Former longtime Democratic Sen. Jon Tester told the Washington Post that Montana's Democratic Senate nominee Alani Bankhead is "a Democrat who is really a Republican," fueling persistent rumors that Bankhead is at best a spoiler or at worst a Republican plant in the race. Democrats in the state are throwing their support behind independent candidate Seth Bodnar instead, according to a KPFA analysis of the race.
Right-aligned super PACs threw almost $2 million into the primary to help make sure Bankhead was the Democratic nominee, yet Bodnar's campaign is currently outflanking hers financially. Neither candidate has enough support on their own to defeat the Republican, according to leading polls, leaving anti-Republican voters split between two lanes.
The Montana mess illustrates the broader Democratic dilemma in red-state Senate races with two weeks to go: a fractured field can hand Republicans seats that a united opposition might contest. With the party needing a net gain of four Senate seats for control, every marginal race matters, and the Bankhead-Bodnar split has national strategists watching Montana as a cautionary tale about primary outcomes with November consequences.