This story was last updated at 1:37 p.m. Wednesday, June 3.
Montana voters across the state cast ballots in Republican, Democratic and Libertarian primaries for federal, state and local legislative races, with polls closing at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
Montana Free Press staff will update this article with election results in major races as they become available.
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WESTERN CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (MT-01)
The Associated Press called the Republican primary race for conservative radio personality Aaron Flint shortly before 9 p.m. Flint had been competing against Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, former state lawmaker Al Olszewski and retired teacher Ray Curtis.
After incumbent Rep. Ryan Zinke announced in March that he would not seek reelection to the Western Montana seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Flint and other high-profile Republicans surged into the field to compete for the chance to represent their party on the November ballot.
On the Democratic ballot, four contenders sought to differentiate themselves and their records in what political observers consider the state’s most winnable district for minority-party Democrats. Those candidates are former gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse, former smokejumper Sam Forstag, former child care executive Russell Cleveland and rancher Matt Rains.
Shortly after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Forstag declared victory, with a lead of about 2,900 votes over Busse. In a statement on social media, Busse conceded and congratulated Forstag. The Associated Press called the race in Forstag’s favor shortly before 11:30 a.m.
Libertarian Nick Sheedy ran unopposed in the June 2 primary.
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Smokejumper Sam Forstag, the Democratic nominee, and conservative radio talk show host Aaron Flint, the Republican, will face off in November for Montana’s Western District U.S. House seat.
EASTERN CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (MT-02)
Three Democrats lined up for the chance to try to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Troy Downing, who was unopposed by members of his own party in his bid for reelection to a second term.
The Associated Press called the Democratic primary for Brian Miller, a Helena attorney, at about 9:45 p.m. Miller defeated Sam Lux, a Great Falls farrier, and state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy of Box Elder. Windy Boy initially paused his campaign and later restarted it amid allegations of sexual abuse and harassment.
Libertarian Patrick McCracken also ran unopposed in the June 2 primary.
Independent candidate Michael Eisenhauer, a Great Falls cardiologist, did not appear on the primary election ballot. Independents must submit a required number of voter signatures to appear on the ballot in November.
U.S. SENATE
The Associated Press called the Republican primary race for Kurt Alme less than 30 minutes after polls closed and with only 8% of votes counted. Alme, a former U.S. prosecutor for the District of Montana, ran against two other Republicans in the June 2 primary, Lee Calhoun and Charles Walking Child.
After Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines dropped out of his reelection campaign in March, Alme entered the fray, quickly earning endorsements from Daines and President Donald Trump.
The Associated Press called the Democratic U.S. Senate primary for U.S. Air Force veteran Alani Bankhead of Helena shortly before 10 p.m., dealing a defeat to former state lawmaker Reilly Neill from Livingston, Christopher Kehoe, Michael Hummert and Michael Black Wolf.
Independent Seth Bodnar, the former president of the University of Montana, did not appear on the primary ballot. Bodnar has built a well-funded campaign and recently touted a sizable haul of signatures that, if certified by state election officials, would qualify him for the November ballot.
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Republican Kurt Alme and Democrat Alani Bankhead declared Senate primary winners by The Associated Press
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PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
In the race for the PSC-1, a district that spans much of eastern Montana, including Billings, Great Falls and Miles City, Republican Jeff Pattison defeated Jeremy Trebas, a state legislator and accountant from Great Falls. The Associated Press called the race for Pattison at 10:11 p.m. Democrat Angeline Cheek ran unopposed.
In PSC-5, spanning a swath of western Montana from the Flathead Valley to Lewis and Clark County, Republican candidates are incumbent Annie Bukacek, David Sanders and Joe Dooling. The PSC-5 Republican primary had not yet been called and was still neck and neck early Wednesday morning as Bukacek led the pack by one and a half percentage points over Dooling, according to the Associated Press. With 95% of the votes reported, Bukacek had secured nearly 35% of the vote, while Dooling and Sanders had 33.4% and 31.7%, respectively.
Democrat Kevin Hamm was uncontested in his party’s primary for that district.
The Public Service Commission regulates Montana utilities, including NorthWestern Energy, the shareholder-owned company that has been courting data center developers amid a proposed merger with a South Dakota-based utility.
SUPREME COURT
Both nonpartisan candidates for the Montana Supreme Court are set to advance to the general election in November.
