Micah Drew, Daily Montanan

Nine Republican state senators who were stripped of their ability to vote for GOP party leadership during a state convention last month have lodged a protest with the party, requesting the elections be nullified.

In a continuation of a feud that began during the 2025 Legislative session, divisions within the state Republican party were on full display during the June convention.

The nine senators — Jason Ellsworth, Hamilton; Bruce Gillespie, Etheridge; Gregg Hunter, Glasgow; Josh Kassmier, Fort Benton; Gayle Lammers, Hardin; Denley Loge, St. Regis; Wendy McKamey, Great Falls; Russ Tempel, Chester; and Shelley Vance, Belgrade — all broke with the majority of their party in a series of votes taken in conjunction with Democrats to establish Senate rules and move forward large pieces of legislation, including the state’s budget. Many bills the Nine championed were priorities of Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration.

The GOP Executive Committee censured the Nine during the session, saying they no longer considered them to represent Republican values. Members of the Nine, however, have argued their views represent the true identity of the GOP.

During the convention, Sen. Barry Usher of Yellowstone County made a motion to approve all credentialed delegates except for the Nine, a motion backed by fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jane Gillette, of Three Forks, and approved by a majority of delegates. The vote to elect Art Wittich as the new party chair and additional members of leadership went forward without the votes from the Nine or their proxies.

The disenfranchised senators “represent the thousands of Montana Republicans committed to Republican values who elected those Senators to speak for them,” states the letter of protest sent by lawyer Joan Mell on behalf of the Nine. “The Republican Party is not the party of extremists. As Senators they had the right to vote and participate in the party process. The wholesale disregard of fundamental party voting rights embodied in the Bylaws may not be left unaddressed.”

The letter requests party leaders reconvene the convention to correct the “parliamentary snafu that left these Senators voiceless and emboldened the Freedom Caucus PAC faction to pursue its manifesto.” Mell further accuses the Freedom Caucus members of “bullying” and “exclusionary tactics through subterfuge, surprise and intimidation.”

When Usher made his motion during the convention, then-party Chairman Don Kaltschmidt ruled it out of order, but Gillette successfully demanded the ruling be put to a vote.

Mell said in her letter that Gillette’s motion should have also been ruled out of order, and requested a response within 10 days.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Montana GOP said: “It’s clear these nine senators represent a small minority within our party. The Montana Republican Party remains focused on empowering conservative voters and advancing the principles Montanans elected us to uphold. The letter has been referred to our legal counsel and the rules committee for review. We’ll have more to say soon.”

Speaking to the Daily Montanan on Tuesday, Mell said that it’s clear in the party bylaws that senators have a right to cast votes in party elections, and to remove that power requires changing the bylaws, not a simple vote during the convention.

“You can’t do that on a whim,” she said.

If a senator wanted to make such a motion, Mell said, they should have put out a notice before the meeting, or convened the rules committee to determine whether such a motion could be made.

“The tragic thing is that they are nine members of the Legislature who have all been elected by Montana voters, to have their voice and vote,” Mell said.

Mell addressed her letter to both the current and former party chair, though she told the Daily Montanan she believes Kaltschmidt has the “burden of acting on it.”

Wittich, who earned 140 votes to Stacey Zinn’s 94, said in remarks following his election that he looked forward to bright days for the party ahead.

“We’re a red state. We could become a bright red state,” he said. “And we can do it without dividing and subtracting. We can grow.”

The Montana Farmers Union on Monday filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by four Blackfeet Nation tribal members seeking an injunction against the Trump administration’s tariffs on Canada.

The organization, which has been around since 1912, said that joining the case was a way to continue fighting “on behalf of family farmers and ranchers.”

“The executive branch has overstepped its constitutional and statutory authority on these tariffs. Montana farmers and ranchers can’t afford any more uncertainty or any more financial stressors – especially not random tariffs,” MFU President Walter Schweitzer said in a press release.

