HELENA — One year before the 2024 U.S. Senate race in Montana, voters had already been seeing political ads on TV for more than three months. A year out from the 2026 Senate race, there hasn’t been nearly the same kind of attention on it.
Republican Sen. Steve Daines will be up for a third term in 2026. His last reelection campaign in 2020 was one of the most closely watched and expensive Senate races in the country – as were Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s races in 2018 and 2024. But after Daines defeated then-Gov. Steve Bullock by 10 points and Tester lost reelection by seven points to Sen. Tim Sheehy, national political analysts like the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections have projected Daines’ seat as safe for Republicans next year.
(Watch the video for more on next year's U.S. Senate race.)
Daines has been a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, and in April, Trump endorsed him for reelection on Truth Social.
“Steve Daines is a Great Man, and TREMENDOUS Senator, representing the Fantastic People of Montana,” he wrote. “I love Montana, won every one of my Races there by a landslide, and would only recommend the best to represent you in the Senate!”
Still, several Democratic candidates have come forward so far to challenge Daines. The first was Reilly Neill, a former state lawmaker from Livingston. In 2024, Neill spent several months on a write-in campaign for Montana’s eastern U.S. House seat, after she was frustrated that the Democratic nominee in the race chose not to raise or spend money on the campaign. As part of that effort, she traveled around central and eastern Montana holding town hall events.
“As soon as I stepped up to the plate and started going to communities around Montana – boy, there's so many people who haven't seen their congressional delegates in so long,” she said.
After the 2024 election, Neill immediately announced she planned to run for Senate in 2026. Since then, she says she’s held dozens more of those events with voters – arguing many Montanans don’t feel they’re getting adequate representation.
“If we have an entire congressional delegation that's simply not showing up, the first person to show up – they're going to get that engagement from Montanans,” said Neill. “They're going to be able to listen to their concerns and take their concerns to D.C. and represent them authentically. I think that we dropped the ball when it comes to being on the ground, especially in rural Montana – for Democrats and for Republicans, for both parties.”
Neill, 52, came to Montana in the late 1990s. She ran a weekly newspaper in Livingston for about ten years, and then published a free statewide publication called the Montana Press until the COVID pandemic. She was elected to the Montana House in 2012 and served one term. In 2019, she announced a campaign for governor, but she withdrew before the 2020 primary.
Neill says Montana voters are increasingly frustrated by impacts from tariffs, rising costs and threats to health care and public assistance. She says one of her top concerns is protecting the right to vote.
Last month, another Democrat announced a run against Daines: Michael Black Wolf, of Hays. He’s a first-time candidate for office and says he’s running because he believes average people aren’t getting what they need from their government.
“I just looked at the national landscape from a political lens, and just wasn't seeing the American dream coming down to the everyday, hardworking Montanans,” he said.
Black Wolf, 54, says he’s worked in a variety of jobs, from security guard to school bus driver to tutor. Since 2014, he’s worked for the Fort Belknap Indian Community as the tribal historic preservation officer. Earlier this year, he was planning to run for a seat on the tribal council this year, but he dropped out of that race and decided to take on a much bigger campaign.
Black Wolf says he’d bring a working-class perspective to Congress, but he’s not focusing on only one group.
“When I get out and I start campaigning, I'm really going to pay attention and hear what all demographics of Montanans have to say,” he said. “I want to hear their concerns, their issues, and then really start working on how I'm going to best benefit every Montanan – and not just a certain small 1% of Montanans.”
Black Wolf also identifies tariffs – which he calls “import taxes” – as a major concern for Montana. He argues the state’s members of Congress are out of touch with their voters’ priorities.
A third Democratic candidate has also filed campaign finance paperwork for the 2026 Senate race: Michael Hummert of Helena. In 2024, Hummert ran against Tester in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. MTN reached out to Hummert’s published campaign email address but did not hear back before this story aired.
In 2018, Montana’s U.S. Senate race saw at least $63 million in spending by candidates and outside groups. In the 2020 race, that grew to more than $150 million, and by 2024, the state saw well over $250 million spent. So far, there’s no indication that there will be anything like that type of spending in 2026.
MTN asked Neill and Black Wolf if they thought it would be a bigger challenge to take on a well-known incumbent without that type of advertising behind them.
Neill said campaigns do need money, and she argued it’s been a tougher task for Democrats to keep up since the Citizens United decision allowed unlimited spending from independent groups. However, she says the race is going to depend on the people, not on spending.
“We don't need $150 million to win an election in Montana,” she said. “We need to get on the ground and listen to citizens’ concerns, because there's an entire delegation that's not doing that.”
Black Wolf said he believes, if he’s the nominee, his tribal background could draw more interest and support from outside the state of Montana. He said he talked over a possible run for a long time with family and friends before deciding to go for it.
“I think one of my strengths is that I am very much a realist, and I know that this is going to be a very hard race, this is going to be a very long race – but at the same time, I think this is also a very winnable race,” he said.
