The Democratic nominee for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat, Alani Bankhead, has been telling everyone for months that there is no price anyone can pay to keep her name from appearing on the November ballot. “Why is it you are asking me a question I have been asked a thousand times?” she told me on Monday, when I tried to probe her commitment to the race. “There is nothing that is going to force me from the ticket unless God himself tells me to drop out.”The lack of divine intervention has challenged Democratic hopes for a big-sky Senate pickup. As it stands, Bankhead will likely split the state’s ever shrinking number of non-Republicans with an independent candidate, Seth Bodnar, who has raised more money and secured more support from senior party leaders who believe he will caucus with Democrats if he prevails. That all but ensures a win for the Republican candidate, Kurt Alme, which has set off a last-minute scramble to push Bankhead from the race before the August 10 deadline for locking the ballot. The state Democratic Party has been preparing for her to leave the race. A national Democratic polling firm, Global Strategy Group, circulated new polling yesterday arguing that she should drop out. And national Democrats have been calling her, seeking meetings. Bankhead told me that former Governor Steve Bullock, a Democrat who has not yet endorsed in the race, called her last week to ask if she would meet him for coffee. She said she did not respond. “It is a very strange process to be in this position where Alani feels more like the independent than the independent,” Jeri Bucy, her communications strategist, told me.Shannon O’Brien, the head of the state party, convened a meeting of its executive board last Thursday to discuss the possibility of leaving the Democratic line on the ballot empty if Bankhead does leave the race. State law says political parties “shall” appoint a replacement if the nominee bows out 85 or more days from an election. State Democratic party bylaws say that the party central committee “shall” call a meeting and “shall” vote on a replacement. The Montana secretary of state, a Republican, says the state party must follow those words and pick a replacement.But Jacquelyn Lopez, the general counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, attended the meeting to argue that the party would likely win in court… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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