In the hotly contested primary race for the U.S. Senate, campaign money has been scarce. The candidate thought to have the lead, Reilly Neill of Livingston has a little more than $100,000 and she’s the leader. Alani Bankhead of Helena has about $10,000, but lately, there have been digital ads and mailers emerging for her–and she hasn’t been doing them.
Turns out the cash for the ads is coming from a PAC called Vet PAC and they’ve got some resources–upwards of $600,000. And that’s just the money spent on Bankhead’s behalf.
Democrats should be happy about that, shouldn’t they? Perhaps not. There’s a conspiracy theory going around that the Vet PAC is pushing Bankhead as the weaker candidate, which would–they say, favor Independent candidate Seth Bodnar. Their point is this: If Bodnar is to win the General Elections, he’ll need democratic votes to beat the heavily-funded and Trump-backed Kurt Alme.
This conspiracy theory, if true, could have the side-effect of passing I-194, the Montana Plan for getting dark money out of our state’s politics.
