Who owns the Montana Democrats?

Last week’s midterms were historic, one of the biggest sea-changes in U.S. history. Much-needed checks and balances soon will be returned to our federal government. At the state level, Montana will send its first Democrat, Sam Forstag, to Washington in two years. But the state Democratic Party is in a bad way.

Notwithstanding Forstag’s U.S. House win, Montana did not share in the blue wave to the extent a number of other “red” states did. Kansas, Texas, Ohio, and Iowa each elected a Democratic senator and governor. South Carolina and Mississippi each elected a Democratic senator.

 

Montana made only small gains in the state legislature (four seats) and did not pick up any Public Service Commission seats.

Why did the big blue wave largely pass us by? A principal reason is the flawed strategy adopted by several leading Montana Democrats — for example former U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, former Gov. Steve Bullock, and former Superintendent of Public Instruction Nancy Keenan — of running independent candidates instead of Democrats in major races.

The argument is, to quote a leaked January 2026 text from Tester, that the Democratic brand is “poison” in Montana and only an independent can win.

Montana Democrats have been split by independent bids three times in the last four years. Gary Buchanan’s run for the eastern district Congressional seat in 2022, Michael Eisenhauer’s bid for the same seat this year, and Seth Bodnar’s challenge for the Senate seat this year. The results have not been good. Buchanan netted 21.9% of the vote; Eisenhauer received 9% and Bodnar 37.7%. All lost to the Republican, and in so doing divided the state’s Democrats while hurting down-ballot Democratic candidates.

 

Not only has the “independent strategy” proven ineffective, it has involved a good deal of shady, behind-the-scenes maneuvering and skullduggery, the sort that only increases divisions, mistrust, and cynicism within and about the Montana Democratic Party.

 

The state party, now in disarray, has been deeply divided by the just-concluded U.S. Senate race. The now-former party chairwoman, Shannon O’Brien, resigned last month on the eve of the election, slamming the party nominee for Senate, Alani Bankhead, and endorsing independent Seth Bodnar, on her way out the door. Bankhead struggled to raise money throughout the campaign, while Bodnar and the Republican, Kurt Alme, each raked in millions. Bodnar raised around $7 million and Alme roughly $4 million, not counting the millions in PAC money supporting each.

The official Democratic nominee couldn’t raise money. Why? Well, as it turns out the only reason Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer who moved to Montana in 2023, was the Democratic nominee was because the behind-the-curtains, Democratic string-pullers decided she would be.

There had been another candidate, Reilly Neill, a former state legislator who,, as of the June primary, had been running for 19 months. Neill had conducted more than a hundred town halls across the state, garnered around 5,600 campaign donations amounting to nearly $300,000, and out-raised Bankhead by more than 10-to-1. It was widely presumed that Neill would be the Democratic nominee, but the Bodnar-backing heavyweights had other ideas.

Knowing Neill was a substantial, extremely hard-working, grassroots candidate, unlikely to drop out following the primary to create the toe-to-toe with Alme the Bodnar forces desired, they hatched a plan. They would raise and deploy dark money to boost Bankhead and trash Neill. After using Bankhead to knock off the frontrunner, Neill, they would cynically discard Bankhead and get her to drop out of the race.

It all worked according to plan, except for the part about Bankhead dropping out. The Bodnar bigwigs recruited, among others, billionaire tech tycoon Jason Carroll to give more than $1 million, per Montana Free Press reporting, to fund a new dark money front, Progressive Vet PAC, with strong Tester ties. Its treasurer, former Helena Democratic legislator Moffie Funk, is close to Tester and her son is a former Tester staffer.

In early May, the Progressive Vet PAC began flooding the state with tv and social media ads, mailers and personal phone calls that elevated Bankhead and slammed Neill. Paid calls informed Montana voters, “Reilly Neill is a Republican.”

Until recently nothing was known about who, exactly, had recruited Carroll and other big money donors central to the pro-Bodnar folks’ effort to kneecap Neill and make Bankhead the Democratic nominee. The Oct.26 episode of NPR’s “This American Life,” however, shed some light. On the program, former Sen. Max Baucus admitted that he was privy to some of the behind-the-scenes dealings, as the following dialogue reveals:

In the end, of course, all of the machinations of Baucus and Tester, and the other string-pullers, came to naught. Bodnar may claim, as he did last week on the heels of his defeat, that, “We showed Montana, and the country, that there’s a different path forward for our politics.” The unfortunate fact, however, is that he lost by more than 51.000 votes (10.6%). About all he really demonstrated is that a campaign can raise many millions and still lose big.

Montana is sending yet another “Trumplican,” Kurt Alme, to the Senate. The state Democratic Party is in disarray and more disunited than ever.

And we have the continuing legacy of shady, backroom, dark money string- pullers like Baucus, Tester, and Keenan, with their deep cynicism about democracy and their continued, hubristic belief that they know best and will decide whom our candidates will be. Keenan even had the effrontery to crow, on the night of Bodnar’s historic defeat, about how Democrats will need to get used to supporting Independent candidates going forward.The “smoke filled rooms” with party bosses who hand-picked candidates in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were more transparent and open than what we have today in Montana with this reign of behind-the curtains, Democratic string pullers. The Montana politicians who wore the Anaconda Company’s ‘copper collar’ were well-understood as compared with the shady forces that run today’s Montana Democratic Party.

Montanans deserve fair choice. We want real democracy in our great state. We want the people to have their say. Right now, at least when it comes to Montana Democrats, we have a cynical, obscurantist politics of, “Daddy (Baucus, Tester, et. al.) knows best.” With the Democratic string-pullers in charge, the party rank-and-file really don’t have a meaningful say over our candidates for high office, at least not whenever the “heavyweights” choose to put their fingers on the scales.

Is this how we want to do democracy in Montana? “The Company” — Anaconda and Montana Power — ran the state’s politics and government for decades, but Montana escaped that capture and emerged into the light of self-government. We face the prospect, at least on the Democratic side of the aisle, of being captured once again. But, if our history is any guide, we can break free from these bonds as well.