win” are wrong. Their opinion is apparently based on polling and Jon Tester’s recent loss to Tim Sheehy. Some “professional political people” in Montana are advocating that organizations and institutions forming the traditional Democratic base support moderate Republicans and Independents rather than Democrats out of desperation. They are mistaken. We wrote a blog post on the past performance of Independent candidates in Montana. We urge you to read it:   https://wtf406.com/2026/01/handing-steve-daines-the-next-election/ 

Before going further, we would like to point out that the public discussion of this Independent scheme is all about strategy and game playing. Politics, at its best, is about the issues and policy initiatives to address those issues. At its worst, politics is anything-goes cynical game playing. . . and lots and lots of special interest money. Obviously, this Independent strategy falls into the second category. 

In addition to the historical evidence in our post, we urge you to consider a couple other points.

First, the idea that your race as an Independent will avoid the tarnished brand of Democrats is naive. Before you have even announced, the Republicans are out with an attack ad:  https://www.montanarightnow.com/montana/political-group-releases-ad-targeting-departing-um-president-seth-bodnar/article_309940b3-3514-463e-bbb9-ffd45149f759.html. The chair of the Missoula Republican Central Committee has an editorial circulating in papers around the state calling you “Sneaky Seth” among other things. Whether you run as an Independent or a Democrat, you will be smeared by the Republican attack machine. Steve Daines will be extremely well funded and will run a dirty campaign.

Second, Democratic base voters are a significant segment of the population you would have if you prevail in the primary. Instead of looking at polling, which is increasingly unreliable, we encourage you to look at actual election results in Montana. The 2024 election in the Eastern Congressional District illustrates the value of Democratic base voters. The Democratic candidate in that race was John Driscoll. Despite the fact that Driscoll ran virtually no campaign, he garnered 33.9 percent of the vote simply because he had a “D” behind his name on the ballot. That percentage would be even higher in the Western District. In the Eastern District race in 2022, Independent candidate Gary Buchanan captured only 22 percent of the vote.  

As the deadline for filing approaches, we hope you will carefully consider which party more closely aligns with your beliefs on issues and realize that you have very little chance of prevailing as an Independent in Montana. 

Sincerely,

WTF406