Steve Daines is done. After 13 years in Congress, the Montana Republican announced Wednesday he will not seek a third Senate term, becoming the sixth GOP senator to take a pass on the 2026 midterms. He made the decision himself, framed it on his own terms, and already handed his party a path forward.
In a video posted to X, Daines kept it clean and direct:
Serving the people of Montana in the US House and US Senate the past 13 years has been the greatest honor of my professional career, and I am grateful to God for allowing me to serve. But after much careful thought, I have decided not to seek re-election.
There was no drama, no bitter exit, no score-settling. Just a 64-year-old senator who built something real in Montana deciding it was someone else's turn to carry it.
President Trump didn't wait, the New York Post reported. Within hours of the announcement, he took to Truth Social to eulogize Daines's tenure and name his successor in the same breath. Trump called Daines "one of our truly Great United States Senators" and said he "did a job like few others are capable of doing." Then he went straight to business.
He has decided to leave the Senate and, 'pass the torch' to Kurt Alme, my TRUMP 45 and TRUMP 47 U.S. Attorney. But, Kurt is exceptional, and I will be giving him, based on Steve's strongest recommendation, my Complete and Total Endorsement.
That endorsement carries real weight in Montana. Trump's backing has moved races across the country, and in a state that has trended sharply red, a Trump-endorsed candidate with prosecutorial credentials enters as an immediate frontrunner. Alme filed to run just minutes before the Tuesday night candidate deadline, according to Politico. He didn't wander into this race. He was positioned for it.
First elected in 2014, Daines spent his most recent off-cycle years running the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2023 to 2025. Under his chairmanship, Republicans flipped four Senate seats in the 2024 cycle. That is a concrete result, not a talking point. Daines leaves the NRSC post having delivered, and he leaves his own seat with a hand-picked successor already in the race and a presidential endorsement attached.
Montana's junior senator, Tim Sheehy, himself a product of the 2024 wave that knocked out Democrat Jon Tester, put the moment in plain terms:
Doing something we don't often see in modern politics: stepping down at the height of his power to clear the way for a new generation of leaders.
Sheehy is right that this is rare. Most senators stay until the voters or the actuarial tables remove them. Daines is walking away while he still has leverage, relationships, and the president's respect. That is not weakness. That is discipline.
Daines is the sixth Republican senator to announce he won't run in the November midterms. He joins Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on the list of retiring Republicans. Six open seats in a single cycle is not trivial. It requires strong candidate recruitment, deep party infrastructure, and a favorable electoral map to protect the majority.
Montana, at least, looks manageable. The state has moved decisively toward Republicans at the federal level, and a U.S. Attorney with a direct presidential endorsement is a formidable starting position. The seat Daines is vacating is not the vulnerability on the board.
Whether the rest of the open seats hold is the larger question Republicans will be working through for the next several months. Daines, by stepping aside early and steering the party toward Alme, at least removed one variable from that equation.
Thirteen years, four flipped seats, and a smooth succession. That's a career worth honoring.
