Daily Montanan

The Daily Montanan is a non-profit digital news organisation covering Montana politics and policy. It was founded in 2020 to address the decline of local political journalism in Montana following consolidation and closure of legacy newspapers, and operates as part of the State Newsrooms network of state-focused non-profit news outlets.

The Daily Montanan appeared in the 2026 midterm context as a cited source for the Steve Daines primary withdrawal story and Montana Senate race developments — precisely the kind of state-level political coverage that the outlet was created to provide. Montana's 2026 Senate race is the first open Senate contest in the state since 1976, making it an unusually significant state-level story.

The State Newsrooms network, of which the Daily Montanan is part, has become an important infrastructure for state political journalism in states where local commercial newspapers have scaled back coverage of government and elections.