HELENA — When Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines withdrew from his reelection race in the last minutes of Montana’s candidate filing period, it left the state with its first fully open U.S. Senate race in more than a decade.
Daines and other top Republicans – including U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, Gov. Greg Gianforte and President Donald Trump – quickly unified behind one candidate: former U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme. However, there are also two other names on the Republican primary ballot: Lee Calhoun and Charles Walking Child.
The winner of the Republican Senate primary will move on to the general election in November, along with the winners of the Democratic and Libertarian primaries. In addition, independent candidate Seth Bodnar is attempting to collect enough signatures to qualify for the general election.
See full interviews with all three Republican U.S. Senate candidates below:
Kurt Alme:
Kurt Alme, who now lives in Billings but grew up in several cities across Montana, says his background in the state is a key part of why he’s running.
“Montana is my home,” he told MTN. “I want to be sure that my kids and my grandkids – all of our kids and grandkids – have the same opportunities that we did growing up in this state.”
(Watch MTN's extended interview with Kurt Alme.)
Alme hasn’t run for office before, but has extensive experience working within government. He was U.S. attorney for Montana from 2017 to 2020, during the first Trump administration, and Trump reappointed him last year. He worked as director of the Montana Department of Revenue in the early 2000s and as Gianforte’s first budget director in 2021.
Those jobs are central to two of the issues Alme’s campaign has emphasized: improving community safety – including addressing drugs and crime – and keeping taxes low.
Alme says Montana needs a senator who’ll back Trump in his negotiations on international trade and in policies like instituting Medicaid work requirements and tightening border security. He says Congress needs more incentive to pass balanced budgets, and he’s supporting legislation to withhold pay when lawmakers can’t agree on a budget on time.
“There's no exception, no way around for Congress to do the hard work, just like we do in Montana, in Helena, every budget cycle – and that is you’ve got to look department by department, agency by agency, item by item, and you have to make the tough decisions,” he said.
Alme’s campaign has raised overwhelmingly more money than the other Republican candidates, and he’s the only one in the GOP primary field running television advertisements. Still, he says the most important part of campaigning has been meeting directly with voters.
“I look forward to getting elected, to being able to go to Washington and yet continuing to travel the state and listen to Montanans and hear the issues that are important to them – to be sure we give them voice and we give them input in the decisions that are made in D.C.,” he said.
Lee Calhoun:
In the weeks after he filed for Senate, Lee Calhoun said publicly that he was suspending his campaign. However, last week, he announced he was reversing his decision and now planned to hit the road in the month remaining before the primary, to ask voters for support.
Calhoun, of Whitefish, told MTN no one outside his campaign influenced his decision to get back into the race.
“I think that's a function of just seeing people – day-to-day people, normal people – and their desire to have someone who would represent them and not just billionaires,” he said.
(Watch MTN's extended interview with Lee Calhoun.)
He had said his original decision to suspend campaigning was because he couldn’t find enough staff to support a more active run. Now, he says his campaign will be “non-conventional.” He’s refusing to accept any campaign contributions – even from individuals – and pledging to seek only one term.
“In exchange for that kind of independence, I'm asking for the people's vote,” he said.
Calhoun moved to Montana about 10 years ago, where he started a business designing and installing solar-energy systems for homes and businesses. Now retired, he is making his first entry into politics.
Calhoun admits his platform is very different from most Republican candidates. His top priorities include establishing a universal health care system and reversing what he considers “tax giveaways” to wealthy people and corporations. He supports mandatory term limits and eliminating government subsidies and tax breaks for fossil-fuel companies.
“My platform is not a Kool-Aid drinking platform,” he said. “My platform is a function of spending a long time observing the economics and the things going on in the country, and just having that long-term view of how things work and how they don't work.”
Charles Walking Child:
Charles Walking Child, of Helena, says the federal government has gotten away from how it should be operating, and he wants to show that disaffected voters can make change if they get more involved.
“It doesn't take money,” he said. “I'm not worried about Trump's endorsement or anybody else's endorsement; the endorsement that I want is the Montana people. So it's really word of mouth.”
Walking Child, who operates an environmental contracting business, has become a frequent candidate for Congress. In 2022, he ran against incumbent U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale in the Republican primary for Montana’s eastern U.S. House seat, and in 2024, he was in the Republican U.S. Senate primary eventually won by now-Sen. Tim Sheehy.
Walking Child describes himself as pro-life, a supporter of smaller government and states’ rights, and focused on creating jobs and lifting people out of poverty. He wants to see tax loopholes closed and says government should be working to benefit individuals rather than corporations.
“Montanans are sick and tired of the politics,” he said. “When somebody says they're going to go to fight for you, that's not the right person. I'm not going to D.C. to fight; I'm going to D.C. to make it right and to bring honesty and integrity back to being a statesman.”
Walking Child says the two major parties are too factionalized and influenced by the far-left and far-right. He says he wants to appeal to voters regardless of labels, including older voters and those under 35.
“I'm not really concerned about the super-rich on the far right,” he said. “I'm more concerned about getting the conservative Democrats, independents and conservative Republicans to vote for me if they want change.”
Editor’s Note: Continuing through the end of this week, MTN is bringing you full coverage on the candidates in each of Montana’s contested congressional primaries. You’ll be able to see our interviews with Democratic Senate candidates on this website Tuesday, May 5, and with Libertarian candidates on Thursday, May 7.
