The AP has called the Democratic pick for U.S. Senate in Montana, with Alani Bankhead overtaking runner-up Reilly Neill.
The most crowded primary field in Montana’s congressional elections this year is the Democratic race for U.S. Senate. Five Democratic candidates filed to run – expecting to face incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines. Instead, Daines dropped his reelection bid, and they’ll be running against a new Republican challenger, the Libertarian nominee, and possibly independent candidate Seth Bodnar.
In May, Alani Bankhead’s Senate campaign emphasized her experience in the military and as an investigator with agencies like the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office. She says that has given her connections she can draw on if she’s elected.
“While I really respect the other candidates, it's going to take them two to three years to figure out how D.C. works, and Montana doesn't have two or three more years of suffering left in them,” she told MTN. “They need someone now who understands how to play within that system while not being part of the system, but to disrupt it to get the results that Montana needs.”
Bankhead, of Helena, came to Montana about three years ago as she and her husband wound down their active-duty military careers. She says her career has been focused on investigating crimes like human trafficking and child sexual abuse, so she’s prepared to hold people in power accountable.
Bankhead says that, after her time in the Air Force, she knows there’s unnecessary spending in the defense budget that could be repurposed to help shore up services.
“If we claw that money back and incentivize folks to use that money appropriately, then we will get back hundreds of billions of dollars that we could reallocate towards things like – healthcare would be my No. 1 priority – that would get us to about two-thirds of the way to paying for Medicaid for all,” said Bankhead. “We would get the rest of the money by doing things like stopping the war in Iran, which is costing us up to $2 billion a day.”
While Bankhead is new to the state, she says she’s been impressed by Montana’s community values, and she wants to carry those values to Congress.
“Montana has that common-sense foundation, which is what everybody wants,” she said.
