Seth Bodnar, Montana

Seth Bodnar is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Montana in 2026 and the former president of the University of Montana. A graduate of West Point who finished first in his class, he was a Rhodes and Truman Scholar earning two master's degrees at Oxford, served as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army's First Special Forces Group with deployments including Iraq, and later worked as an executive at General Electric before leading the University of Montana from 2018 to 2026. He resigned the university presidency in January 2026 to launch his Senate campaign against Republican incumbent Steve Daines, running as an independent and emphasizing an outsider message focused on affordability and reducing partisan gridlock.