by Ken Toole | Aug 29, 2026 | Money, Politics, Vote
If you are a voter in Montana’s Eastern Congressional District, you may have noticed that you are seeing those glossy, oversized postcards candidates send out this time of year. Some of those are from Troy Downing. He is currently running for re-election to Montana’s Eastern Congressional District seat.
You may have also seen brief video ads from Troy Downing while watching your favorite programs. You may not have noticed that you are helping to pay for those ads.
It’s called “franking.” It allows members of Congress to send communications to their constituents, paid for by taxpayers. The program is funded through each congressional office’s Member’s Representational Allowance. The amount varies, but generally runs between $1.8 and $2 million.
The allowance breaks down into three categories: personnel and staffing, official office expenses, and official mail expenses. Since 2023, Downing’s allowance has averaged $1,928,107.
It is no secret that incumbents often increase their use of franked mail during campaign season. And based on our mailboxes and video screens, Downing appears to be taking full advantage of this federal largesse.
Of course, this is in addition to Downing’s campaign fundraising and the personal money he has “loaned” to his campaign. Downing is a very wealthy man.
Federal Election Commission reports filed through June 30, 2026, show that Downing has received total campaign receipts of a little over $2 million. He has spent about $1.5 million so far. In addition, he has loaned his campaign committee a little over $2 million.
For comparison, retired cardiologist Michael Eisenhauer who is running as an independent has received just under $300,000, but only about $50,000 came from contributors. The rest was a loan of approximately $250,000 from himself.
Brian Miller, the Democrat in the race, is running an aggressive, issue-based campaign focused heavily on concerns about data centers. He has raised just under $20,000, with no personal loans.
The golden rule in politics is: “The one who has the money makes the rules.”
Clearly, Troy Downing has the money in this race. Too bad he also has his hands in taxpayers’ pockets to help pay for his campaign.
Our democracy has been stolen by big money. We desperately need campaign finance reform.
Vote for Initiative 194 — The Montana Plan.
by Helena Lovick | Aug 19, 2026 | Elections
Great Falls, MT
Now that the deadline for candidate withdrawal from the 2026 Montana General Election Ballot has passed….what the hell is happening with the Montana U.S. Senate Race???
We wrote multiple times about the independent run by Seth Bodnar, here, here, and here. But let’s take a few steps back and discuss what happened on the Democratic side of that race.
Dark Money Flooded Our Democratic Primary
During the primary election, the Democratic candidates included Alani Bankhead, Reilly Neill, Michael Black Wolf, Christopher Kehoe, and Michael Hummert. Reilly Neill had started her campaign back in 2025 and had the largest fundraising amounts out of the Democratic candidates. Alani Bankhead joined the race in January 2026 and only raised about $59k before the end of the Democratic primary. But a multi-million dollar influx of dark money flooded the race in May, boosting Bankhead’s visibility. In particular, the newly formed Progressive Vet PAC spent $2.5M+ boosting Bankhead.
A lot of those weird ads people saw about Bankhead in the last couple weeks of the primary election were funded by this outside, “dark” money group. Many people don’t realize most of the political ads we see are NOT paid for by the candidates. They are called independent expenditures and it is illegal for the candidate to coordinate messaging with the Super Political Action Committees (PACs). The dark money messing around in our primary had multiple ties to political insiders. For example, the treasurer for the Progressive Vet PAC was former Democratic Montana legislator and leader in the Montana Federation of Public Employees (MFPE), Moffie Funk.
In the end, due to Alani Bankhead’s own campaigning and the dark money influx, Bankhead won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Montana with 43% of the vote (48,000+ votes) with Neill trailing with 33% of the vote (36,000+ votes).
Post-Primary Fuckery
But the dark money groups weren’t done fucking around with Democratic voters. Only a couple of weeks after the primary election, the Progressive Vet PAC announced it was withdrawing its support from Bankhead. [Supposedly because they believed she did not have a viable path to victory. Riiiiiight. They definitely think voters are stupid.]
In addition to the maneuvering of the Progressive Vet PAC, multiple groups pressured Bankhead to drop out of the Senate Race and cede the floor to Seth Bodnar to have the left-leaning votes. These groups also pressured the Montana Democratic Party to not appoint a replacement Democratic candidate (similar to what happened in Nebraska). Despite relentless pressure from groups like Montana Wild and Forward Montana and former high-level Democratic officials Nancy Keenan, Mary Sexton, Carol Williams, Jon Tester and Max Baucus, Bankhead justifiably refused to undo the will of the Montana Democratic voters and stayed in the race.
We now have a four-way race for the US Senate seat, with Alani Bankhead (Democrat), Kurt Alme (Republican), Kyle Austin (Libertarian), and Seth Bodnar (Independent) set up for November.
Good News for the Billionaires with or without a Democratic Candidate
You might be thinking because of the lack of candidate withdrawals in the race, that the dark money groups are singing “all that work and what did it get me? Why did I do it?” (audio for you peeps that don’t know this viral trend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM2sVNJxrY4).
And….you would be wrong. The main goal of all that spending was to undermine voter confidence in ALL candidates OTHER THAN Kurt Alme, the Republican nominee. They saw that Democrats had an opportunity to win our US Senate seat and they did their best to crush it. With the division on the left between the Bodnar and Bankhead camps, they have split our vote. There is still a chance that the left can come together and vote for one of Bodnar and Bankhead. But the likelihood of that is low. Good news for the billionaires I guess!
Dark Money Details
With friends like the Progressive Vet PAC and the Montana Freedom Fund dumping money into our Montana U.S. Senate race, who needs enemies?
Check out some of the crazy details about the dark money spending during the primary election. Images of some of their bullshit mailers that flooded voters’ mailboxes are shown below.
