GOP Sen. Steve Daines’ last-minute withdrawal from Senate race was meant to block Democrats from fielding a top-tier recruit

GOP Sen. Steve Daines made the last-minute decision to abruptly pull out of his Senate race to prevent Democrats from fielding a top recruit for the open Montana seat, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Daines was aware that if he withdrew too soon then Democrats would have a chance at fielding one of several potential Democrats — namely former Sen. Jon Tester or former Govs. Brian Schweitzer or Steve Bullock. Any of those Democrats could have put the state on the map in the midterms and likely have sucked up enormous cash, as Democrats have done in red states like Alaska and Ohio, scrambling the race for the majority in the fall.

Instead, Daines withdrew from the race minutes before the Wednesday evening filing deadline. Kurt Alme, who was US attorney in Montana, filed to run eight minutes before the deadline. With the deadline closed, no top-tier Democrat can now jump in the race.

While Daines taped a video recently in Montana explaining his decision not to run, he didn’t know until after Alme resigned as US attorney Wednesday afternoon that he planned to run for the seat, the sources said. Daines planned to run for a third term if Alme had passed on a bid, according to the sources.

President Donald Trump was aware of the internal deliberations, as were Senate GOP leaders, and the president issued a Truth Social post praising Daines and endorsing Alme minutes after the filing deadline closed.

Trump said on social media that Daines had decided to “pass the torch” to Alme.

Democrats sharply criticized Daines and the GOP for engineering a move to anoint a successor and deny voters a chance to consider from an array of candidates, including in the primary. But it resembles a similar move made last year by Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia in Illinois.

The timing of the announcement quickly drew criticism from another candidate in the race, independent Seth Bodnar, who said in a statement that Daines “has so little respect for Montana Republicans that he withdrew at the last minute to coronate his handpicked successor instead of giving them a voice at the ballot box.”

CNN reached out to Daines’ office for comment.