Candidates Amy Eddy and Dan Wilson are two of five judges in Montana’s 11th Judicial District which is located in Flathead County. Wilson previously ran for the state’s high court in 2024 but lost by roughly nine percentage points.
With votes still reporting early Wednesday, Eddy had garnered 51% — or roughly 135,195 votes — compared to Wilson’s 49%, according to the Montana Secretary of State. Because turnout for the primary election tends to be markedly different from that of the general election, it can’t be assumed that these results will mirror the general election outcome.
There has been a strong push by Montana Republicans to switch the state’s judicial races to be partisan, as a competing effort has cropped up to enshrine the nonpartisan status in the state’s constitution. Wilson has said that he is not going to weigh in on the matter, while Eddy has said she opposes switching the courts to a partisan affair.
THE LEGISLATURE
After months of hard-fought battles between two factions of the Montana Republican Party, it appears that each camp of the GOP won a significant number of races in Tuesday’s primary election, according to results from The Associated Press.
Divisions among Montana’s Republican legislators — which led to these fierce and expensive primary battles — have been one of the hallmark features of the state’s politics in recent years. On Tuesday evening, these contests were some of the most closely watched in the state, in part because millions of dollars poured into these races on both sides.
These races included more centrist Republican incumbents who were running against farther-right candidates backed by the Montana Republican Party, despite the fact that it is rare for state parties to involve themselves in elections before the primary.The outcomes from these races will have a significant impact on the balance of power at the 2027 Legislature and which faction of the GOP controls the Capitol.
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Republican factions created fierce primaries for Montana’s state Legislature. Here’s who won.
Very few legislative districts are toss-ups in the general election, meaning that many of these Republican candidates who won the primary are likely to win the seat in November.
One prominent contest was between Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, and Rep. Zack Wirth, R-Wolf Creek. Jones, the leader of the centrist faction and a longtime thorn in the side of the far-right, prevailed in the race for Senate District 9 by 6 points, according to the Associated Press.
Similarly, Rep. George Nikolakakos beat Public Service Commissioner Randy Pinocci by nearly 40 percentage points in the Republican primary race for Senate District 12 in Great Falls. Like Jones, Nikolakakos leans more moderate and has been at odds with the Montana GOP.
Other than Jones and Nikolakakos, most centrists lost to or were trailing their farther right competition as of Wednesday morning.
Rep. Linda Reksten, R-Polson, lost by 25 points to 20-year-old college student Finley Warden — who aimed to challenge her conservative bonafides from the right — in their contest for the statehouse. Rep. John Fitzpatrick, R-Anaconda, another incumbent Republican who was competing with a state party-backed hardliner, lost his primary, also by 20 points, in a House race to Trish Schreiber, the Associated Press reported.
Former Republican Rep. Steven Galloway beat Rep. Ed Buttrey by nearly 32 percentage points in the race for Great Falls’ Senate District 11. Galloway is another staunch Republican who is aligned with the Montana GOP; he testified last summer that he wanted moderates expelled from the state GOP. Buttrey, meanwhile, was the main architect behind maintaining Medicaid expansion in Montana at the 2025 legislative session, a chief policy goal among Democrats and centrist Republicans that was opposed by hard-right Republicans.
In Gallatin County, a pair of firebrand conservative brothers, Rep. Caleb Hinkle, who is running in Senate District 34, and Rep. Jedediah Hinkle, running in House District 67 beat their more moderate opponents by 47 and 41 points, respectively.
During the 2025 legislative session, nine GOP senators violated the party line and formed a coalition with Democrats, effectively putting hardline Republicans in the minority. That move enraged the state GOP and the 23 Republicans who ended up in the minority in a chamber where the party controlled with what was nearly a supermajority. In the race for Senate District 34, Hinkle bested Sen. Shelley Vance, who was the only senator out of the nine who was up for reelection in the same district.
Also in Gallatin County, two Democrats representing Bozeman in the statehouse were competing against each other to represent Senate District 32, but as of early Wednesday only 82 votes separated them. Rep. Becky Edwards trailed Rep. Kelly Kortum by 3.1% with 90% of the votes counted. Also among Democrats, Monica Tranel, who has twice run for U.S. House, but lost both times to Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, won her primary for statehouse in Missoula.
This article was updated on Wednesday, June 3, to correct a reference to candidates in the Western Congressional District.