Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Alme is calling on independent candidate Seth Bodnar to return the $1.76 million his campaign has raised through ActBlue, accusing Bodnar of concealing his political leanings while relying heavily on the Democrat fundraising platform.
“Seth Bodnar wants to hide who he really is while his campaign runs on liberal ActBlue cash. He is a far-left Democrat in Disguise with a record of supporting higher taxes, open borders, boys in girls’ sports, defunding the police, and radical woke DEI. It’s time Bodnar comes clean with Montana voters and puts his money where his mouth is,” Alme told Breitbart News.
First Lady Michelle Obama chats with US Army veteran Seth Bodnar October 16, 2012, before the candidates arrive on stage for the second presidential debate at the David Mack Center at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports show Bodnar has raised $1.76 million through ActBlue. Filings this week show his campaign raised nearly $154,000 through the platform in July. Bodnar’s campaign had raised more than $3.2 million through June 30, 2026, according to FEC filings. Roughly half of Bodnar’s total contributions have come through ActBlue.
ActBlue, founded in 2004, says it has raised more than $19 billion for Democrat candidates and causes. The platform also allows some independent candidates to use its services, including Bodnar, based on if candidates have demonstrated alignment with Democrat policies and priorities.
Bodnar, who is running as an independent, previously registered to vote as a Democrat in Connecticut, donated to Democrats, attended a 2012 presidential debate with Michelle Obama, relies on ActBlue for fundraising, and has staffed his campaign with Democrats.
Seth Bodnar, an independent candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Montana, speaks to supporters and the press outside the Yellowstone County Courthouse, August 7, 2026, in Billings, Montana. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)
He has also been described as “an early champion for transgender athletes at the University of Montana.” During Bodnar’s tenure as president of the University of Montana, the school had its first transgender athlete compete in Division I cross country.
Former Montana Democrat Gov. Brian Schweitzer recounted a conversation he had with Bodnar after spending hours urging him to run as a moderate Democrat.
“Bodnar explained to me, ‘I’m not completely a Democrat — I have other ideas.’ I said: ‘Really! It sounds like a Democrat from Montana,’” Schweitzer told the New York Times.
The Atlantic reported that Democrat supporters of Bodnar have operated on the “wink-and-nod assumption that he will help Democrats seal a majority, like Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both independents who caucus with Democrats.”
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Inside Elections reported that nearly $6 million flowed this year into three super PACs supporting Bodnar: Progressive Vet PAC, Montana Freedom PAC, and Montanans for Public Lands.
Progressive Vet PAC “ostensibly supported [Alani] Bankhead in the Democratic primary, but all available evidence points to its true candidate being Bodnar,” according to Inside Elections.
The funders identified in the report included Contours, Inc., which contributed $2.6 million; Western Futures Fund, which contributed $825,000; and Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, which contributed $200,000. Way Back PAC and American Values Project PAC added another $1.1 million.
Contours received $6.6 million from Global Impact in 2024 and has granted at least $750,000 to Western Futures. Those organizations, Inside Elections reported, sit at the end of a funding trail that includes the Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund, which it described as “some of the most well-known names in liberal dark money circles.”
“All of these candidates (and the voters) will have to contend as well with the question of how independent a candidate can be if they’re being funded by Democratic donors and running in most cases as the de facto Democratic nominee,” Inside Elections noted.
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Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) announced in March that he would not seek reelection. Daines said serving Montana in the House and Senate had been the greatest honor of his professional career and said he was “thankful to have served alongside” President Donald Trump. Trump praised Daines as “one of our truly Great United States Senators” and endorsed Alme, describing him as “an exceptional person.” Trump said he was endorsing Alme based on Daines’s “strongest recommendation,” writing, “Kurt Alme is an exceptional person, and will do a fantastic job as your next United States Senator from the Great State of Montana — HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!”
Alme maintains a commanding lead, with the latest polling average showing him 18 points ahead.
Breitbart News reported in July that Bodnar was weighing whether or not to withdraw from the race before the August 10 deadline if Democrat nominee Alani Bankhead remained on the ballot. Polling at the time showed Alme leading both candidates, including a GrayHouse survey that put Alme at 41 percent, Bankhead at 25 percent, and Bodnar at 17 percent, while an NRSC-commissioned poll had Alme at 45 percent, Bankhead at 30 percent, and Bodnar at 15 percent.
Ahead of the withdrawal deadline, establishment Democrats reportedly pressured Bankhead and members of her family to encourage her to leave the race and clear a path for Bodnar. Matthew Foldi of the Washington Reporter obtained leaked documents urging Democrats “who have relevant relationships” to pressure Bankhead to withdraw and listing her father, mother, brother, stepdaughter, and friends as targets of the effort, while NPR reported that prominent Democrats were pushing Bankhead to step aside for Bodnar.
Neither Bankhead nor Bodnar ultimately withdrew before the August 10 deadline, leaving Alme, Bankhead, and Bodnar in the race.
ActBlue has also faced congressional scrutiny over its handling of donations. In April, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Republicans were investigating suspected foreign contributions through the platform, which has raised billions of dollars for Democrats each election cycle.
ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones agreed in May to testify before the House Administration Committee as lawmakers investigated the platform’s donor-verification and fraud-prevention practices. An interim House Republican staff report said five current or former ActBlue employees had invoked their Fifth Amendment rights a combined 146 times during congressional depositions.
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During her June 10 testimony, Wallace-Jones repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when Jordan questioned her about alleged foreign donations, ActBlue’s fraud controls, and the departure of its legal team. She also declined to say how many foreign contributions ActBlue had accepted. A congressional staff report had accused the platform of accepting illegal foreign donations during the 2024 election cycle and covering up the activity.
Before the hearing, Wallace-Jones wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that invoking the Fifth Amendment was not an admission or insinuation of guilt and argued the investigation amounted to harassment of a political opponent’s fundraising platform.
Later in June, Jordan, House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) threatened ActBlue with contempt of Congress over what they described as inadequate compliance with subpoenas. The lawmakers said ActBlue had withheld documents responsive to subpoenas seeking records involving alleged misconduct, whistleblower retaliation, and departures from its legal team, while ActBlue asserted attorney-client privilege over hundreds of documents.
ActBlue also drew attention in April after reports that Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect accused in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting, had donated $25 through the platform in October 2024, with the contribution earmarked for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. According to the Los Angeles Times, it was Allen’s only political donation listed on the FEC website during the previous decade. Officials had not publicly identified a motive for the shooting.