Montana's Democratic and independent Senate candidates take the gloves off. A TV ad smearing the Republican Senate candidate raises questions about accuracy. The Terminator endorses Montana's Seth Bodnar for Senate. A new billboard targets Republican House candidate Aaron Flint. And a new poll shows Montana gives Trump a lot higher approval rating than the country as a whole.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau.
Sally Mauk Seaborn, the Democratic and independent candidates for U.S. Senate, Alani Bankhead, and Seth Bodnar squared off in Missoula recently at an event hosted by Indivisible Missoula, and things got a little spicy. Bodnar continues to try to paint Bankhead as a sort of mystery candidate with mysterious backing, and Bankhead tries to paint Bodnar as tied to the very insider elite he regularly condemns. Here's an excerpt of one of their exchanges.
[Bodnar] "This campaign is fueled by individual donations. More than 4,000 Montanans have made an individual contribution to this campaign. We got on this ballot by going around and collecting signatures from nearly 30,000 Montanans in 52 different counties. My Democratic opponent won the primary, fueled by over $3 million of dark money spending."
[Bankhead] "Let's talk about that dark money. That money was fueled by a PAC whose treasurer was on the staff of Jon Tester, backed by a guy who is a billionaire, one guy. Since that PAC dropped me, they directly funded his campaign — look at the last round of FEC filings — and that treasurer has since co-hosted an event for him."
Sally Mauk Bankhead was referring to Moffie Funk, a former Democratic state legislator who does now support Bodnar. Seaborn, we still don't know why the Progressive Vet PAC got involved in this race, then disappeared, but it doesn't smell right. It's just who does the stink belong to?
Seaborn Larson Bodnar is not wrong here that Bankhead dominated the primaries thanks to a PAC that didn't have to disclose its donors until after the primary. As a first-time candidate with a shoestring campaign, it's not clear where Bankhead would have ended up without that spending, but Bankhead gets to hit him back on that any time Bodnar brings it up. That PAC ditched Bankhead after the primary and put out a statement that said her campaign was no longer viable, even though polling showed no real difference in the race since the primary. Campaign finance reports filed after she won in the primary showed that PAC was funded by a group that's supporting independent candidates. There's a couple ties there to groups that are supporting Bodnar. These two campaigns have spent a lot of artillery on each other the last two months. When (Kurt) Alme doesn't show up at these events, the lines of attack tend to reorient between Bodnar and Bankhead. Remember, Bankhead went right at Bodnar immediately after the primary. Bodnar's campaign recently took a shot at Bankhead's religious background. They're both trying to gather momentum here for the anti-Republican vote this fall
Sally Mauk And, of course, you're referring to Kurt Alme, the Republican candidate who didn't show because he objected to the left-wing ideology of the sponsor, Indivisible Missoula, and we'll have to wait and see which of any future debates sponsored by other groups he chooses to attend or not.
Rob, Bankhead was the more aggressive in this debate, but that's what underdogs do. They need to get attention.
Rob Saldin Yeah, exactly, Sally, she's not holding back. And you would expect that from a challenger who, incidentally, is way behind and looking to gain some traction in the final weeks of the campaign. It's now or never. Bankhead also has very little money, so an event like this is a fairly rare opportunity to deliver her message and get that message heard, obviously, by the voters in that room, but more importantly, in media coverage that can reach a much broader audience. If you don't have the resources to run a proper Senate campaign or to do much in the way of paid advertising, and Bankhead doesn't, there just aren't that many opportunities to get your message out or to try to shape the discussion. It's no wonder that she's looking to take advantage of the opportunities she has. Of course, the real winner in all of this may well be Kurt Alme.
But Sally, the other thing that stood out to me, from that exchange and from the debate as a whole, was that very much like her event on the University of Montana's Oval back in June, after she won the primary, she just leaves no doubt that she's 1) staying in the race, and 2) going to attack Bodnar very aggressively. There's absolutely no hint of backing off. Now, of course, the deadline to drop out came and went many weeks ago, but among Bodnar's supporters, there does seem to be some lingering hope that Bankhead will see the writing on the wall or come to her senses and suspend her campaign and somehow signal to her supporters that they should get behind Bodnar. This consolidation issue, or lack thereof, has been at the center of this campaign from the start and for obvious reasons, it continues to be a central focus in the national coverage and commentary on this campaign. It's topic number one every time Bodnar does national interviews, which he does quite a few of. Just this week, he had a notable one on CNN. Well, there's just nothing that Bankhead says that gives any hint whatsoever that she's even thinking about dropping out.
Sally Mauk She's believable when she says she's not going to, that's for sure.
Rob Saldin Well, she hasn't wavered, Sally.
Sally Mauk Meanwhile, Seaborn, another dark money group called the Independent PAC has this new ad attacking Kurt Alme and supporting Bodnar.
Bodnar Ad "Documented and shocking. As U.S. Attorney, Kurt Alme refused to prosecute over 70% of the sex crimes brought before him. To the rapist of a six-year-old, he even gave a sweetheart deal. Kurt Alme, a failure of character. And Seth Bodnar? West Point. Green Beret. Made the hard choices and turned the University of Montana around. Seth Bodnar, independent for Senate. Independent PAC is responsible for the content of this advertising.":
Sally Mauk Nonstop Local News did a nice breakdown of how this ad takes important data out of context, Seaborn, to the point of being misleading.
