Senator Steve Daines just pulled the most beautifully executed bait-and-switch in Montana political history, and Democrats are already popping champagne over it. Two minutes before Montana’s filing deadline on Wednesday, Daines withdrew from his reelection race and endorsed Kurt Alme — Trump’s hand-picked U.S. Attorney who had filed for the seat just six minutes earlier.
Settle down, Democrats. You still can’t win Montana.
Here’s the play, and it was slick. Daines had officially filed for reelection four weeks ago. He had $4.9 million in the bank. Every Republican in Montana assumed he was running. Then, at the absolute last second, he stepped aside so that Alme — a Harvard Law grad, Billings native, and the guy Trump personally appointed to prosecute drug traffickers in Montana — could slide in unopposed.
The left-wing media immediately started hyperventilating. “Sixth Republican retirement!” they screamed. “The Senate is in play!” Rachel Maddow probably needed a paper bag.
The Democrats’ candidate, by the way, is Reilly Neill — a former one-term state legislator from Livingston who lost her reelection bid back in 2014. She ran a weekly arts and entertainment newspaper. That’s who’s going to flip a state where Trump just won by 20 points? In what universe?
Seth Bodnar, the former University of Montana president, jumped in as an independent and called Daines’s move “disgusting arrogance.” He accused party elites of trading power “like candy.” Buddy, that’s not arrogance — that’s succession planning. You know, the thing companies and political parties have done since the beginning of time.
President Trump didn’t waste a minute. He blasted out his “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Alme before the ink was dry on the filing paperwork. Alme already had endorsements from both Montana senators — Daines on the way out and Tim Sheehy, the guy who steamrolled three-term incumbent Jon Tester by 7 points just 16 months ago.
Now here’s what the media won’t tell you about these six Republican retirements. Look at who’s actually leaving: Mitch McConnell. He’s 84 years old and has been the face of everything the MAGA base has hated about the Republican establishment for a decade. Thom Tillis, who spent half his time publicly clashing with Trump. Joni Ernst, who went wobbly on DOGE and got primaried from the right. Cynthia Lummis — from Wyoming, a state so red it makes Montana look like Massachusetts. And Tommy Tuberville, who’s leaving to run for governor of Alabama, not because he’s scared.
You know what this list looks like? A roster of establishment Republicans clearing the bench so that younger, even more MAGA-aligned candidates can take their seats. Democrats see retirements and assume vulnerability. We should see retirements and think: upgrades.
Democrats like Rachel Maddow are lying to their base about their party’s chances of overturning these seats to overtake Congress. They need to flip four Senate seats to hit 51. (A 50-50 tie gets broken by Vice President Vance, so 50 doesn’t cut it.) Their realistic targets are Susan Collins in Maine, the open Tillis seat in North Carolina, the open seat in Ohio, and then… they start running out of road. Montana? Trump carried it by 20 points. Iowa? Trump won it by 13. Kentucky? McConnell’s successor will be a Republican. Wyoming? Please.
“But the retirements make these seats competitive!” No, they don’t. Here’s a fun historical fact the pundits won’t share with you: Republicans have historically won open Senate seats at a significantly higher rate than Democrats. The incumbency advantage matters — senators who run for reelection win about 88% of the time — but when both sides are running newcomers, Republicans do just fine in red states. Jon Tester was the last Democrat who could win statewide in Montana, and even he finally ran out of magic in 2024.
The real second-order effect here is one nobody on CNN wants to discuss. Every single one of these retiring senators will be replaced by someone further to the right. McConnell’s Kentucky seat isn’t going to some squishy moderate — it’s going to a MAGA Republican. Same in Wyoming. Same in Alabama. Same in Montana, where Alme carries Trump’s endorsement like a golden ticket. And very likely Republicans are going to win the open Ohio seat and Collins will win reelection in Maine.
Mark my words: when the dust settles in November 2026, the Republican Senate majority will be the same size or bigger — and it’ll be a whole lot more MAGA. Democrats aren’t watching a party in retreat. They’re watching a party reload.
The smart Democrats know this, which is why they’re throwing tantrums about the filing deadline maneuver instead of talking about their actual path to 51. It’s a lot easier to scream “disgusting arrogance!” than to explain how you’re going to flip four seats in states Trump carried by double digits.
Good luck with that, folks. We’ll be over here upgrading the roster.
