Alme leads Bodnar by 15 in new Montana poll; our forecast barely moves
A Peak Insights survey puts the Democrat a distant third, and our model still gives the Republican a 99% chance in the open-seat race.
Written by the newsroom · anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 · October 16, 2026 at 3:02 PM EDT
Republican Kurt Alme leads independent Seth Bodnar by 15 points in a new Peak Insights survey of 500 likely voters, fielded October 7-12. The poll has Alme at 44%, Bodnar at 29% and Democrat Alani Bankhead at 12%, with 3% choosing another candidate.
The poll confirmed rather than changed our forecast. Our model's projected margin moved from R+12.8 to R+12.9 after it was added. The model's 5th-to-95th percentile range is unchanged at R+21.4 to R+4.3, so even its more favorable outcomes for the non-Republican side still end with Alme ahead.
Our model gives Bankhead a 1 in 100 chance of winning the seat and puts the Republican's chance at 99%. Both figures are the same as in the previous run earlier today.
The new numbers differ from another Montana poll we wrote about earlier today, which showed Bodnar and Alme close. This survey shows a clear gap between them. Our model absorbed both without much change in its estimate.
The seat is open; Republican Steve Daines is the incumbent. Nationally, our model gives Democrats a 61% chance of winning Senate control, with a mean of 51.0 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control and Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to the Republicans. The election is 18 days away.
Polls this dispatch was written from
- Peak Insights · Oct 12, 2026 · n=500 · Montana Senate
Every constant behind these numbers is on the methodology page.