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.
The poll of 810 registered voters, conducted in late April and early May before the start of primary election voting, found that more than 40% were unfamiliar with the race’s leading candidates, Republican Kurt Alme and independent Seth Bodnar, the former University of Montana president who resigned in January to run for U.S. Senate.
A majority of voters couldn’t identify the race’s four Democrats either. Reilly Neill, a former state representative with the most name recognition of the Democrats, couldn’t be identified by 60% of voters. Meanwhile, roughly 70% of voters couldn’t place Democrats Alani Bankhead or Michael Hummert.
The 2026 race for Senate is just the third in 50 years without an incumbent. Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines withdrew his candidacy minutes before the filing period ended and shortly thereafter endorsed Alme, who also received President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Alme, a two-time Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for the state, raised close to $1 million in the first quarter of fundraising, according to Federal Election Commission financial filing. Roughly 16% of voters said they had a favorable impression of him, the same percentage that indicated no opinion of him, while 24% of voters said they viewed Alme unfavorably. Among Republicans, 29% said they viewed Alme unfavorably, 48% said they didn’t know him and 21% said they had no opinion.
When asked who they would vote for, roughly 73% of respondents who intend to vote in the Republican primary said they planned to vote for Alme, while 15% said Charles Walking Child and 12% Lee Calhoun.
In comparison, just 13% of Montana voters view Bodnar unfavorability while 21% of respondents said they had a favorable view of him. Among Democrats, 44% said they viewed Bodnar favorably, while just 6% of Republicans and 21% of independents indicated a favorable impression of the independent candidate. Meanwhile, more poll respondents indicated they were independents than Republican or Democrat.
Like Alme, Bodnar is one of the best funded candidates in the race, raising nearly $1.4 million in the first quarter of campaign fundraising.
Among the field of the little-known Democrats, Neill was viewed favorably by 13% of voters and unfavorably by 10%. For the rest of the Democratic field, only Michael Black Wolf received double digits for favorability at 11%, while the biggest challenge for Bankhead and Hummert was being recognized by voters.
Neill has been campaigning the longest of any candidate, having formed her campaign committee immediately after the 2024 general election. She was also a 2024 write-in candidate for Montana’s Eastern U.S. House District and a gubernatorial candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary. Hummert was a Democratic Senate candidate in 2024, when he won only 3% of the vote in a primary, losing to then-U.S. Sen. Jon Tester.
Funding is scarce in the field of Democratic primary candidates who, according to federal elections data, had a combined $130,000 cash on hand at the end of the first quarter, with more than $100,000 available to spend belonging to Neill.
However, Bankhead was buoyed by a significant investment in mailers, texts and digital ads paid for by Progressive Vet PAC, a committee unaffiliated with the candidate’s campaign. Progressive Vet began its spending in early May, after the Montana Free Press poll was conducted.
The MTFP–Eagleton poll surveyed 815 Montana registered voters who were invited by text message to complete an online survey. Data was collected from April 29, 2026, to May 7, 2026.
Participants were recruited using a probability-based method, meaning they were randomly drawn from the state’s registered voter file so every voter had a known chance of being invited. The results were weighted during analysis to reflect the demographics of Montana’s registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. You can find more about the methodology here.
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