Plaintiffs State Sen. Susan Webber and Jonathan St. Goddard, both enrolled members of the Blackfeet Nation, originally filed the lawsuit in federal court earlier this month against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the United States of America, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, arguing that the tariffs levied by the administration against Canada violates Indigenous treaty rights and exceeds presidential authority.

The suit claims the tariffs violate a 1794 treaty exempting tribes along the United States-Canadian border from being taxed or levied on goods between the nation. It also challenges the Trump administration’s ability to use emergency powers to bypass Congress to impose tariffs. Trump has declared that the fentanyl drug crisis at America’s borders constitute a national emergency, though Customs and Border Patrol have only seized 19 kilograms of fentanyl coming from Canada compared to 9,600 kilograms coming from Mexico.

Monday’s step to intervene was taking action for Montana family farmers and ranchers who “are facing dire financial and mental impacts if the tariffs remain in effect,” according to the release.

“MFU’s members rely on a predictable and stable trade market and the tariffs imposed by the President not only exceed the President’s constitutional and statutory authority, they’ve ‘wallop[ed]’ the agricultural community in Montana, as no one can ‘plan or prepare,’” the proposed complaint states.

“Because of the President’s tariffs, their goods will be more expensive to export, which will result in reduced profits and lost customers. Even worse, farms and ranches that have been in families for generations must be sold simply because the President’s isolationist and unlawful approach is incongruous with the international market with which these farmers and ranchers have been dealing and relying upon for decades. MFU’s members do not have robust markets in the United States for the crops they grow and those markets cannot be developed overnight,” according to court filings.

According to the Office of United States Trade Representative, Montana’s largest market is Canada, with $869 million in goods exported to the state’s northern neighbor in 2024 — 37% of total exports.

The top agricultural exports to Canada in 2024 included $113 million in live cattle; $106 million in dried legumes, $25 million in brewing and distilling dregs, $10.2 million in barley, and $10.1 million in cigarettes, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The complaint from MFU mentions several members who have been impacted by the tariffs.

One member, John Wicks, a fourth generation farmer from Liberty County, said he was in contractual discussions with a cross-border trading partner for his organic lentils, but was told they could not enter into a contract due to the instability of the trade market before the tariffs were imposed. Specifically, “if American tariffs were going to be implemented, the partner would not take the crops,” harming Wicks financially, according to court filings

“Our Canadian partners either won’t buy our crops or are offering significantly lower prices than our partners in the United States. Our partners in the United States know that our Canadian partners are doing this and are capitalizing on it by offering lower prices, so we’re getting squeezed,” Wicks wrote in a declaration of support for MFU’s filing.

As of Wednesday afternoon, District Court Judge Dana Christensen had not issued a ruling on whether he would allow Montana Farmers Union to intervene. A hearing for the preliminary injunction will be held next Thursday at the Missouri River Federal Courthouse in Great Falls. Attorneys for the federal government have filed a motion to move the case to the Court of International Trade in New York, arguing the District Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over tariffs, but attorneys for the plaintiffs responded that case can be rightfully heard at the District Court as the lawsuit is over the constitutionality of executive orders.

“Farmers and ranchers have invested decades in developing reliable markets for our products,” Schweitzer said in the press release. “Overnight, these random tariffs have destroyed markets that will take decades to rebuild. This is why the authority to impose tariffs resides in Congress because it provides a forum for public debate and input and ensures the benefit outweighs the harm.”

by Micah Drew, Daily Montanan

March 26, 2025

Montana Senate President Matt Regier hired legal counsel in accordance with state statutes and procurement rules, and in close and “ongoing” consultation with legislative services staff, contrary to allegations of waste and abuse, according to a memo published by the Legislative Audit Division and released Wednesday.

The audit division examined six allegations leveled against Regier and for all six found that the “allegation of fraud, waste and abuse to be not substantiated.”

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Regier had previously called the allegations a “witch hunt,” and said every action he took was “100% legal and business as normal.”

