August 25, 2026 - Court Clears Trump Mail-In Voting Order

On Monday I hosted Seth Bodnar on SiriusXM, simulcast on C-SPAN2. Callers were impressed. If you were casting a U.S. Senate candidate, you'd pick him: West Point graduate, Rhodes scholar at Oxford, infantry officer in Iraq, Green Beret, businessman, most recently president of the University of Montana. He's married to a pediatrician and they're raising three kids. And he's running in Montana as a true independent. Last Saturday on CNN, my guest was Todd Achilles, running as an independent for Senate in Idaho — another impressive résumé.

But here's the thing. In Idaho, South Dakota and Nebraska, Democrats looked at the arithmetic and got out of the way. In Nebraska, the Democratic nominee quit so Dan Osborn could take on Pete Ricketts one-on-one. In South Dakota, retired Air Force officer Brian Bengs has the lane against Mike Rounds. In Alaska, the Democrat withdrew, too. Each time the calculation was the same: we can't win, so let's not be the reason someone else loses.

Montana is the exception. The Democrat there is polling third with no realistic path — and is still on the ballot, splitting the very votes Bodnar needs.

Does it work? Osborn lost Nebraska in 2024 by seven points in a state Trump carried by 21. That's the case for it. The case against: no independent has won a Senate seat this way. Orman in Kansas, Gross in Alaska, McMullin in Utah all polled better than they finished, because red-state Republicans came home in the end.

But consider the payoff. For two years, a single Joe Manchin — who ended his career as an independent — decided what the Senate would and would not do. Now imagine three of him. Instead of the fringes calling the shots, both parties would have to appease the independents. I say run that experiment!

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