Tom Lutey

Montana’s crowded field of mostly first-time ever U.S. Senate candidates are full of names unfamiliar to voters, a new Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll indicates.

Underfunded, Alani Bankhead was facing scratch-ticket-lottery odds of reaching voters with hardly more than a whisper campaign in the final weeks of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

Independent candidates have a May 26 deadline to submit ballot-qualifying petitions.

More Jobs, Less Government has spent $700,000 on ads attacking Reilly Neill and supporting Alani Bankhead.

Montana's crowded field of mostly first-time ever U.S. Senate candidates are full of names unfamiliar to voters, a new Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll indicates.

PLUS: State Senate Majority Asks Windy Boy to Step Down.

More Jobs, Less Government, the committee that spent $22 million promoting Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy's election, has spent $695,979.42 in this year's Democratic primary. Most of those dollars have gone toward attacking Reilly Neill, the only candidate in the underfunded Democratic field to have raised more than $100,000. It's been more than 40 years since funding in a Democratic Senate primary in Montana was so low, giving PACs an overwhelming edge in messaging about the candidates.

Utility commissioner Brad Molnar is asking a federal court to end his state-imposed ban on entering his workplace — the Montana Public Service Commission building in Helena.

The letter, endorsed by at least 39 of Montana's 50 state senators, called the allegations against Windy Boy “disqualifying for anyone holding public office.”

Four PACs account for 96% of the spending in Montana’s 43 contested Republican legislative primaries.