Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday.
September 10, 2026
National party conventions and Montana Republican candidates have always been as simpatico as pearl snap shirts and bolo ties.
Think about now-Sen. Tim Sheehy telling his “he-she” pronoun joke on the GOP convention stage in Milwaukee in 2024. National Republican Senatorial Committee RSC chair Sen. Steve Daines called for an “America First Senate majority” from the same Milwaukee stage. Rep. Ryan Zinke’s 2016 opening-night remarks in Cleveland proclaimed that “Donald Trump isn’t afraid to talk about radical Islamic terrorism, and he won’t be afraid to destroy it.”
It’s usually Montana’s Democrats who fail to find their way to their party’s conventions. One of the last such appearances was Denise Juneau, who spoke as Montana’s superintendent of public instruction in Charlotte in 2012.
The Republican Midterm Convention that took place on Wednesday and Thursday in Dallas was an exception. The first of its kind for the Republican Party, the midterm convention was intended to stir voter interest in Republican candidates for U.S. House and Senate in this midterm election, when turnout is typically lower than in presidential election years. President Donald Trump instructed attendees to vote as if he were on the ballot.
No Montana candidate for federal office spoke or attended. Spokespeople for Senate candidate Kurt Alme and Western District House candidate Aaron Flint said the candidates were busy campaigning. Incumbent Eastern District Rep. Troy Downing also didn’t make it.
But Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen did show up. Knudsen spoke for about five minutes on Wednesday afternoon in his capacity as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, or RAGA, which makes a point of coming to President Donald Trump’s aid in court.
Knudsen told the audience he sued the Joe Biden administration roughly 60 times over border security, the Second Amendment, religious liberty and COVID-era public health mandates.
“I’m here today to tell you one thing about your Republican Attorneys General: We are united,” Knudsen said. “We are united behind President Donald Trump. We are standing up for his administration in courtrooms across the nation.”
The speech included four direct mentions of Trump and three mentions of Biden. Knudsen didn’t mention candidates Alme, Downing or Flint.
—Tom Lutey
Signatures in Question
The Cascade County Attorney’s Office and Cascade County Sheriff’s Office are investigating about 800 potentially bogus signatures gathered by at least one petitioner who worked to qualify Michael Eisenhauer, the independent candidate running for U.S. House in the Eastern Congressional District, and Seth Bodnar, the independent candidate running for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat.
According to a Wednesday press release from the Cascade County Attorney’s Office, none of the signatures under investigation were counted toward either candidate’s ballot-qualification total, both campaigns have cooperated with the investigation, and Cascade County law enforcement suspects neither campaign of wrongdoing. Investigators have not alleged that any of the signatures in question are in fact fraudulent.
Unlike party-affiliated candidates, who qualify for general elections through primaries, independent candidates must collect a certain number of signatures from members of the electorate to appear on the ballot. Both Eisenhauer and Bodnar acquired the necessary number of signatures — 7,274 and 13,327, respectively — before the May 26 deadline.
Detectives are currently interviewing signature gatherers as well as people who allegedly had their names added to the petition without their permission.
Brian Miller, the Democrat in the Eastern District House race, filed a lawsuit this week that asks a judge to consider disqualifying hundreds of signatures that, unlike the signatures under investigation, did count toward Eisenhauer’s qualification for the ballot.
Credit: Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local/Report for America
Signatures are submitted in batches. Each batch is accompanied by an affidavit, a binding legal document signed by the gatherer, that attests to the signature’s validity. Signature gatherers, not candidates or campaigns, are legally liable for fake signatures.
Miller’s lawsuit argues that one fraudulent signature should invalidate the affidavit of an entire batch, and so every batch that contains a fraudulent signature should be disqualified. That could invalidate about 1,600 signatures from Eisenhauer’s petition, putting the independent candidate below the threshold to qualify for the ballot.
Miller also argues that any signature collected by a gatherer who submitted at least one fraudulent signature should be thrown out. That could disqualify about 5,600 signatures.
Ballots went to the printer Wednesday. Miller told Capitolized that if the judge rules in his favor, he thinks votes cast for Eisenhauer should not be counted.
On Monday, District Court Judge Mike McMahon will hold a scheduling conference to set a timeline for Miller’s lawsuit. Early voting begins Oct. 6.
As of publication, Cascade County law enforcement has not publicly alleged large-scale fraud, or even a single forged signature. The investigation is ongoing.
In a written statement, Eisenhauer called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said it “represents a desperate move by Brian Miller.”
Miller’s lawsuit references Bodnar’s campaign, but does not challenge Bodnar’s eligibility to appear on the ballot.
—Zeke Lloyd