On Wednesday, Regier told the Daily Montanan the audit report found exactly what he expected — nothing. He spoke to reporters at a press conference later that afternoon.

“I’m glad to see the Legislative Audit Report fully bring to light all the false allegations that have been thrown,” Regier said.

“I sleep well at night. Everything, everything was up and up,” he added. This was the second time the legislative auditor investigated a sitting senator. A January audit memo found former Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, committed waste and abuse while procuring a $170,100 contract for a close friend and business associate, while skirting standard procurement rules.

Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade, brought forth the allegations against Regier during a March 6 floor session just before transmittal break. She originally requested the Senate convene an ethics committee to investigate her claims, but a substitute motion was made to send it to the audit division, following the same pathway as Ellsworth’s allegations.

Vance, an ally of Ellsworth, cited an article by the Montana Free Press published earlier this month, which laid out a series of actions current Senate President Regier, R-Kalispell, took during the 2023 session and interim period when he hired a lawyer using taxpayer funds — appropriately, according to the memo released Wednesday.

Friday, the Montana Republican Party released a statement condemning the article and calling for retraction. During his press conference, Regier called MTFP’s story “full of unsourced, untrue, legal conclusions, inaccuracies, contradictional claims and baseless innuendo,” and said he had made his own request for corrections and retractions.

MTFP Editor-in-Chief John Adams said the Free Press stands by its reporting, did not allege misconduct by anyone, and the auditor’s findings “confirm the accuracy of our original reporting.”

“Our March 5 report raised timely and legitimate questions about public spending, contracting procedures, and legislative accountability,” Adams said in a written statement.

Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, February 12, 2025. (Nathaniel Bailey for the Daily Montanan)

The audit memo investigated the six allegations Vance brought forth predicated on the Free Press article, including whether the president tried to evade the law in hiring an attorney; engaged in waste, fraud and abuse in hiring a lawyer; unlawfully used state resources related to a private matter; and failed to disclose a conflict of interest, among other allegations the report could not substantiate.

The auditor’s memo, authored by Legislative Auditor legal counsel Ken Varns, said the audit division examined the article, and conducted interviews with Regier, Deputy Director of Legislative Services Division Legal Services Jaret Coles, and Angie Carter, financial manager for LSD.

The report also examined legal contracts and invoices submitted by Abby Moscatel of Blacktail Law Group, the attorney Regier hired. The audit investigation found Regier properly hired legal staff, that contracts were executed using authorized funding, and that contracts had proper signatories.

The investigation further found that the allegation of waste, fraud and abuse, when Regier hired Moscatel for tasks routinely done by legislative staff, were unsubstantiated.

“President Regier consulted with and obtained approval from Legislative Services when engaging outside counsel,” the memo states.

“Legislative leadership has authority to obtain outside counsel for legal services, which can include tasks typically performed by nonpartisan legislative staff,” the memo continues. “Because existing legal authority allows for these activities and due to President Regier’s ongoing reliance on Legislative Service’s guidance relating to these contracts, we find the allegations of fraud, waste and abuse set forth in the second allegation to be not substantiated.”

The allegation that Regier hired Moscatel for work related to two constitutional initiatives in 2024 using state funds was also unfounded, according to the memo.

In its call for retractions to the MTFP article, the state GOP stated that the party had paid for legal services related to those lawsuits.

The investigation further found that Regier did not engage in any attempts to artificially deflate expenses to evade spending limits — an allegation that was leveled against Ellsworth and identified as problematic by the Legislative Audit Division.

The memo states that the cumulative value of work done by Moscatel was $22,980, which even were it not broken down between multiple, specific contracts, would not require the contracts to undergo a competitive bidding process according to state procurement laws. It further stated that all legal and financial staff “made appropriate decisions or recommendations” throughout the contracting process.

Another question about Regier’s failure to disclose a conflict of interest in a Senate Bill 352, brought to offer immunity to legislative staff, had “no clear linkage” to the work Moscatel was hired to do.

