U.S. Senate Race: Bankhead Embraces Underdog Status in U.S. Senate Bid, Refusing to Roll Over
The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel won the Democratic primary in June and has resisted calls to drop out in favor of independent Seth Bodnar. She says Montana’s underdog story mirrors her own.
By Mariah Thomas
Editor’s note: Montana’s U.S. Senate race has been defined by its twists. On March 4, the filing deadline, Seth Bodnar entered the race as an independent, and Republican Sen. Steve Daines withdrew later that day, clearing the way for his preferred successor, Kurt Alme.
In June, a pair of unlikely candidates won the Democratic and Libertarian primaries. Alani Bankhead, virtually unknown in Montana political circles, beat former state legislator and gubernatorial candidate Reilly Neill after a boost from a mysterious PAC that later pulled its support. Kyle Austin, who previously ran as a Republican in the eastern congressional district, won the Libertarian primary even as the party denounced his candidacy and withdrew its support.
Bankhead remains in the race despite a barrage of attacks and an intense pressure campaign throughout much of the summer to leave it and improve Bodnar’s odds against Alme. The Beacon will roll out stories about all four candidates as part of its election coverage, all of which can be found on our 2026 Northwestern Montana Election Guide.
Alani Bankhead has made a career out of helping the underdog. The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and former federal agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations has upheld her work combating child sex-trafficking — work that took place during her civilian career, which included stints working at a nonprofit and in the Hawaii attorney general’s department — on the campaign trail as she runs for the U.S. Senate in Montana.
This November, Bankhead, 44, is the underdog herself.
The Democrat was the subject of an intense pressure campaign to depart the Senate race after winning her primary in June. Democratic candidates in several red states stepped aside in hopes of boosting independents who might help break up one-party rule. Bankhead, who moved to Helena in 2022, didn’t, breaking with the party’s old guard, who have all backed Seth Bodnar, her independent opponent.
“So many people around the country view Montana as this underdog, no-name state. And I think they’re horrifically wrong,” she said in an interview with the Beacon. “And that’s something when I talk to national media or people outside of the state, I tell them, I’m like, ‘do you know who Jeannette Rankin is?’ And they’re shocked to hear that story. And then I talk about the Copper Kings, and they’re shocked to hear that story. And Montana has done so much to contribute to democracy, and it was always hinged on this idea of shared community.”
Bankhead said she never thought she’d run for office after retiring from her two decades of service. But as she has watched people struggle in the past year with losing their healthcare and affording their basic needs, she decided Montana needed somebody to run for office who would enter Washington, D.C., with connections to put to work on day one. They’re connections she claims she has after spending part of her career in Quantico, Virginia.
“For us, it’s about showing up and loving the person in front of us, and I will say, one of the things that has surprised me is the number of people who cry at our events,” Bankhead said. “And they’ll give us feedback, like, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect to cry, but I just feel like nobody’s actually talked to me about my concerns and it’s the first time I’ve felt heard and seen in a really long time.’ And it’s amazing, and also it makes you feel helpless, because it is powerful to be a tool to help people feel seen and heard in their very deep pain, because Montanans are doing the very best they can … It lights more fire under us to get past November 3, because we want to get to Congress to provide the solution so we can alleviate the suffering. I mean, everybody’s at their limits.”
She previously told the Beacon that part of the importance of staying in the race is to help the state’s Democratic Party rebuild a “bench,” and that it takes ordinary people stepping up to run to do that.
Jessi Bennion, a political scientist at Montana State University, said that’s a departure from how parties have historically selected candidates.
“Usually there’s a bench and you work your way up,” Bennion said. “You don’t just suddenly run for Senate. Maybe, I guess, that’s the new way, but usually, you give your time, you give to the party, you work your way up. You become known to people. You become trustworthy to people. You spend the time doing the work — that’s usually how candidates kind of make their way up.”
That tradition appears to have shifted in recent election cycles, Bennion said. Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, for example, had never run for political office before his Senate bid in Montana. But she noted a difference: Sheehy was already known in Gallatin County, where he founded and ran Bridger Aerospace, before he ran for office.
“She’s a candidate who’s been interesting, because you don’t know a ton about them, only what they share,” Bennion said of Bankhead.
Her long-shot bid has drawn support from strange bedfellows. The Progressive Vet PAC, connected with independent interests, spent $3.2 million to support her in the primary. The More Jobs, Less Government PAC, which backed Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy in his 2024 race against then-Sen. Jon Tester, has also backed her. But candidates cannot legally coordinate with PACs, and Bankhead has said she doesn’t know why they’re backing her.
Bodnar’s campaign has hit Bankhead over aspects of her background, including attending a right-leaning church, her saying she voted for Republican John McCain, and a self-published book, which was put out under a conservative publisher.
For Bankhead, who has often heralded integrity and accountability on the campaign trail, the attacks on her don’t land.
“I think it’s hilarious all the money that’s being invested to attack me, because I thought people said I had no money and I couldn’t win, so if I can’t win, then why this influx of money to attack me, right?” Bankhead said. “Clearly, I’m a threat. And that is something that, from a military operations perspective, you don’t attack something in that way that isn’t a threat to you.”
She said Bodnar’s candidacy was backed by the “consultant class and D.C. elites,” while she campaigned and made it out of a competitive primary. Even as she faces down a challenging race where she would have to take down two better-funded opponents in both Republican Kurt Alme and the independent Bodnar, Bankhead said she remains laser-focused on that mission.
As she runs for office, several issues jump to the forefront for her: ending the Iran War, bringing gas and fertilizer prices down and reinstating the Affordable Care Act subsidies that were at the center of last year’s government shutdown.
But fighting for universal healthcare tops her list.
“Like, if I could wave a wand and prioritize one thing and I could get it done immediately, it would be universal healthcare, without a doubt,” Bankhead said.
At a recent Senate debate in Whitefish, she suggested the TRICARE system — used as healthcare for active-duty service members, their family members, National Guard and Reserve members and their families, retirees and retiree family members, survivors, and former spouses — could be a model to examine on a broader scale.
And as for polling that has her running behind both Alme and Bodnar, Bankhead doesn’t put much stake in it. Instead, she said, the election will be decided by who shows up to vote, and she remains hopeful Montanans will surprise the country on Election Day.
As voters go to the polls, she suggested people should vote “with their values, and not with their fears.”
“The vote is the most precious thing that we can give to support democracy, and there’s a reason why billionaires are flooding the space to influence and buy that vote,” Bankhead said. “And it’s because they have money, but they don’t have the many. And we are the many.”
Ballots were mailed to absentee voters Oct. 9. Election Day is Nov. 3. Voters can check their registration status and the status of their ballot here: https://voterportal.mt.gov/WhereToVote.aspx. To register to vote, voters can either bring their completed voter registration application to their county election office or visit their county elections office to fill out a voter registration application and receive a ballot there.