U.S. Senate Race: Bodnar Pitches Independence as the Fix for a ‘Broken’ Washington
The former Green Beret and University of Montana president says he’d answer to voters, not parties, but polls show him trailing Republican Kurt Alme by 8 to 19 points.
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.
Criss-crossing the state on the campaign trail, Seth Bodnar has encountered Montanans who have lost faith in a Washington that doesn’t answer to them. He’s betting that an independent U.S. senator is the way out.
Bodnar, 47, a former Green Beret who most recently served as the University of Montana’s president, has pitched his run as an independent as an antidote to what he calls a broken system.
“I’ve heard so many challenges and frustrations from farmers, from ranchers, from doctors, from nurses, everybody,” Bodnar said in a recent interview with the Beacon. “Everybody agrees on one thing: that the system is broken, and that our leaders are not accountable to us. And what we’re doing with this campaign is we’re giving Montanans an off ramp. We’re giving them a chance to do something different, to have voice and give a U.S. Senate seat to an independent who doesn’t answer to anybody but them. And that is a really unique opportunity, and that’s why I think we’re gonna make history on November 3.”
The independent question, never before tested on the statewide scale in Montana, is playing out across the country this year as several candidates argue that fixing the country starts with breaking the stranglehold of the two-party system. Polling shows Bodnar’s Republican opponent, Kurt Alme, leading — though the size of that lead fluctuates depending on the poll. A Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll in early September showed Alme up by only eight points; but a poll completed by American Pulse Research and Polling and sponsored by Nonstop Local at the month’s end had Alme leading Bodnar by 19. Regardless, Bodnar views his campaign as within striking distance and says it has felt positive momentum as Election Day draws closer.
Running as an independent has allowed Bodnar to stake out positions that stretch across the aisle. He has proclaimed his support for the Second Amendment while also clinching backing from more typically left-leaning groups like Planned Parenthood. And he has leaned into issues like public lands and supporting veterans that are popular across broad swaths of voters.
He has also promised not to caucus with either party if elected, a difficult needle to thread in the Senate, where party leaders hand out committee assignments. Last week, Bodnar doubled down on that pledge at a joint press conference with Dan Osborn and Brian Beng, independent candidates running in Nebraska and South Dakota, respectively. The trio suggested they’d use their potentially outsized influence in a closely divided Senate to bargain for committee assignments if elected.
Unlike Osborn and Beng, however, Bodnar must not only beat Republican Kurt Alme, but also move past Democrat Alani Bankhead. Democrats in both Nebraska and South Dakota stepped down ahead of the general election. Bankhead, on the other hand, refused to take her name off the ballot, even as calls for her to do so reached a fever pitch in early August.
Even with a Democrat in the race, Bodnar has shored up support from the state’s former Democratic leaders, including U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester and former Gov. Steve Bullock, who have called for Democrats to back the independent rather than their own candidate. The party has firmly backed Bankhead, though its chair, Shannon O’Brien, stepped down and announced her support for Bodnar last Monday.
Bodnar also has a large war chest, having led fundraising in the Senate race for most of the election cycle. Through the end of June, Bodnar has seen more than $3.2 million flow into his campaign coffers, more than the nearly $2 million raised by Alme, and the less than $60,000 Bankhead has brought in.
His team has outlined a strategy to pull both Republican and Democratic voters from Alme and Bankhead as he runs to the finish line.
“Our job over the next three months is clear. Grow Seth’s vote,” an Aug. 11 memo from Bodnar’s camp stated. “Push Alme below 40. Shrink Bankhead’s share even further by giving Democrats who want to defeat Alme a reason to consolidate behind Seth. And compete hard for the large number of Independents and Republicans who are looking for another choice.”
Those three months are coming to a close.
Bodnar said he has trained his focus on three main issues: lowering costs, expanding opportunities, and undoing corruption. If elected, he said he would support ending the Iran War; reversing Medicaid changes that came with the One Big Beautiful Bill, including reimplementing the Affordable Care Act subsidies that were at the center of a government shutdown last year; and enforcing the country’s anti-trust laws.
Montana State University political scientist Jessi Bennion said Alme remains tough to beat. Still, Bennion granted that the national environment is a difficult one for Republicans, which could play well for the independent. And because Bodnar isn’t running as a front-runner, Bennion said, he can take bigger risks, such as a recent splashy advertisement where he shot at Flock license-plate reader cameras and decried AI data centers.
Even if he doesn’t eke out a win in the Senate race, Bennion speculated Montana hasn’t seen the last of him as a candidate.
“He’s really building a political brand right now,” Bennion said. “Most candidates, you have to lose once or twice before you actually win. It’s very uncommon to come right in and win an election. Usually, you have to work your way, you have to get some losses under your belt to get elected. So, I would not be surprised at all if he is like, ‘I’m gonna give it my all, get the best number I can get under these circumstances, and shoot for governor or some other office.’”
Bodnar, for his part, said his focus remains on finishing the race strong. For his campaign, the motto through much of the season has been to “just show up,” which he called critical as Montanans look for someone to listen to the challenges they’re facing.
“When you show up, when you listen to concerns, when you talk about the things that you’ll do, people see that I’m a candidate who will answer to them and nobody else,” Bodnar said. “And that’s motivating people to get them behind our campaign.”
The most important lesson he has learned on the trail, Bodnar said, is that lacking a partisan label opens up more conversations.
“And that’s what’s most important in our country right now,” Bodnar said. “We have incredible, incredibly large problems that we have to solve. And the toxic partisanship that is poisoning our politics today is preventing anything from moving forward. That’s why nearly half of Americans now, when asked their party, say independent: because Americans are hungry for something. They’re hungry for leaders who are going to work to bring us together, who are willing to bridge that partisan divide and move this country forward.”
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.