Montana
Senate race takes shape as Bankhead emerges from primary
HELENA — With music bumping in a backroom at the Rialto Bar, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alani Bankhead was pacing, in a little bit of a shock following her Tuesday night victory in the party’s primary.
Bankhead, seemingly out of nowhere, won by almost 12,000 votes over Reilly Neill, who had been campaigning for the Senate since 2024. At one point, after the race was called and as Bankhead and her staff were working to prepare a statement, she even exclaimed, “I’m new at this!”
But Bankhead has gathered some support from a Democratic party that currently doesn’t hold any state or federal offices in Montana.
“Upsets happen and voters do not hand out nominations based on who has been in the race the longest or who thinks it’s their turn,” said Emily Marburger, the Montana Democrat’s executive director, in a statement. “They support candidates who connect, who listen, and who offer a message that meets people where they are. Alani did that.”
Marburger went on to say Montana Democrats were “proud to support” Bankhead, called her a coalition builder and added she “proved campaigns are won through connection and vision, not assumptions or entitlement.”
She’ll run against Republican Kurt Alme, who was declared the winner of his primary minutes after polls closed, and independent Seth Bodnar.
Nearly 111,000 Montanans voted in the Democratic primary election, while more than 168,000 voted in the Republican primary, including 128,064 for Alme.
Bodnar has raised the most money in the race, with his campaign reporting more than $2 million since March.
But plenty of progressive money has gone Bankhead’s way as well.
The Democratic contest tightened in the final months leading up to the June 2 primary, driven in large part by the Progressive Vet PAC spending more than $2.5 million in support of Bankhead. That included mailers, online ads and text messages.
The PAC’s treasurer is former Democratic state legislator Moffie Funk, who’s been an ally of Democrat and former Montana U.S. Sen. Jon Tester.
Outside spending dwarfed all Democratic fundraising combined; Bankhead, on her own, raised less than $50,000.
Some political observers were surprised with Bankhead’s win, especially the wire-to-wire nature of Bankhead’s victory.
Longtime Montana political reporter Mike Dennison pointed to the field of relatively unknown candidates in the primary, the size of the field and spending as potential reasons for Bankhead’s win.
“A huge infusion of money (into the election) like we had can certainly swing things, and I think that’s essentially what happened,” Dennison said. “That incredible outside spending on Bankhead’s behalf I think is what made the difference.”
Neill has been a known commodity in Montana political circles for years, and she served as a one-term legislator over a decade ago. She’s also been a prominent commentator on social media, specifically X (previously known as Twitter) for years.
Neill’s campaign also never seemed to gather steam, Dennison said.
“I’ve always felt that her campaign hadn’t really been effective,” he said. “Whatever she was or wasn’t doing, it wasn’t really elevating her name recognition.”
Neill has not responded to text messages, phone calls or emailed requests for comment since the election ended. She did, however, tell ABC/Fox that Alme would have been her second choice after her own campaign.
Neill’s campaign decried the spending of outside money in the election, and almost $700,000 spent by a PAC aligned with U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy to oppose Neill, in press releases in the days leading up to June 2.
“This campaign belongs to working people, not PACs, algorithms, or billionaire strategy sessions in New York and Washington,” Neill said in a May 26 press release.
Bankhead also decried the spending by More Jobs Less Government.
“While the Progressive Vets PAC actually reflects the real values of the campaign, we believe that Montanans deserve to get the campaign messages directly from the candidate, not from corporate PACS that often have more manipulative motivations,” Jeri Bucy a Bankhead spokesperson, told the Daily Montanan.
Both Bankhead and Neill focused on reaching out to rural communities throughout the state.
Neill won a majority of votes in 11 counties east of Great Falls, but only picked up 1,014 votes in those places. Alme picked up thousands of votes throughout those same counties, with many people choosing to return Republican primary ballots, not Democratic.
Bankhead, meanwhile, did well in Yellowstone, Flathead, Gallatin, and Silver Bow Counties, as well as Lewis and Clark County, where she resides. Bankhead also won 53.1% of the vote in Deer Lodge County, her highest share of any vote in any county. Park County, where Neill resides, also went to Bankhead by more than 10 points.
Bankhead has not picked up any major endorsements, though Bodnar has.
The former University of Montana president is endorsed by Tester, the last Democrat to hold federal office, and has drawn support from groups that typically back Democrats, such as a recent one by Montana Conservation Voters..
Independent candidates for office have gained traction in other deep-red states, such as Nebraska, where an independent Senate candidate drew 46.5% percent in 2024, and is running again this year, without a Democrat on the ballot.
There has been some speculation that Bankhead will drop out in support of Bodnar, rumors which she emphatically has shot down on social media.
A day after the primary, on June 3, Bankhead wrote, “No one approached myself or anyone on staff to bend the knee to anyone” and that while “it can be difficult to decipher” what’s real in politics, she’s committed to staying in the race.
Candidates have until August 10 to drop out of the race, at which point the affected party would appoint another candidate. In order for Democrats in the state to not have a Democratic candidate’s name on the ballot, the party would have to change its bylaws, meaning even if Bankhead were to throw her support to Bodnar — or vice versa — it is likely both candidates would still draw some votes.
Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) is facing yet another lawsuit over allegations of unlicensed sampling — only this time, it’s centered on a video clip of the rapper’s infamous 2013 fight with paparazzi.
In a case filed Wednesday (July 15) in Los Angeles federal court, the celebrity news agency Bauer-Griffin claims that Ye, French Montana (Karim Kharbouch) and others used audio from the headline-grabbing incident in “Where They At,” released in 2024 off French’s Mac & Cheese 5.
The May 2013 video, which also features a pregnant Kim Kardashian, shows West charging at a photographer outside a Los Angeles restaurant and shouting “don’t take no photos” and a string of profanities: “All of you m*therf*ckers stop it, man!”
The clip appears prominently in the intro to Montana’s song — a use that the lawsuit calls “blatant and willful” copyright infringement.
“Given Mr. Ye’s history of numerous confrontations with paparazzi, the video was highly newsworthy,” the agency’s lawyers write in legal documents obtained and first reported by Billboard. “Listeners immediately recognized the audio sample that begins the infringing record as being copied from the video.”
Ye has been sued over a dozen times for allegedly using unlicensed samples and interpolations in his music, including a high-profile battle with Donna Summer. In May, he lost a jury trial over using an uncleared sample in an early version of the Grammy-winning “Hurricane” from Donda. He had testified at trial that he’s “very generous” about giving credit and compensation when it’s due, but that “a lot of people try to take advantage of me.”
In Wednesday’s complaint, Bauer-Griffin says the creators of “Where They At” showed no such respect to its rights in the video of the paparazzi incident, using it despite being well aware that sound recordings must be licensed when any amount is directly sampled into a song.
“In the music industry, copyrights are prevalent and well understood,” lawyers for the agency write. “Every defendant knew that they needed to have but did not have permission to use the audio sample.”
Reps for both stars did not immediately return requests for comment. The lawsuit also names as defendants producers Dem Jointz (Dwayne Abernathy Jr.) and BoogzDaBeast (Jahmal Gwin), as well Gamma, the label that released the song, and its distribution unit Vydia.
The confrontation at issue in Wednesday’s lawsuit was one of two high-profile scuffles with paparazzi that year for the rapper, who was then still known as Kanye West. Two months later, he clashed with photographer Daniel Ramos outside of LAX, resulting in a civil assault lawsuit that the star eventually settled two years later on the eve of trial.
As many celebrities have learned over the years, simply appearing in a photo or video does not give someone any legal rights to it. Ownership of such material is always retained by the creator — an inconvenient fact that has sparked lawsuits against Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa.
It’s unclear who filmed the May 2013 incident, which happened outside a Beverly Hills restaurant minutes after the star had also been filmed accidentally banging his head into a signpost while trying to avoid other photographers. But the rights to the footage have been owned by Bauer-Griffin from the beginning: When TMZ first posted it at the time, it came with a watermark crediting the agency.
“The infringing record has been widely distributed on various streaming platforms, in flagrant violation of plaintiff’s exclusive rights under copyright laws,” Bauer-Griffin’s attorneys write. “Plaintiff brings these claims to vindicate those rights.”
Governor’s Office
HELENA, Mont. – Governor Greg Gianforte today announced Montana ranks in the top ten states with the highest year-over-year job growth rates.
“Montana continues to rank as one of the best states to start or grow a business, earn a competitive wage, and secure a good-paying job,” Gov. Gianforte said. “As we continue to reform our regulatory environment to support job creators and cut taxes to give money back to the hardworking Montanans who earned it, we see the results of conservative policies at work as the Treasure State ranks in the top ten states with the strongest job growth.”
According to a report by Stat Ranker, which compared all 50 states based on year-over-year growth in total nonfarm payroll employment between February 2025 and February 2026, Montana ranked ninth in the nation for both jobs added and overall job growth adding more than 2,100 jobs over the year, representing a 0.4 percent job growth rate.
Last week, the governor attended the groundbreaking for Janicki Industries in Great Falls to celebrate the aerospace manufacturers’ investment expected to create more than 2,000 jobs over the next ten years and the ribbon cutting for Amazon’s sixth delivery station in Montana that brings the company’s total employment in the state to over 800.
Last month, the governor announced Montana was ranked in the top five states with the fastest-growing economies since 2021. The report from Visual Capitalist found that between 2021 and 2025, Montana’s GDP grew 16.1 percent while the national average in the same time period was 10.8 percent. When it comes to wage growth, Montana ranks third in the nation for fastest wage growth and is only one of two states in the nation where wage growth has outpaced inflation since 2020. The average wage earned by Montana workers reached $60,037 in 2024.
Earlier this year, Gov. Gianforte also announced Montana’s fiscal health surged into the top ten states nationally under his leadership, rising from 22nd in 2021 to 8th in 2025. Since taking office, the governor has paid off the state’s general obligation debt, making Montana debt-free in 2023 and saving Montanans $40 million over a period of two years.
Montana also consistently ranks in the top fifteen states with the lowest unemployment rates. Last month, the governor announced Montana’s unemployment rate ticked down to 3.4 percent in May, lower than the national unemployment rate which remained at 4.3 percent.
The full Stat Ranker report can be read here.
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