“It is difficult to discern a conflict of interest in this scenario,” the memo states.

Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalisppell, speaks to reporters in the Montana State Capitol on March 26, 2025. (Micah Drew/Daily Montanan)

On Wednesday afternoon, Vance said she had not yet read the memo, but when told all six allegations were considered “not substantiated,” she declined to comment.

Ellsworth, who has been on the opposite side of an intra-party division as Regier that has roiled the Senate this session, said he had read parts of the memo and that they are “totally inaccurate.” He said he would still like to see the matter referred to the Ethics Committee.

“I trusted that the Auditor would do his job. I verified that the Auditor has not done his job,” Ellsworth said, also taking issue with the fact that the auditor released findings on Ellsworth after just one week, while Regier’s investigation took three.

The Legislative Audit Division said it is not typical practice to publish findings on unsubstantiated reports to its fraud hotline, but the public nature of the current investigation — stemming from a vote on the Senate floor — led to a public document.

“Accordingly, although we will not be making any further public comments on this matter or releasing our investigative documents, we believe the enclosed memo is a public document and can be disclosed by Senate leadership,” said Legislative Auditor Angus Maciver said.

At the press conference, Regier called for apologies from the Free Press and Sen. Vance, not for himself, but for “victims of their actions,” including legislative staff and Moscatel, a private citizen. He also said he remains committed to making legislative and budget appropriations processes as transparent as possible, even in the face of misinformation.

“I remain committed to rooting out corruption and unethical behavior at the Legislature and also in this state government, and I’m going to continue to do that no matter what the retaliation or false allegations are to anyone that tries to shoot me next time,” Regier said.

audit memo Regier

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

by Micah Drew, Daily Montanan

March 24, 2025

A majority of Montana Senators on Monday voted to expel Sen. Jason Ellsworth, the Hamilton Republican who has been under ethical and criminal investigations related to a contract he procured late last year, but the motion failed to reach the two-thirds majority required to punish or expel a lawmaker.

The result disappointed the majority of Republicans who sought to expel Ellsworth and left the body in limbo about how to proceed after substitute motions for a censure failed along the same 27-23 margins.

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“We are here under the Constitution. It’s our duty. We are here to judge this,” said Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, who urged the body to vote for expulsion. “To me, this is the most important decision I have ever made in my entire legislative career. End of discussion. It far exceeds any other bill that we are going to address here this session.”

Four Democrats joined in the vote to expel, including Sen. Emma Kerr-Carpenter, D-Billings. Kerr-Carpenter said Ellsworth, by virtue of his position of power, “very nearly stole tens of thousands of dollars from Montana taxpayers.”

The move to expel Ellsworth has been building since the first weeks of the session when the news that Ellsworth had negotiated a $170,000 contract with a business partner and close friend was first reported. Monday’s vote took place after the Senate Ethics committee released a report of factual findings about the contract. A Legislative Audit investigation also found Ellsworth had abused his power and state resources.

Ellsworth, who voted against expulsion but for his own censure, declined to comment on the motions or on a recent call by the state Republican Party for his resignation. Ellsworth has been working from home, citing health issues, and did not say whether he would return to the Senate in person.

In a speech on the floor, Ellsworth apologized for the “appearance” of impropriety and said he would accept punishment from the Senate, but he denied wrongdoing.

“Let me be very clear, I did not violate any of our Senate rules or state laws or state regulations or procedures,” Ellsworth said. “I did not attempt to use my position for personal or private gain, and I received no personal or private gain.

“I regret that I brought the appearance of impropriety into this body, and it may have undermined the public trust.”

During the course of 90 minutes on Monday afternoon, the Senate voted three times, twice on a motion to expel Ellsworth — brought by Sen. Forest Mandeville, who led the Senate Ethics Committee, and by majority leader Tom McGillvray — and once on a substitute motion to censure Ellsworth — removing his committee assignments and stripping his floor privileges until April 12.

