ICYMI
“People Are Hungry for Change”: Seth Bodnar Joins Money Power Politics with Stephanie Ruhle
MISSOULA, MT — In case you missed it, Independent Senate candidate Seth Bodnar spoke with host of Money Power Politics Stephanie Ruhle about his path to victory in November, the coalition of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats he’s building in Montana, and how he will work across the aisle in Washington D.C. to lower costs and bring accountability to a broken political system.
Watch the full interview on Bodnar’s YouTube.
Here are key excerpts:
MS NOW: Independent Seth Bodnar Talks Montana Senate Race
Money Power Politics with Stephanie Ruhle
August 20, 2026
We've always been planning that this would be a four-way race, and we're building a coalition. It's always been the plan to serve the broad swath of Montana … the largest voting bloc in Montana right now is Independent. And this has always been about building a coalition of Independents, but also Democrats [and] Republicans.
People are fed up with a system that they feel like is rigged against them. You just had a segment on the national debt, [which is] $40 trillion … hard to contextualize. Well, a number that's a little bit easier to understand is $119,000 because that's the amount of debt that a newborn inherits as a result of the reckless spending happening in D.C. today. Both parties are to blame for that. You said it. Neither one seems to be addressing it.
Having an Independent that's running with both a Republican, and a Democrat, and a Libertarian gives [Montanans] an option for the type of change that people are hungry for right now in this country.
[Kurt Alme] got into this race through an insider backroom deal facilitated by MAGA insiders … He basically rigged a Republican primary to disenfranchise Montana voters. That didn't work in the days of the Copper Kings in Montana. It's not going to work now.
Montanans are hungry for honest leadership that's going to fight for them and not answer to DC insiders and party bosses like Kurt Alme is going to if he's in the U.S. Senate. People see through that nonsense.
We've outraised the Republican in this race, as of the last FEC deadline, two-to-one. We've outraised the Democrat about sixty-to-one. We have more individual donors from Montana—about four times as many—as the Republican … We have over 4,000 Montanans who have contributed; [more than] 1,900 volunteers, almost 30,000 people who signed a petition to get us on the ballot. We're building a movement here, and people across the political spectrum are being a part of it.
People are hungry for forward progress. They're tired of politicians who go to D.C., put a jersey on, and fight for a team—the Republicans or the Democrats. They want people who are going to work for them … I intend to work with both parties to move things forward to start addressing some of the challenges we're facing.
In this ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, we gave a trillion dollars of tax cuts to the wealthy in this country, while we made changes to Medicaid [that will result in] 30,000 Montanans to lose access to their health care. It's going to put rural hospitals into crisis. You can't farm and you can't live in a rural community; if you don't have a hospital; if you don't have schools, [Montanans are] seeing that rural America is not being served, and they're hungry for change, and and we're going to get a lot of those votes in our column this November.
Seth Bodnar is a Green Beret, business leader, and former president of the University of Montana running for the U.S. Senate to be an independent voice for Montana. Seth is guided by a lifelong commitment to duty, honor, and country. He graduated first in his class at West Point and served multiple overseas deployments, leading soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Special Forces Group, and serving as a special advisor to the commanding general in Iraq. After his military service and a successful career in business, Seth spent the last eight years leading the University of Montana. Under his leadership, the university achieved record high graduation rates, doubled research funding, launched the largest infrastructure renewal in campus history, restored financial stability, and was named the #1 military-friendly university in the country. Raised by two public school teachers, he believes leadership is about service, not party loyalty. Seth and his wife, a fifth-generation Montanan, are raising their three children in Montana.
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