Super PAC With Ties To Anti-Federal Land Movement Is Boosting A Montana GOP Senate Candidate
The outside group is painting Kurt Alme, the Trump-endorsed Republican running to replace outgoing Sen. Steve Daines, as a public land protector.
Since launching his bid for Senate in mid-March, Montana Republican Kurt Alme has said little about his agenda for America’s public lands, other than promising to “protect” them. Outgoing Republican Sen. Steve Daines handpicked Alme as his replacement in an 11th-hour maneuver that some condemned as a “backroom deal” that circumvented a competitive GOP primary.
Shortly after Alme entered the race, the American Leadership Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based super PAC tied to Daines, began running TV and radio ads touting Alme as someone who would fight for President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies in Congress, including “protecting Montana’s way of life — our public lands, our guns, our conservative values.”
Although the American Leadership Fund is now boosting Alme as a public lands champion, it has a history of funneling money to land transfer and sale advocates.
Alme’s campaign did not respond to Public Domain’s questions about his agenda for public lands if he is elected in November. Alme, who previously served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Montana and as budget director for Gov. Greg Gianforte, does not mention public lands on his campaign website.
“Kurt Alme talks a big game about protecting public lands, but he has entirely failed to put his money where his mouth is,” Gus Nathanson, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal super PAC, said in an email statement. “Alme’s financial ties to groups that want to sell off public lands prove that he is uninterested in honesty, transparency, or the best interests of Montanans.”
In 2024, the American Leadership Fund gave $1.35 million to Advancing American Freedom Inc., a nonprofit policy shop founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, according to its most recently available IRS filing. In its policy agenda, titled “American Freedom,” Advancing American Freedom calls for the federal government to “sell or donate millions of acres of federal land to the states” and to “advance state and local authority over common shared resources, public lands, and water rights.”
Advancing American Freedom also voiced support for Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s controversial and failed attempt last year to sell off millions of acres of public lands under the guise of combating America’s housing crunch. John Shelton, the nonprofit’s policy director, told the National Review at the time that making federal public lands available for sale “isn’t a brand new proposal by any stretch of the imagination,” pointing to the 1862 Homestead Act which opened up millions of acres across the West to settlers.
The American Leadership Fund did not respond to a request for comment.
At a campaign event last month in Roundup, Montana, Alme told a crowd that “we need to continue to protect public lands and private property,” without elaborating. And in a social media post last week, Alme wrote that he is “so grateful for our public lands!”
Montana’s Republican congressional delegation was widely credited with blocking Lee’s sell-off scheme from making it into last year’s sweeping budget bill. The recent shakeup in Montana’s 2026 elections — the last-minute withdrawal of Daines and Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke from their respective races — has raised questions about whether the so-called “Montana firewall” against federal land disposal will survive the midterms.
As Public Domain previously reported, Aaron Flint, a longtime conservative radio host and Trump-endorsed veteran running to replace Zinke, is painting himself a champion of federal public lands, despite having a history of calling for federal lands to be transferred to state control.
Montanans deeply oppose federal land sales and transfers. A survey released last month and conducted by the University of Montana found that 84% of Montana voters support a ban on the sale or transfer of national public lands.
Yet, the Montana Republican Party platform still calls for “relinquishing federally managed public lands to the states in order to secure statehood equality and provide for better management of public lands.”
Alex Blackmer, a spokesperson for Wild Montana Action Fund, wrote in an email to Public Domain that Alme’s situation “represents something we see way too often in Montana: candidates saying one thing about their commitment to protecting public lands to get elected, and then doing the opposite once they’re in office.”
“Candidates know that publicly supporting privatizing public lands makes them unelectable … so they campaign on their commitment to protecting them,” Blackmer wrote in an email statement. “At the same time, they’re taking money from shady groups that want to sell them out from under us. They expect us not to notice. And once they’re elected, they’re indebted to these groups. Guess who they’ll listen to and take meetings with?”
C’mon Montana. Prove to us you value OUR public lands