Ethics Committee Chairperson Forrest Mandeville, R-Columbus, made a motion to expel Ellsworth from the Senate. Mandeville oversaw the committee that conducted the investigation into alleged ethics improprieties of Ellsworth. A separate criminal investigation also is underway at the Department of Justice. (Keila Szpaller/The Daily Montanan)

While Mandeville used the ethics report as the basis for his motion, he expanded the scope to include additional information related to Ellsworth’s contract including the Legislative Auditor’s findings of waste and abuse.

“This motion is broader than just that piece that the Ethics Committee looked at. The ethics report is one piece of many that establishes good cause,” to expel Ellsworth, Mandeville said. “Anything and everything showing good cause is open for debate on this motion.”

The other senators who urged their colleagues toward expulsion added on a litany of other considerations from Ellsworth’s past, stretching back years.

Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, who refused to refer to Ellsworth as a senator, said he didn’t believe anything the “person in Seat 31” said.

“He’s one of the best salesmen I’ve ever met in my life,” Hertz said. “He could sell us just about anything.”

Hertz called the floor debate a “historic moment” and laid out a timeline of events to illustrate a “consistent lack of ethics and integrity in the treatment of others and the public.”

Hertz cited a Federal Trade Commission investigation that fined Ellsworth $600,000 for failure to disclose facts about his magazine subscription companies payment and cancellation policies; two times Ellsworth was pulled over for speeding and used connections to the Attorney General and governor, trying to evade consequences; and other instances, including once when the Montana Democrat Party called for his resignation.

“I noted nine abuses by an elected official. There are many more I could have identified. That is more than enough for good cause for expulsion,” Hertz said. “… History does repeat itself, as we have seen with Jason Ellsworth. We should have done something to this senator sessions ago. That’s our fault.”

The two sides of the debate quickly became clear with each laying out its own narrative of Ellsworth’s actions.

Senate rules allow for punishment up to expulsion, but Sen. Chris Pope, D-Bozeman, instead asking the body to consider a lesser punishment he felt more fitting for Ellsworth’s behavior — censure.

Pope, who served on the ethics committee, said the role of that group was to investigate “relatively narrow ethical issues of conflict of interest,” and that the Senate should just consider the facts before them.

A concurrent criminal investigation by the Department of Justice has not yielded any conclusions about Ellsworth’s actions, and Pope, Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, and others urged their colleagues to have a laser-sharp focus on the contents of the ethics report.

Pope said a loss of privileges for Ellsworth, and a censure, would be an apt consequence.

“Censure is an indelible black mark forever on an elected official’s record,” he said. “It is not a reprimand. Censure is forever.”

Sen. Emma Kerr-Carpenter, D-Billings, was among four Democrats who voted for the expulsion of Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton. Kerr-Carpenter said Ellsworth, by virtue of his position of power, “very nearly stole tens of thousands of dollars from Montana taxpayers.” (Keila Szpaller/The Daily Montanan)

But Democrat Kerr-Carpenter said it was a simple matter of holding a person in power accountable for their actions.

Ellsworth “held a position of great power, and with that power comes very high expectations, expectations of a commitment to uphold not just the bare minimum of the letter of our ethics rules, but a higher responsibility,” Kerr-Carpenter said. “A responsibility to use his power, not for his own gain, not for the personal benefit of his closest friends, but for that of his constituents and for all Montanans.

She said she was teaching her young son it’s important to make amends for wrongdoing, and Ellsworth fell short.

“The senator in Seat 31 has only just now — as his back is against the wall — tried to make amends,” Kerr-Carpenter said. “The senator in Seat 31 has failed in his responsibility to this body and to Montanans and to himself, and I think it is the right thing to draw a clear line that says beyond this, we will not go.”

