Bankhead wins Dem Senate primary
Jordan Hansen
(Daily Montanan) Alani Bankhead has won the Democratic primary for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat, defeating Reilly Neill.
With slightly over 23% of the vote in, Bankhead had drawn 44% of the ballots tabulated so far. Reilly Neill was second with 33%, Michael Black Wolf was third with 13% of the vote, with three other candidates drawing the rest on Tuesday.
About 190,000 ballots have been counted so far, the Associated Press called the race at 9:51 p.m.
“I’m really humbled,” Bankhead said at an event in Helena shortly after the news broke.
Bankhead, who lives in Helena, is a veteran and has leaned into her understanding of the federal government as part of her campaign pitch. Rising prices, cuts to federal jobs and seeing people around her struggle to provide for their families all helped encourage her to run, she said.
Bankhead is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and has made child protection and public safety centerpieces of her campaign. She was also active in discussions around the city, giving public comments in favor of an immigration resolution in Helena earlier this year during her campaign.
“I just want people to know that I’m a real person, just like them,” Bankhead said earlier in the evening, when asked what she wanted people to know about here. “I’m not here because I want power or money. I’m here because my parents told me that you help your community if you have something to offer, and my family, we sacrificed a lot for this campaign, and it hasn’t been easy, but we love Montana.”
Neill, who lives in Livingston with her family, started the Livingston Weekly Current in Park County in 2004 and before that had experience working in commercial kitchens.
Neill served as a one-term legislator in 2012 from House District 62. She was a write-in candidate in the 2024 U.S. House race, gathering about 1,000 votes, which was ultimately won by Rep. Troy Downing, a Republican. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Black Wolf is a preservation officer and community leader from the Fort Belknap Indian Community.
Neill was the first entry in the race, declaring her intentions shortly after the 2024 general election. She spent a significant amount of time in rural Montana during her campaign.
Bankhead saw significant support from the Progressive Veterans PAC, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to hit social media, mailboxes and text messages with support for Bankhead in the weeks leading up to the election. Bankhead has repeatedly said she is not coordinating with that PAC.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Kurt Alme and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November general election.
“Tonight we proved something bigger than one campaign,” Bankhead said in a statement to reporters at her primary event. “We proved that old political rules are dead. The consultants said you needed to be known to be taken seriously. They said you needed permission. They said you had to wait your turn. They said ordinary people could not compete with billionaire donors, farming machines, and carefully manufactured politics. But the people of Montana tore up the script.”