HELENA — Montana’s U.S. Senate race was at the center of political controversy again this week, over an allegation from Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead that she had been offered a job if she would drop out of the race. It’s a statement that quickly drew attention from Montana’s attorney general and denials from the Democratic National Committee.
For much of this summer, a major focus in the Senate campaign was whether Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar would both stay in the race – and potentially split the vote against Republican nominee Kurt Alme. In the end, neither dropped out before the deadline in August.
(Watch the video for more on what happened.)
In an interview for the Montana PBS program “Impact,” aired last week, journalist Anna Rau asked Bankhead if anyone had offered her anything to drop out of the race, and Bankhead said yes.
“They offered to be – and I'm probably going to butcher this – but the DNC’s head of female veteran candidates or something like that,” Bankhead said. “And I was like, ‘Why would I go work for an organization that is actively working against me and stabbing me in the back?’”
Earlier this month, Bankhead published an op-ed in the Washington Post, explaining her refusal to drop out. In it, she wrote, “A sitting U.S. senator offered me a job, presumably if I would leave the race.”
Bankhead’s allegations gained more attention Wednesday, when Burgess Everett, a journalist with the national website Semafor, shared a clip from the Montana PBS interview on the social media platform X. Later that day, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, reposted Everett’s video on X.
“This is extremely concerning,” Knudsen wrote. “If this is true, it appears to be a violation of Montana Code Annotated 13-35-221. My office will be reaching out to @AlaniBankhead, @SethBodnarForMT and @DNC to investigate.”
The section of state law Knudsen cited prohibits anyone from offering someone a payment or anything of value “to refrain from or to cease being a candidate.” The law says a violation of that section is a misdemeanor, and that an attempted violation is itself a violation.
A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment further on Knudsen’s statement.
A DNC official told MTN Thursday no job offer from the committee had ever been extended to Bankhead.
Since August, Bodnar has denied asking Bankhead to withdraw, and his campaign repeated that this week.
“For months, Alani Bankhead has done everything in her power to falsely accuse our campaign of trying to push her out of this race,” said campaign spokesperson Kelly Webster in a statement. “Here are the facts: Seth has never asked Alani to drop out, and no one on our campaign has any knowledge of or involvement in any offer to get her to drop out. Meanwhile, Alani has repeatedly urged Seth to drop out because she is trailing in every poll and understands she does not have the resources or support to win without pushing someone else off the ballot.”
MTN also asked Bankhead’s campaign to respond to Knudsen’s statement.
“We will be happy to participate in any legitimate investigation but do not wish to participate in political theater over a social media post,” said Jeri Bucy, the campaign’s director of strategic communications, in a statement.
There were extensive debates among Democratic leaders in the summer about whether either Bankhead or Bodnar should get out of the Senate race. A group of Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter urging the two to unite their efforts, and some of the same lawmakers later signed a letter specifically asking Bankhead to drop out. In her Washington Post article, Bankhead also referred to speculation that much of the heavy outside spending backing her in the Democratic primary came from groups that believed she would be willing to step aside for Bodnar.
In “Impact,” Rau also asked Bodnar if he had been offered anything of value to drop out of the race. He said no.
Montana is one of a number of states across the country where independent candidates filed to run for Republican-held congressional seats. In several of those states, Democrats either didn’t field candidates or withdrew their nominee in favor of the independent. However, Montana Democrats were split over whether state law would even allow them not to field a candidate in the Senate race.
