HELENA — Just six months after the end of the hotly contested 2024 elections for Montana Supreme Court, there’s already a race developing for a seat opening up on the court in 2026.
(Watch the video to hear from the two candidates who've already launched Supreme Court campaigns.)
Associate Justice Beth Baker has another year and a half remaining in her second term on the Supreme Court, but she does plan to retire after that. Two candidates are already saying they’re interested in replacing her. Both acknowledge it’s going to seem early to many people, but they feel they need to start reaching voters immediately.
“It takes a lot of time and effort to get your message out across Montana, and I decided that I would take advantage of as much time as I could to get that message out,” said Dan Wilson, who announced his campaign in early April.
“I think it's particularly difficult and particularly important for nonpartisan candidates to have the opportunity to really get their message out the public and to the voters,” said Amy Eddy, who launched her campaign about a month later. “We don't have as much of an opportunity to do that just in our regular day-to-day lives.”
Wilson and Eddy have two big things in common: They’re both state district court judges, and they both serve in the 11th Judicial District, which covers Flathead County. In fact, they’ve served together for most of their time in office. Eddy was first appointed to the bench in 2015, and Wilson won his seat in 2016.
Wilson will be a familiar name to voters across the state. He ran for an associate justice position last year, losing to now-Justice Katherine Bidegaray. He believes that campaign will give him a jump start this time.
“When I started my campaign the last time and I spoke to people and introduced myself, told them my name, they'd say, ‘Who are you?’” he said. “This time around, they're saying, ‘We know who you are, we're very much in your favor, tell us how we can help.’ And that's really rewarding, and that's the foundation that I plan to build on and expand.”
Wilson describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” and says he’s opposed to judicial activism.
Before becoming a judge, Eddy worked 15 years in private practice, primarily on civil litigation. She says she’s handled more than 10,000 cases – not only in Flathead County, but across Montana – and she plans to lean on that experience in making her case to voters.
“Montanans deserve a justice who can be fair, experienced, balanced, and apply the rule of law equally to the facts of each dispute,” she said. “It's what I've been doing on the district court bench, and it's certainly what I’d do on the Montana Supreme Court to guard people's freedoms, protect the Constitution, hold criminal defendants accountable and give everyone a fair shake.”
Eddy says she wants to “keep politics out of the courtroom,” and preserve the nonpartisan nature of these campaigns.
The 2026 race will be the first judicial election after the Montana Legislature approved changes to the laws for those elections. The biggest change under consideration – allowing candidates to run with political party labels – didn’t pass, but the Legislature did repeal a law that prohibited parties from donating to judicial candidates. MTN asked both candidates how that change would affect the way they campaigned.
“While it might be legal for judges to accept political contributions by political parties, in my reading of the Code of Judicial Conduct, it is certainly not ethical nor judicial, and so I will not be accepting any money from political parties or partisan elected officials,” Eddy said. “The code doesn't specifically prevent me from accepting political contributions, but it does prevent me from accepting those endorsements, and that's a pretty close second to one another.”
“It's not going to change how I run the race, certainly, and most importantly, it's not going to change one bit how I approach the job,” said Wilson. “You know, I've heard people say we can't allow politics in the courtroom, and I agree with that 100%. But the way that we do that is elect judges who stand on principle, as opposed to those who pursue an agenda – because those with an agenda are sneaking in politics in one form or another, just in another name or without being quite candid or honest about what they're doing.”
Wilson and Eddy both reached out to Baker before announcing their bids. Baker told MTN she still has energy for the job and is looking forward to her next 18 months on the Supreme Court, but she felt it was a good time to step away rather than seeking another eight-year term.
Baker’s seat is the only Montana Supreme Court seat that will be up for election in 2026. In 2024, when two seats were open, the candidates together raised more than $1 million, and several million more in spending came from outside groups.