The vote on the motion to expel was 27-23, with four Democrats — Sens. Kerr-Carpenter, Dave Fern, of Whitefish, Derek Harvey, of Butte, and Denise Hayman, of Bozeman — joining with a majority of Republicans. Ellsworth and eight Republicans — who have formed a working coalition with Democrats this session — opposed expulsion.

Most Democrats push [fullwidth][/fullwidth]censure

Sen. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, said the desire to expel Ellsworth was politically motivated and made the substitute motion to censure Ellsworth, which would remove him from the powerful Senate Finance and Claims Committee, the Executive Review Committee which he leads, and prevent him from serving on any interim committees. The censure would have also stripped Ellsworth’s floor privileges until April 12.

Last Friday, the Senate removed other responsibilities from Ellsworth related to his role on the Executive Review committee, which carries approvals for gubernatorial appointments to the Senate floor.

Kassmier said Ellsworth is a “flawed person” who made “a lot of mistakes,” but while he did not approve of Ellsworth’s actions, he said that “proper punishment is essential.”

“If we’re going to kick out a member for failing to disclose conflicts, we probably need to kick out a lot of people in here,” Kassmier said. “…Expulsion is not an appropriate remedy for failure to disclose a conflict of interest… The proper punishment is a censure.”

Bozeman Democrat Cora Neumann agreed expulsion should be reserved for extreme cases, but said that the body was in agreement that some form of punishment needed to occur.

“I don’t think any of us are disagreeing on the need for this body to act with integrity,” she said. “And in fact, over the last few weeks and since this issue started to rise to the surface here in this body, I’ve heard many more separately to disclose conflicts of interest.”

Neumann said the Senate should look at reviewing its own rules to make consequences in future instances more clear, and minority leader Flowers said he was bringing an interim study bill that would look at making the ethics process more straightforward.

Senator Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, speaks during the Wednesday, February 12, 2025 session of the Montana Senate.

The motion for censure failed along the same blocs, with 23 supporting censure and 27 opposing it.

A final vote on expulsion saw the same result.

Fern, one of the Democrats who voted for expulsion, said the Senate wasn’t going to come to any decisions that afternoon.

“I do think we will eventually get to a censure. I don’t believe this body is ready to do that yet,” Fern said, adding that they would need to take the time to craft an appropriate compromise

“Perhaps we just don’t have the votes to do expulsion. Quite frankly, that’s my preference. With all due consideration to great testimony I’ve heard for and against, I’m comfortable with that,” Fern continued. “We can expel and send the shame to wherever the good senator goes to. But for a while, the shame will stay right here in this body.”

“Soon I will be over it. I will provide forgiveness, and we will all move on, hopefully with a fair and equitable censure.”

Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said that he would be willing to listen to potential censure language crafted by Flowers and the senators in favor of that option. But he remained steadfast in the motion for expulsion, saying there were bipartisan voices saying Ellsworth’s conduct was “expulsion level, and there’s a big sentiment of not moving on from that.”

“I ask that we reserve expulsion, the greatest punishment that this body can deliver — and it has not delivered for decades, generations — and we reserve that for more exceptional, egregious and harmful conflict against our government and the people of Montana,” Pope said.

The Montana Republican Party, which called for Ellsworth to resign on Sunday, released a statement through a spokesperson saying the party “wants all members to be accountable and not above the law — even in our own party. The Democrat party has shown today that they care more about political power than they do the interests of all Montanans.”

Reporters Keila Szpaller and Jordan Hansen contributed to this reporting.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

In the Lincoln County High School auditorium in Eureka on Wednesday, Montana State Rep. Neil Duram and Dakota Adams introduced themselves to a small audience ahead of a candidate forum led by the school’s civics class.

Duram, the Republican incumbent, talked about his career in law enforcement and his work during the last three legislative sessions.

Adams, his Democratic challenger, introduced himself as a construction worker and rural firefighter, and the oldest of six children whose family moved to Trego — a town of 500 in Lincoln County — “to survive the apocalypse. That did not happen, which is why I’m still here.”

