US Senate: Bodnar campaign submits 30K signatures, leads fundraising horse race

While Republicans and Democrats vying for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat are one week out from their primaries, Seth Bodnar, who left the top post at University of Montana to run for the office as an independent, says his campaign has gathered more than twice the signatures needed for his unconventional candidacy.

The Bodnar campaign announced Tuesday it had collected nearly 30,000 signatures from Montanans. The campaign needs more than 13,000 signatures to be approved by the Montana Secretary of State to get onto the November ballot without a party label. Tuesday was the deadline to submit signatures to county election administrators.

“While DC Insiders tried to rig this election in March by installing a handpicked candidate who will do their bidding, our campaign has spent months building a political movement of Montanans who want the chance to send leaders to Washington who will always put Montana First,” Bodnar said in a statement. “I will never pay allegiance to Party bosses or political elites, and I will work every day until Election Day to earn the vote of every Montanan.”

State law allows independent candidates to avoid the primary gauntlet and instead demonstrate buy-in from voters by collecting a certain number of signatures, a threshold that varies depending on the office sought.

The campaign first submits the petitions to county election officers, who approve or reject signatures from local residents before passing the batch of approved signatures to the secretary of state for another round of verification. Only after Montana’s top election administrator has signed off on the total does an independent candidate get on the ballot.

By Tuesday afternoon, county election officials throughout the state had approved 11,000 signatures and rejected 3,984 of those that had been submitted, according to information provided by the secretary of state’s office. County administrators have until June 1 to evaluate and submit signatures to the secretary of state for certification.

Bodnar’s campaign said it submitted signatures from residents in 52 of Montana’s 56 counties.

Since officially launching his campaign in March, Bodnar has been laser-focused on delivering his hallmark message that the two-party system is broken and the only salve is to elect a senator who won’t be beholden to Democrats or Republicans.

The campaign has featured extensive outreach to veterans — Bodnar graduated from West Point and was a Green Beret — and other groups including unions and business leaders. It’s been light on large public events, instead opting for more intimate meet-and-greets in breweries and eateries, and has steered mostly clear of splashy advertisements, save for a handful of text message fundraising pushes and social media videos.

Though still in its infancy, the Bodnar campaign has struck an understated but confident tone, a disposition buoyed by its most recent fundraising haul. Between April 1 and May 13, Bodnar raised $754,448, topping every Senate candidate in Montana’s field by a wide margin, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Republican frontrunner Kurt Alme, the former U.S. Attorney who ascended to GOP favorite after entering the race on the heels of Sen. Steve Daines’ surprise dropout, pulled in the next largest sum, but was far behind the independent challenger.

Alme raised $259,484 in that same window. About $30,000 of that came from out-of-state political action committees tied to national conservative causes. He spent relatively little — $246,188 to Bodnar’s $935,723 — with the largest single expenditures going towards a Missoula-based pollster and a D.C.-based consulting firm.

Alme ended with $922,253 in the bank despite the smaller fundraising tally. When looking at cash on hand, there’s less daylight between Alme and Bodnar, but the likely GOP nominee’s total in the bank still trails Bodnar’s $963,921 even as political forecasters continue to say the statewide race favors Republicans.

"Our campaign is growing stronger every day, and we are humbled by the incredible momentum and support we're seeing across the state," Alme said in a statement last week. "Anti-Trump liberals want to flip this seat, but it’s clear the people of Montana want a U.S. Senator who will put America First and fight for conservative common sense. Together, we will make life more affordable, make our communities safer, and protect our Montana values.”

In the last six-week reporting period, the Bodnar campaign paid about $500,000 to Ascend Digital Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that describes itself as a digital agency that specializes in Democratic campaigns and progressive causes.

Ascend touts its partnership in 2024 with a political action committee started by former Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock to elect Democrats to the Montana Legislature, thereby "helping Democrats gain enough seats in both chambers to end the GOP legislative supermajority."

All the funds raised by the five Democrats in the field who have been actively campaigning didn’t break $30,000 combined.

Reilly Neill, a former state lawmaker from Livingston seen as the most likely to win the Democratic primary, raised $17,798 between April 1 and May 15. The next closest was Alani Bankhead, a veteran and former intelligence officer from Helena, who brought in $8,644.

The paltry fundraising numbers belie recent visibility for both campaigns, though, as they have been at the center of a deluge of outside spending from political committees that are trying to influence the race.

Montana’s primary is June 2.