Pressure is rising fast in Montana’s U.S. Senate race as the Aug. 10 withdrawal deadline approaches, with campaigns trying to force Democrat Alani Bankhead or independent Seth Bodnar out of the race before ballots are locked in.
That deadline matters because any candidate who stays in after Aug. 10 will have their name printed on the general election ballot. Bankhead and Bodnar are competing for Democratic and left-leaning voters, and their continued presence is feeding a fight over whether Republican Kurt Alme is being handed a clearer path to victory.
Bankhead, who enters August with support from Montana’s small Democratic base and only a few thousand dollars to campaign with, told Capitolized on Wednesday that she is not going anywhere. “I will never drop out, for a number of reasons,” she said in a text message. She also pointed to the votes she already received, saying, “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.”
Bodnar is under a different kind of pressure. Text message campaigns are urging voters to tell Bankhead to withdraw, while ads are questioning her credibility. At the same time, Bodnar is facing attack ads from Republican PACs, even as he has raised the most money of all the race’s candidates and has support from top Democratic power brokers and some high-profile former Republican officeholders. His team said Wednesday that he is not quitting either.
That leaves Montana Democrats staring at a deadline with no easy exit. Alme’s campaign circulated a Semafor article on Wednesday saying Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen will require Democrats to replace Bankhead if she withdraws before Aug. 10. But several Montana attorneys said party leaders should not be cowed by Republican state officials into replacing her, arguing that Democrats could back Bodnar by simply not choosing a replacement for their nominee. Jori Quinlan, one of the attorneys who signed the letter, said, “Political parties are free to choose who represents them,” and added that in 2026 Democrats can choose to advance their platform rather than feel cornered into nominating a candidate who cannot win a head-to-head matchup with the hand-picked Republican nominee.
The dispute echoes Montana’s 2014 Senate race, when Democrats lost the seat to Republican Steve Daines after John Walsh was caught in a plagiarism scandal. Walsh withdrew in July 2014 and Democrats finished the race with Amanda Curtis, who received 40% of the vote. That loss began a 10-year streak in which Democrats won just two of 26 contests for statewide or federal office, a reminder of how badly a split field can damage the party when the ballot is already set. If Bankhead does not withdraw by Aug. 10, her name stays on the ballot. If she does, the fight shifts to whether Montana Democrats name a replacement at all.
