Senator Steve Daines and his just-in-time withdrawal from the Senate race

Please follow us on X and Telegram

Montana politics, like a good rodeo, occasionally features some creative riding. But lately, it’s started to look less like bull riding and more like musical chairs—with the music stopping suspiciously close to the filing deadline.

In a couple of recent high-profile races for U.S. House and U.S. Senate, voters got a front-row seat to a curious maneuver: the last-minute candidate switcheroo. Most notably, when Senator Steve Daines withdrew from consideration and Kurt Alme was slotted in just minutes before the filing deadline, it didn’t just raise eyebrows—it practically required a neck brace.

The effect? Potential opponents, who had reasonably planned their candidacies around facing an incumbent, suddenly found themselves locked out of the race entirely. It’s a bit like training all year to wrestle a grizzly, only to discover at the last second you’ve been switched into a cage match with… well, someone else entirely—and the door is already locked.

Now, to be fair, politics has never been a sanctuary of pure innocence. Strategic decisions are part of the game. But there’s a difference between strategy and what many Montanans would recognize as procedural gamesmanship with a wink and a stopwatch.

That’s why it may be time for Montana to borrow a page from North Carolina—a place not typically known for lecturing others on restraint in politics, which makes this all the more noteworthy.

North Carolina’s statute (§ 163-106.4) requires candidates to withdraw no later than the third business day before the filing deadline. In plain English: if you’re going to bow out, you need to do it early enough that everyone else still has a fair shot to jump in. If you miss that window, your name stays on the ballot—no take-backs, no refunds, no last-minute vanishing acts.

It’s a simple rule with a powerful effect. It prevents candidates from lingering just long enough to size up the competition, only to disappear at the final buzzer and clear the field for a preferred replacement. In other words, it shuts down the ol’ “wait-and-see-then-pull-the-rug” maneuver.

Montana could use a bit of that clarity. Not because our elections are uniquely problematic, but precisely because they shouldn’t be. The integrity of the process matters just as much as the outcome, and voters tend to get a little cranky when the process starts to resemble a shell game at the county fair.

A similar law here wouldn’t favor Republicans or Democrats—it would favor predictability, fairness, and, dare we say, a little less drama. Candidates would still have every right to run, withdraw, or rethink their life choices—but they’d have to do so on a timetable that doesn’t leave everyone else standing outside the filing office, metaphorically pounding on the door.

Because at the end of the day, elections shouldn’t hinge on who has the best ideas for public service—and the fastest stopwatch.