Seaborn Larson Right. Coming into politics from the criminal justice system gives a candidate some license to say they are, for example, tough on crime. That's how you get a former sheriff in Miles City to endorse you in a TV ad, like Alme has done in another ad. But there are realities of working in a prosecutor's office. Sexual assault cases are notoriously difficult to secure a conviction. Witnesses can be hard to find, evidence is thin, and the burden of proof in a criminal trial is really high. And in this post-Epstein world, there's a big political spotlight on sex crimes right now. The ad mentions Alme's office declined to prosecute about 70 percent of sex crimes filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office during his time there. That figure is from a five-year period that overlaps with about three years Alme was in that office. Additionally, Alme's campaign said this week that about a third of those cases his office considered were referred to other agencies. For that child rape case, Alme's campaign told Nonstop Local the plea deal ensured the defendant would have had a conviction on his record, and he was ordered to complete sex offender evaluation and treatment. The National Republican Senatorial Committee recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to Montana television stations, demanding they pull that ad. Those stations have rejected that request, according to emails obtained this week by Lee Newspapers' Carly Graf.
Sally Mauk Rob, I was surprised this week to see the Bodnar campaign post a thumbs up photo of Bodnar with the actor and former Republican Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I guess he has to show he has another Republican supporter or why do you think this photo showed up?
Rob Saldin He's famous, for one thing. You know, of course, Arnold does have a scandal or two that have come out over his long time in the public eye, but he's certainly most well-known, of course, as a Hollywood star and second as governor of California. And notably, long before he went to Sacramento, of course it was well known that he was right of center politically, which is an anomaly in Hollywood. And he ran for governor and served, as you note, Sally, as a Republican. Now, that was a different era, and Governor Schwarzenegger was most certainly a different type of Republican. But still, those elements actually reinforce Bodnar's claim that he's not just a Democrat in disguise, that he is a genuine independent who can appeal not only to true independents and Democrats, but also to a significant swath of Republicans, particularly those like Schwarzenegger who have never been fans of Trump and perhaps those who have become recently disillusioned. Additionally, with Bankhead staying in the race, for Bodnar to have any chance, he'll need to get a lot of votes from people who have supported Republicans in the past, and that's not obviously impossible. It was just a decade ago that Steve Bullock managed to win re-election by four points on the same ballot that Trump secured the state of Montana by 20 points, but that kind of ticket splitting has declined in Montana in the decade since then. Part of the theory behind Bodnar's candidacy, though, is that getting some of that old traditional Montana crossover vote should be easier for an independent than it is for a Democrat.
Sally Mauk That's the theory, anyway. Moving to the Western District House race, Seaborn, Democrat Sam Forstag's campaign has put up an eye-catching billboard in Kalispell showing his Republican opponent, Aaron Flint, along with the price of gas and these words, "Aaron Flint supports the war, we pay for it". That's a pretty effective billboard.
Seaborn Larson Yeah, I saw one of these billboards as I was leaving Bozeman this week, Sally. I just spent some time that afternoon with Aaron Flint at a field office opening for the National Republican Congressional Committee. And I suspect there may be some connection between that field office and that billboard. We've said plenty of times here that midterm elections are not usually kind to the party in power. Even considering the margins Republicans have gained in Montana in recent elections, this race is competitive. Listeners may remember the tight polling we talked about last week.
Even before I saw these billboards, I wanted to know how Flint was talking about these gas prices while we are under Republican control in Washington D.C. He didn't take any swings at the Republican Congress or the White House, even when I pushed him on that fact that the GOP is in charge right now. He said the answer is to increase domestic energy production so that gas prices aren't so susceptible to global supply issues like the Strait of Hormuz closing. As for the war, Flint said he supports ending the war, but he didn't say whether take any specific action to do so if elected.
Sally Mauk Rob, Democrats are hoping to benefit from the unpopularity of Trump's policies, but a recent poll by Montana Free Press shows Trump still has a 42% approval rating in Montana, and that's quite a bit higher than his national rating of 33%.
Rob Saldin It is, and it's a big part of the reason why Republicans remain optimistic about all of these Montana races. Nationally, things are certainly looking bad for the GOP, and in fact, there were even new reports out this week that Trump himself is increasingly alarmed about the situation, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's all going to trickle down to Montana, which has swung very decisively toward the GOP in the Trump era. Republicans do have some margin for error. And while 42% isn't great, it's far from disastrous. Republicans can weather that in Montana. The one thing, though, that they have to be concerned about isn't necessarily that you're going to have huge numbers of Republican voters turning their backs on the party and switching over to the Democrats or to Bodnar, but more that their voters aren't going to be engaged enough to turn out in sufficient numbers. And turnout has been a problem for the GOP in the Trump era. Their base just isn't very reliable unless Trump himself is on the ballot. And the political environment this year, as reflected in Trump's declining approval rating, both nationally and even to a lesser degree in Montana, that doesn't help.
Sally Mauk And, of course, the president has promised everyone $5,000 if they turn out to vote.
Rob Saldin That's an incentive there, I'd say.
Sally Mauk Well, hard to believe guys, but ballots will be mailed out in just two weeks, so the window to persuade voters is closing fast. We will meet again next week, thanks.
Campaign Beat is Montana Public Radio's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau. Tune in on-air Fridays at 5:45 p.m. during All Things Considered, or Saturdays at 9:45 a.m., before Weekend Edition. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
