When Alani Bankhead, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Montana, announced that she would hold a news conference Monday afternoon, many fellow Democrats hoped she would announce that she was dropping out.
The idea was to make way for an independent candidate, Seth Bodnar, who is seen by many as more electable than Ms. Bankhead in a heavily Republican state.
Ms. Bankhead did not play ball.
“If dropping out was the right move to pave the way for a better candidate, I would absolutely do it,” Ms. Bankhead said in a defiant speech. “But Seth Bodnar is absolutely the last person on the face of the Earth I would ever drop out of this race for.” She added: “I am never dropping out. Ever. Ever.”
The move seemed to ensure — at least for now — a messy three-way brawl between Ms. Bankhead, Mr. Bodnar and Kurt Alme, the Republican nominee. And because of the likelihood that Democrats’ votes would be split between Ms. Bankhead and Mr. Bodnar, the contest is heavily favored to result in a Republican victory in November.
Ms. Bankhead said Mr. Bodnar was the one who should step aside. At the news conference, held at the University of Montana, where Mr. Bodnar until recently had served as president, she tried to take him to task over two-year-old news that the university had settled a sex-discrimination lawsuit during his tenure. Mr. Bodnar had “established a pattern of dismissing and discriminating against women,” and he should “read the room and back out,” Ms. Bankhead said.
Mr. Bodnar had come under fire at the time, accused of allowing the university to operate as a “good old boys” club and failing to advance women’s careers. He called the allegations meritless, and said he filled his executive team with women and oversaw a large increase in the number of female deans.
Mr. Bodnar’s supporters, including prominent Montana Democrats such as former Senator Max Baucus, acknowledged that Ms. Bankhead’s decision to stay in the race threatened Mr. Bodnar’s plan of besting Mr. Alme in a head-to-head contest.
“Alani has no chance of winning, none,” Mr. Baucus, who is hosting a fund-raiser for Mr. Bodnar on Friday, said in an interview.
Mr. Bodnar, who has raised significantly more money than Ms. Bankhead, sought to defuse Ms. Bankhead’s attacks on Monday by rolling out a bipartisan list of high-profile endorsements, including from former Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, and former Gov. Marc Racicot, a Republican.
“Montanans are done being divided by politicians who care more about their party than their people,” Mr. Bodnar said in a statement. He has said he will not caucus with either major party if he wins.
Montana may be the messiest show of disarray — if not open civil war — for Democrats this year. In other states where the party faces difficult Senate contests, they have been relatively fortunate so far. They secured a desirable matchup in Texas and consolidated liberal voters around a viable independent candidate in Nebraska. The party saw Montana, a red state with an open Senate seat and another credible independent, as an appealing if challenging possibility on a difficult map.
Ahead of the Democratic Senate primary earlier this month, Ms. Bankhead, a first-time candidate, Air Force veteran and relative political unknown, had been seen as the candidate most likely to drop out of the general election if she won the nomination, to allow Democratic voters to coalesce around Mr. Bodnar.
That coalescing was never guaranteed. State law requires Montana Democrats to select a ballot replacement for Ms. Bankhead if she steps aside.
The speculation about Ms. Bankhead dropping out began when a super PAC tied to a former aide to Mr. Tester spent more than $3 million boosting her. Another PAC tied to state Republicans added to the speculation when it began spending money promoting the anti-Trump credentials of Reilly Neil, a Democratic Senate candidate who was considered less likely to step aside for Mr. Bodnar.
Ms. Bankhead has denied that she ever considered dropping out.
A spokesman for Mr. Alme’s campaign said that “Kurt’s opponents’ campaigns are built on deception and dark money,” and promoted President Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Alme.
Art Wittich, the chairman of the Montana Republican Party, said he remained suspicious about whether Ms. Bankhead and Mr. Bodnar might ultimately coordinate. But he also noted that their apparent enmity was good news for Mr. Alme in a general election.
Democrats sensed opportunity in Montana when Senator Steve Daines, the Republican incumbent, pulled a last-minute switcheroo, dropping his re-election bid minutes before the filing deadline in March and clearing a path for his anointed successor, Mr. Alme, to run without serious Republican competition. Democrats believed the move would outrage voters who had been deprived of a competitive primary, and encourage some of them to consider not voting for the Republican candidate in the fall.
There was a downside to the Daines withdrawal for Democrats, however: It came too late for any prominent members of their party to jump in, just as it had for Republicans.
Many state Democrats remain opposed to Mr. Bodnar.
Some are furious about Mr. Bodnar’s presence in the race, saying he would hand a winnable Senate race to Republicans by splitting moderate and liberal voters.
While Montana has voted for Republicans in presidential contests, Democrats until recently were able to win governorships and Senate seats by running up huge margins in the liberal cities Missoula and Bozeman, and by winning over just enough conservation-minded hunters and anglers, union voters and working-class independents.
That changed in the Trump era, when rural voters have largely abandoned Democrats, who hold no statewide elected offices today.
Mr. Tester, a burly, buzz-cut farmer who was defeated in 2024, is the most recent Democrat to hold federal office. He said last year that the Democratic Party had become electoral “poison” in Montana.
But two former Democratic governors, Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock, unsuccessfully urged Mr. Bodnar to run as a Democrat, as did leaders of the Montana Democratic Party. The last time Mr. Bodnar registered with any party, it was as a Democrat.
Adam Brandon, a senior adviser at the Independent Center, which is backing Mr. Bodnar, argued that a three-way race could work to his advantage by allowing him to set himself apart both from Ms. Bankhead and Mr. Alme, and sell himself to voters disgusted with partisanship as the only candidate not beholden to a party.
“When we start getting shot at from the other sides, we just continue to focus on our race and talking to our voters,” he said.
Mr. Baucus, the former senator who is backing Mr. Bodnar, said he had not been personally involved in efforts to convince Ms. Bankhead to drop her bid. But he also predicted that Ms. Bankhead’s announcement on Monday would not be the final twist in the race.
“Things change in about a week in politics,” he said. “My sense is, as Seth gets around the state more and more, as people meet him, people are going to realize, ‘Yes that’s the guy we should elect.’”