“I think that’s all the relevant biography, unless I’ve forgotten anything,” Adams said to a few chuckles from the audience.

For a low profile Montana State House race in which the incumbent is expected to win by a wide margin, Adams has drawn outsized notoriety based on his life’s story.

The 27-year-old Democrat is the son of Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a former Montana attorney disbarred in 2015 who founded Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia group that Rhodes organized in the wake of President Barack Obama’s election in 2008. Rhodes is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for his role in plotting to forcibly disrupt the transfer of presidential power during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Adams, who uses his mother’s maiden name, grew up in a home ruled by Rhodes’s paranoid, anti-government ideology that kept him from public schools and peer socialization. Living for a time near Kalispell and then an isolated property near Trego, Adams spent a portion of his adolescence taking part in military drills with Oath Keepers members, attending conventions with Rhodes, and transcribing Rhodes’s rambling thoughts into coherent forms to disseminate throughout the organization.

In 2018, Adams, his mother Tasha, and his five siblings left Rhodes after Tasha filed for divorce, and Adams has been unwinding the convictions he grew up with ever since, including writing extensively about his experience with extremist ideology using the online platform Substack in a newsletter called “Deprogram.”

A big shift for Adams, who grew with the foundational worldview that the Democratic Party is part of a grand conspiracy of power involving the Illuminati and other deep-state puppet masters, came shortly after the family separated from Rhodes and the Oath Keepers.

“Everything I’d heard about a welfare state — a bloated machine handing out money to everyone — was mythical, because I couldn’t find any support when our family needed it,” he said. “There was no support for women and families leaving domestic violence. I was only able to avoid having infected wisdom teeth because I was on Medicaid. Things like that helped me become more open as I experienced what life is really like.”

Adams also said what he perceived as the willingness of national Republicans to set aside their values to stay in lock-step with former President Donald Trump helped push him toward the left side of the political spectrum. He considers himself a progressive Democrat, though one “who’s suspicious of any government authority over people’s lives.”

Filling a political void

Adams works full time as a drywall worker while also taking classes at Flathead Valley Community College on the side — slowly working towards a degree in political science.

As someone who got an early start in politics volunteering with his parents for Libertarian-turned-Republican Ron Paul’s presidential run in 2008, Adams gravitated towards campaign work as he found his own worldview. In 2022, he knocked doors in Lincoln County for Democrat Monica Tranel’s race for Montana’s newly formed U.S. House District.

It was while urging his fellow residents to get out and vote that Adams realized one of the fallacies of northwest Montana’s political scene — it was entirely one-sided.

“The ballot was almost totally blank down the Democrat side. Below Congress, we did not exist,” he recalled. “That was dismaying and demoralizing. I think it reinforces the idea that the national Democratic Party has left rural America behind. Montana Democrats and, like, local Democrats are a different story. But it’s incumbent on everybody who’s trying to fix a situation to start working where they are.”

In 2023, Adams decided that if he was going to continue advocating for citizens to be more engaged in democracy, he had to be willing to do his part.

“It would be hypocritical if I was just another guy yelling at other people to do something on Twitter. I told myself that I had to go all in,” he said. “A lot of young people feel very apathetic about the future of the country and that their vote doesn’t matter. But at the local level, the margins are narrower, and every vote really does have an effect in a way that it doesn’t in a national race.”

Adams, often sporting a leather jacket, dark eye shadow and a skull ring, said his reception as a candidate has been better than he expected.

“There’s been a little bit of door slamming, but less than expected. It’s struck me how often a conversation starts with people saying they’re a ‘down-the-ballot Trump-voting person,’ but because I’m there to talk about Montana issues, not national issues, we can actually talk,” Adams said. “I’m here to campaign for me, I’m here to apply for a job. And honestly, I’ve had more people say they’re completely politically uninvolved than tell me they’d never vote Democrat for anything.”

