Daines' Senate handoff poised to pay off

• Strategists in both parties expect Republican Kurt Alme to prevail over the two quasi-Democrats in the race: independent Seth Bodnar and Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead.

Flashback: Minutes before Montana's 5pm filing deadline on March 4, Daines announced his retirement.

• It was one of Washington's best-kept secrets.
• Alme, Daines' chosen replacement, had had a few hours to make his decision and file his candidacy papers.
• He filed eight minutes before the deadline. Daines then withdrew, announced his retirement in a slick video and endorsed Alme. Endorsements from Sen. Tim Sheehy (R) and President Trump quickly followed.

Democrats howled at the chicanery. Republicans basked — and then bragged — about their strategy.

• "My goal here was to try to make this race as least expensive as possible, given there's a lot of expensive races on the map," Daines told Semafor at the time.
• "This was all about preventing this race from escalating into another $200-300 million race."

The other side: Bodnar, the former president of the University of Montana, accused Daines of denying Montana Republicans a meaningful opportunity to choose their nominee.

• But Daines and his team could hardly have envisioned how well their plan would work.
• National Democrats wanted to clear the field for the "independent" Bodnar, but the candidate who won the actual Democratic primary, Bankhead, had other plans.
• "I can't be bought or bullied out of this race. But the back room tried," she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.