Images of Select Mailers Received During 2026 Montana Primary
Some of the mailers sure look like they were from the actual candidate. For example, the image below shows a Bankhead branded mailer…with her logo, her quote, and her pictures…only it was paid for by the Progressive Vet PAC.
PAC Sponsored Bankhead Mailer
That pile of mailers shown above? Not a single one was paid for by the actual candidate. The “Paid For By” attributions can be small, nearly illegible, and blend in on the mailer. Below are close-up images of several examples.
Tiny “Paid for By” Attributions on PAC Mailers
You can barely find the tiny attribution that tells you which PAC funded the mailer. And even if you know which PAC paid — you can’t 100% tell who is funding the effort. In many cases, PAC donors do not have to be disclosed and reporting of contributions can be delayed and extended, often after the end of the general election.
It’s like a shell game of PACs and other political organizations like 527 groups and 501(c)(4) groups. But in the table below you can see some of the richest of the rich funding this effort to pressure voters to keep a Republican in office.
| Super/Hybrid PACs |
Who gives them money? |
| More Jobs, Less Government |
Transfers from affiliated committees – Daines Senate Majority Fund ($290,580)
Individuals: Konstantin Sokolov (private equity gave $250,000), Rai Services Company ($200,000 – Reynolds American, the parent company of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco), International Bancshares Corp ($100,000) |
| Montana Freedom PAC |
WAY BACK PAC ($150,000) Individuals: Samuel Walton ($50k), Greg Avis ($10k) and Scott Shenker ($100k)
Way Back PAC is funded by Western Futures Fund ($1.2M), Toolbox ($650k), |
| Progressive Vet PAC |
American Values Project PAC gave $200,000, a PAC backed solely by Jason Carroll, a founder of Hudson River Trading
Contours, Inc. gave $2.6M a 501(c)(4) with opaque financials – not required to disclose its donors |
| Americans for Prosperity Action |
STAND TOGETHER INC./Stand together chamber of commerce Inc. ($26.5M) Koch, Inc. ($10M)
Individuals: S Robsen Walton ($7M) Jim C Walton ($7M), Anthony Ressler ($2M), Craig J Duchossois ($2M) |
I don’t have audio of the endless TV ads, but PACs funded those too with the same type of messaging. Pay attention to what they are trying to sell you, and consider the source. Do these anonymous billionaires have the best interests of every day Montanans at heart? Should you listen to them over every day Montanans and the candidate’s own words?
Dark money groups continue their spending to influence our elections. They are relentless because they have a nearly bottomless well of money to fund their efforts. Spending millions to influence your vote is worth it to them, because it helps them hoard their billions. Just think of the good these billionaires could do if they would accept a minor decrease in their insane wealth levels and actually put that money towards things that help the people, like feeding children, funding schools, protecting our environment…. What a world WE COULD AND SHOULD have.
Dark Money is Drowning Us
Candidates have enough trouble getting their message out. They don’t need billionaires from outside of Montana trying to drown out their voice.
One of the routes to get this dark money out of Montana is the Montana Plan. Maybe if we can get I-194 passed this year, we can let the voice of the candidates come through. Let’s learn about our candidates without getting flooded with billionaires’ distorted messages about them.
by Ken Toole | Aug 18, 2026 | Elections, Taxes
County Commissioner Joe Briggs is making the rounds with a menu of potential cuts aimed at reducing local property taxes. Briggs recently distributed the information shown in the graphics above and below at a local Pachyderm Club meeting.
Most of us would probably like to see our property taxes reduced. Most of us also want to retain at least some of the services Briggs has identified as potential cuts. The truth is that local governments have been put between a rock and a hard place by restrictions imposed by the legislature. Rigid limits on local-government funding have forced cuts to many local services—regardless of how necessary or popular those services are in the community.
On top of that, local business-development and recruitment efforts have turned into a legalized Ponzi scheme, providing tax breaks and deferrals to large corporations that often ignore the needs of the communities where they operate. Calumet is a master of this game. (See our previous post: https://wtf406.com/2025/05/how-large-industrial-corporations-like-calumet-are-screwing-you/ )
Janicki Industries is another recent example. The Electric reports that, under state law, Janicki’s property will be taxed at 50 percent of its taxable value for the first five years. Each year thereafter, the percentage will increase by equal increments until the property reaches its full taxable value in the tenth year.
Janicki also wants phased approval, allowing each phase to receive a separate tax-abatement period. Local county commissioners chose to give Janicki the minimum tax abatement allowed under state law: 80 percent. You can thank local legislator Steve Fitzpatrick for this particular gift to large corporations. See our post on Fitzpatrick’s legislation: (https://wtf406.com/2025/04/calumets-got-lawyers-and-politicians/ )
This situation is a direct result of Republican trickle-down economic theory. The idea is that reducing taxes frees up capital for businesses to expand. That expansion creates economic activity, which increases the tax base and helps pay for public services and amenities.
It sounds nice, but reality doesn’t work that way. Businesses have stronger incentives to increase returns for investors. They do that by increasing profit margins—often through higher prices, cutting expenses, such as employee benefits and wages, and shifting costs onto others in the community by failing to clean up their messes. They also use the political process to advance all of those goals.
And that leaves us with Joe’s chart of the budget and list of possible cuts.
In a place where the majority of officials are Republicans who believe the trickle down mythology, public services take a back seat to attracting big businesses. So Joe Brigg’s Wheel of Fortune offers nothing but cuts to services which erode the quality of life in Great Falls. But in fairness to Joe, there is not much he can do about it because the legislation passed by Steve Fitzpatrick and other corporate shills in the legislature tie his hands with state law.
