Dear Editor: In Support of Seth Bodnar

Dear Editor,

I voted for Alani Bankhead in the Democratic primary because I didn't think the alternative was the better choice. That said, she wasn't my first choice-Seth Bodnar was, but he wasn't on the ballot. I had hoped Bankhead would recognize that much of her support came from voters looking for an alternative rather than from broad enthusiasm for her candidacy, and that she would step aside to give the strongest possible candidate a chance to turn the Senate seat purple.

Then, trying to understand her vision for flipping the seat from MAGA's stranglehold, I watched a recent podcast in which she said her plan to win the election was to ask everyone who voted for her to donate $5. Bankhead raised $45,000 in the second quarter of fundraising. Grassroots fundraising has its place. But this isn't the kind of money that makes this seat competitive, no matter how much activists may want it to be. Bodnar raised the majority of his $1.9 million in the second quarter from individual donations. Unfortunately, this is the money needed to flip this seat.

Are we better off putting parties over country? Tilting at Bernie's windmills even though I've seen firsthand Montana change over the past six years? As a democrat, I can clearly see that the only path for our values to survive is for anyone but MAGA to win this seat.

Democrats are outnumbered in this state. The population of disappointed Republicans appears to be growing. It could be any number of reasons in Trump's second term. Trump ran as a populist. Instead, he and his family commit breathtaking corruption to enrich themselves; fleece the treasury with legislation that has focused on giving a small number of billionaires more money; cost the rest of us thousands in tariffs and inflation, and have other insane policies that hurt wide swaths of people from farmers to the self-employed. Many independents and Republicans are looking for a different path and will not vote for Bankhead. They might consider Bodnar. I'm supporting Independent Seth Bodnar and hope that Bankhead will find a way to do the same.

STACY RYE

Missoula, Montana