Red, red and red

The Lincoln County Democrats acknowledge how difficult it is to recruit candidates to run in the deep red districts — 74% of the county’s vote went to former President Trump in 2020.

“When I first moved to Montana 22 years ago, it seemed like it was a pretty balanced, bipartisan state,” said Lincoln County Democrats treasurer Lannie Fehlberg. “But Lincoln County is such a red county. Just six years ago, there just didn’t seem to be any Democratic organization in Eureka.”

Two years ago, Fehlberg started hosting dinner parties with other Democrats around Eureka and even held one event with Tranel during her 2022 campaign. Eventually the local group folded into the county Democratic organization but still acutely felt the lack of presence during the 2022 election.

“It was very discouraging; we didn’t have a Democrat for County Commission and we didn’t have anybody for state rep in either district,” she said. “But this year, we managed to recruit candidates for all three local offices. In one cycle we went from none to three.”

It hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing, however. Doug Davies, the Democratic candidate for the Lincoln County Commission, dropped out of the race earlier this month citing health issues, but endorsed independent candidate Brian Phillips. Elizabeth Story, the Democratic candidate for House District 2, also dropped out but was replaced by Brad Simonis.

The H.D. 1 race was the easiest for the Lincoln County Democrats to engage in — Adams reached out to them when he decided to throw his name on the ballot.

“We didn’t need to recruit him,” Fehlberg said. “He told us he’d noticed some of his younger siblings didn’t have any interest in government or politics and felt like the best way to get them motivated was to step up and run himself. [Our organization is] mostly retired folks, and it’s hard to recruit young people, but Dakota is articulate, very intelligent and very motivated. I have utmost respect for him for not being afraid to just be himself, and that makes him more relatable to the younger generation.”

Beating the odds

Montana House District 1 covers northern Lincoln County — formerly House District 2 before last year’s redistricting process. Duram, a three-term incumbent representing the area, is running to keep his spot in the legislature.

Duram is a former Montana Highway Patrol officer who currently serves as the Eureka police chief. As a legislator, he has primarily focused on public safety legislation, including carrying a bill requiring extended stop signs on school buses in the 2021 session.

He told the Daily Montanan he encourages having an opponent in the race to give voters a choice, but primarily views his campaign as having to sell himself as the best person for the job.

“My outlook in life is that at the end of the day I’m running against myself. If we were playing basketball, I wouldn’t want to beat you down, I’d want to try to make as many points as possible. If we were running a race, I wouldn’t try to slow you down, I’d try to run as fast as I can,” Duram said. “Ultimately if a voter picks me, great. If they pick the other person, great. Both representatives would attempt to bring policy changes that affect different people differently.”

During the Oct. 16 candidate forum, high school students posed a dozen questions to both candidates covering myriad topics including abortion rights, property taxes and the local logging industry.

Duram said the separation of powers is the biggest issue facing the state, citing many decisions made by Montana judges that struck down laws passed by the legislature in the last session.

By contrast, Adams said he was most concerned about the inability of working families to afford housing in Montana, calling it a “chokepoint that is strangling the economic growth in the whole state.”

Adams readily acknowledges that running against any incumbent — much less a popular Republican in a deep-red district — is an uphill battle. Duram has run unopposed twice and won by 60 percentage points in his 2020 race against Lori Ramesz. Adams has also split his ticket and voted for Duram in previous elections.

While Fehlberg said she’d be happy seeing Dakota pull in 20% of the vote, Adams has a higher bar.

“I would like to beat the turnout record for a Democrat,” said Dakota, noting that in 2016, Democrat Steve Bullock earned 35% of Lincoln County’s vote during his successful gubernatorial reelection.

But his primary goal is to galvanize younger voters into showing up to the polls by giving them a reason to care and a person to vote for.

“You can get a very concentrated, reliable target audience that always turns out for voting out of fear of the opponent winning, but most people are exhausted by that,” he said. “It’s a mindset I grew up in, and I was exhausted by it.”

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