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.