The Montana Democratic Party published a statement praising Democrat Alani Bankhead for suspending her Senate campaign before she had actually done so — a stunning blunder that laid bare how certain party leaders had become that their own nominee would step aside.
The statement, first surfaced by Semafor’s Burgess Everett on X, reads: “The Montana Democratic Party respects Alani Bankhead’s decision to suspend her campaign for the U.S. Senate.” It goes on to thank Bankhead and her supporters, praises the issues she championed and pivots to urging Democrats to support other candidates down ballot, including Sam Forstag in Montana’s 1st Congressional District.
Bankhead never suspended her campaign.
Hours before the August 10 withdrawal deadline, Bankhead held a press conference in East Helena and made her position unambiguous. “There has been a lot of noise about this race, so let me cut through it plain and simple: I am in this race to win it, and I am staying through November 3,” she said. Bodnar also announced he was staying in the race. Both candidates will appear on the November ballot alongside Republican Kurt Alme and Libertarian Kyle Austin.
The premature statement offered a striking window into just how certain Montana Democrats had become that Bankhead would step aside. For weeks, a mounting pressure campaign — from national party leaders, major donors, labor unions and Democratic officeholders — had pushed her to clear the field for Bodnar, whom polls show running competitively in a head-to-head race with Alme. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee publicly declared she had no viable path to victory. Twenty-two Democratic state lawmakers signed a letter asking her to withdraw. Former Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, along with former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot, all endorsed Bodnar.
Bankhead refused every time.
For the Montana Democratic Party, the episode is more than an embarrassing clerical error — it is a vivid illustration of how far the internal push to remove its own nominee had progressed, and how badly that effort ultimately failed. Rather than celebrating Bankhead’s departure, the party now enters the fall campaign with a four-way race that political analysts say gives Republican Kurt Alme a clear path to victory.