Local and state-level offices In 2004, Tranel unsuccessfully sought election as a Republican to the
Montana Public Service Commission while working as a staff attorney at the commission. After working at the commission for four years, Tranel worked for Republican Senator
Conrad Burns in
Washington, D.C., for a short time, before returning to
Butte, Montana, in 2005 and opening a private practice in 2006. She later left the Republican Party. She was defeated in the general election by
Montana Senator Jennifer Fielder, a Republican. In February 2026 as a supervisor attorney at the public defender's office in Missoula, Tranel submitted a burglary defense case filing composed with the help of
large language model tools. After the county prosecutor flagged the filing as
AI-generated without disclosure, Tranel withdrew it. Concerns had been raised in 2025 about insufficient fact-checking of, and possible
AI hallucinations contained in such documents, and the county policy subsequently required disclosure.
U.S. House of Representatives Tranel was the Democratic candidate for
Montana's 1st congressional district, running against
Ryan Zinke and John Lamb. During the lead-up to the
2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Montana, American vlogger
Hank Green interviewed Tranel in
Missoula and
Bozeman. Tranel lost to Zinke in the general election, receiving 46.5% of the vote to Zinke's 49.6%. In July 2023, Tranel announced her bid for Montana's first congressional district in 2024.
Montana Legislature In February 2026, Tranel announced she was running for the
Montana state legislature, representing House District 92. ==Personal life==