On Tuesday, Julian Beaudion, the Democratic Senate nominee challenging South Dakota Republican incumbent Mike Rounds, dropped out in favor of independent Brian Bengs. This followed similar actions in Idaho and Nebraska.
In Idaho last week, Democratic nominee David Roth stood aside in favor of Todd Achilles, a former Democratic state legislator and an Army veteran, who is running as an independent against Republican Sen. Jim Risch.
Both Bengs and Achilles are long shots. Bengs was trounced when he ran as a Democrat against John Thune in 2022. And Idaho, one of the nation’s most Republican states, last sent a Democrat to the Senate, Frank Church, in 1974. Church was defeated in the 1980 GOP landslide, as was South Dakota’s George McGovern.
Nebraska is the one Western state where a Democrat has stepped aside in favor of an independent with a decent shot at winning. There, former trade union leader Dan Osborn, running as an independent, came within seven points of defeating Sen. Deb Fischer in 2024. This time, Osborn hopes to oust Nebraska’s other GOP senator, Pete Ricketts, in a year when the Trump undertow is likely to drag down Republicans.
But why does Osborn, who sounds a lot like a progressive Democrat, stand to do much better as an independent than as a Democrat?
The other day, I wrote that the story of a “damaged Democratic brand” is overstated, but there are some parts of the country, especially in the Prairie and Mountain West, where the Democratic label is plainly toxic.
Sometimes, the emergence of a progressive independent is bad for Democrats as a party, but in other cases there is symbiosis.
These are socially conservative states that used to send economically progressive Democrats to both houses of Congress. New Deal farm, public power, and economic development policies were good for the West. But the damage done to the Democratic brand by the combination of Democratic national leaders going left on cultural issues and right on corporate issues was especially potent in this part of the country.
Standing down in favor of an independent progressive who might win presents a bitter choice for Democrats. Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, chief strategy officer at Way to Win, a progressive campaign group, told the Prospect, “I don’t love it. I feel like short-term it can work but long-term it’s not helping. It might be fine in one-off places but it shouldn’t happen really broadly.”
Montana, for example, elected several Democrats not all that long ago. Jon Tester served three terms as senator beginning in 2006, and both Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock served two terms as governor, a 16-year run of Democrats in the governor’s mansion. But Republican Greg Gianforte became governor in 2020, Tester was defeated in 2024, and no Democrat currently holds statewide office.
This year, a rather weak candidate, Alani Bankhead, won the Democratic nomination for senator. An independent, Seth Bodnar, a former Green Beret and former University of Montana president, is running ahead of Bankhead in polls, in fundraising, and in endorsements. If both stay in, they will split the Democratic vote, and Republican nominee Kurt Alme will win easily. But if Bankhead steps aside, Bodnar has a good chance of winning the seat.
Bodnar has raised more than $3 million, and has just under a million on hand. Bankhead’s total fundraising is under $60,000.
The roster of Montana Democratic leaders who have endorsed Bodnar and urged Bankhead to step down is astonishing. They include former Democratic Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, and even a moderate former Republican governor, Marc Racicot (who endorsed Biden over Trump in 2020), as well as the Montana AFL-CIO. Nationally, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has said that Bankhead is not viable and they won’t work with her.
So far, Bankhead has refused to budge. The deadline for her to stand aside is next Monday, August 10.
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Basically, the choice of when and whether to exit in favor of an independent is tactical and situational. Each state is somewhat different, and the eclipse of the Democratic label is not necessarily permanent. Several states in the West, including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, are bluer than they once were. There is no movement in the Southwest to have independents displace Democrats.
The fact that Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine ran and won as independents did not harm the national party, and may have helped. Maine’s other senator, Susan Collins, is a Republican. Both independent senators caucus with the Democrats, and Sanders has been a major force pushing Democrats to embrace more progressive themes that can help them win.
Even heavily Republican states have blue dots, which can grow. If independent Dan Osborn does well statewide in Nebraska, he will help the Democrats carry the Omaha swing seat in the House. Sometimes, the emergence of a progressive independent is bad for Democrats as a party, but in other cases there is symbiosis. In Montana, if Bankhead exits and Bodnar wins, that will be good for other Montana Democrats.
Still, as a national strategy, substituting progressive independents for Democrats would be a recipe for killing the party. Fusion, the recipe of the Working Families Party, allows the best of both worlds: a party to the left of the Democrats that cross-endorses and pushes the Democrats to nominate progressives.
As strategist Fernandez put it, “I think Democrats can run against the party in a helpful way. You can say I think there are things I wish my party can do better like not caving and standing up to billionaires. You can tap into the anti-system mood without disavowing the party itself. This is a national party and we want to see people subscribe to it.”
