Alani Bankhead’s bankroll bind

This story is excerpted from Capitolized, a weekly newsletter featuring expert reporting, analysis and insight from the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press. Want to see Capitolized in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up here. 

Alani Bankhead came from financial nowhere to win the Democratic Senate primary. She had $23,884 to campaign with, including a $5,000 loan.

Only 30% of voters knew who she was until a pop-up PAC spent $3.3 million on ads and even phone banking to get out the vote for Bankhead.

That kind of election lightning is unlikely to strike again in November, when the retired Air Force special agent goes up against two far-better-funded candidates. Independent Seth Bodnar and Republican Kurt Alme have each raised $2 million. The entire Democratic primary field combined had raised less than $325,000.

And the PAC that came to Bankhead’s rescue in the primary? Progressive Vet PAC has given no indication it will be supporting a Democratic candidate for Senate in the general election. 

“It’s only been a week since the primary, early days,” Progressive Vet treasurer Moffie Funk told Montana Free Press. “We are still discussing next steps.”

There’s still a degree of mystery surrounding Progressive Vet. The address used by the PAC in Funk’s communications with the Federal Election Commission is an Express Print Pack Ship business in Billings. Funk lives in Helena.

Financial reports indicate that Progressive Vet is the outer shell of a political nesting doll, the inner layer of which is the American Values Project PAC, whose only donor so far is Jason Carroll, founder of Hudson River Trading, which develops algorithms to direct trading across an array of digital markets. Carroll also turns up in PAC spending supporting centrist Republican legislators in a multimillion-dollar 40-race intraparty battle bankrolled on both sides by PACs funded by millionaires and billionaires.

Progressive Vet is a Super PAC, which by law can raise unlimited amounts of money, but cannot coordinate with candidates or campaigns, making it illegal for Progressive Vet to coordinate with Bankhead, Bodnar or Alme.

Financial records show that from advertising to phoning voters, Progressive Vet did much more on Bankhead’s behalf than the candidate’s own campaign could afford to do. 

Who, if anyone, might pay for that kind of work between now and November is currently unknown.

“No candidate can run without the support of the people at the end of the day,” Bankhead told Capitolized. “So yeah, we have to scale up because it’s a bigger game now.” 

Her campaign’s next step, she said, is getting back out on the road to practice retail politicking.

“Being a military person, we have sayings. And in marksmanship, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. So we’ve been very intentional,” Bankhead said. “We’re getting back out on the road and just working our network and getting that infrastructure of events and fundraising going. Those are the big things we’re shooting for.”

The typical pillars of support for a Democratic campaign for federal office won’t be there this year. Three of the PACs that supported Democrats Jon Tester and Monica Tranel in their respective Senate and House runs in recent elections have spent exclusively in support of Bodnar so far. 

When Greg Craig, former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, hosted a fundraiser with other Democratic Party insiders in Falls Church, Virginia, on June 9 to boost a Montana Senate candidate, Tester, the last Montana Democrat to hold statewide office, was the special guest, according to the invitation. The benefiting candidate was independent Bodnar, not Bankhead.

Max Baucus, the longest-serving U.S. senator in Montana history and a 40-year regular of Democratic campaigns in the state, will host a fundraising event on June 19, also to benefit Bodnar, according to another invitation.

Nancy Keenan, a former Montana Democratic Party chair, former Montana congressional candidate and former state superintendent of public instruction, has penned an editorial backing Bodnar and encouraging Democratic voters to do the same. There is no viable path to victory for Democrats, Keenan concludes — a softer way of communicating what Tester said in a rambling text message six months ago, when he called the party brand “poison” to his own election efforts.

The Montana Democratic Party, at least, intends to support Bankhead’s ground game, said Shannon O’Brien, the state party’s current chair.

“Winning here means organizing everywhere and talking directly to voters where they are,” O’Brien said. “That is what we’re hoping to see. We’re confident in Alani’s ability to execute.”