When democrats run as republicans, the voters don’t get what they vote for.

Trevor Walter, Representative-elect, Montana HD 69

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Montana voters went to the polls in November 2024 and delivered Republicans a commanding 32-18 majority in the state Senate, by any measure, that looked like the Republicans had won and the work could begin. It took six minutes to find out that wasn’t quite true.

On the very first day of the 69th Legislature, January 6, 2025, nine Republican state senators voted with the 18 Democrats to change the Senate’s rules and reshape its committee structure — bucking their own elected Republican leadership before a single bill had been heard. Just like that, the 32-18 Republican majority became a 27-23 Democratic working coalition, and it stayed that way for the duration of the session.

The nine were Sens. Jason Ellsworth of Hamilton, Butch Gillespie of Etheridge, Gregg Hunter of Glasgow, Josh Kassmier of Fort Benton, Gayle Lammers of Hardin, Denley Loge of St. Regis, Wendy McKamey of Great Falls, Russ Tempel of Chester, and Shelley Vance of Belgrade. Every one of them ran as a Republican, won as a Republican, and then organized like something else entirely.

What followed was a session-long coalition that passed the agenda Democrats wanted, not the agenda Montana’s conservative voters thought they were getting. Medicaid expansion was bolstered without any thought to cutting waste and fraud before spending more. The budget grew. Proposals to reform the state’s activist judicial system — a top priority for conservative Republicans — were killed. The 27-23 coalition vote became so predictable and routine that it was simply called “the coalition line.” Accusations of betrayal repeatedly erupted on the Senate floor.

The Montana Republican Party formally rebuked the group in March and censured them outright in April, declaring that their actions had “undermined the will of the people” and created “a de facto 27-23 Democratic majority in the Senate.” The party stopped short of calling them what many Montana conservatives had been saying for months: these were not Republicans. They were Democrats who had done the political math and realized they couldn’t win a Democratic primary in a red state. So, they ran with an “R” behind their names, got elected, and then governed accordingly.

This is a structural vulnerability that Montana’s open primary creates. When any registered voter can participate in a Republican primary — regardless of their actual political identity — the party label on the general election ballot stops meaning what voters think it means. A candidate can appeal to a Republican primary electorate, win the nomination, and then govern in ways that directly contradict everything that primary stood for.

The real problem is what “majority” actually means. In Montana’s Senate, Republicans held a 14-seat advantage. On paper, they should have controlled everything — committee chairmanships, bill assignments, floor scheduling, the works. In reality, the nine handed all that leverage to the minority. Committees were reshaped. Bills that conservative leadership wanted to move were buried. Bills that conservatives opposed were advanced. The majority controlled the letterhead. The coalition controlled the session.

Committee power is where legislative work really happens. Bills live or die in committee. Witnesses are called or turned away in committee. The agenda is built in committee. A majority that doesn’t control its committees doesn’t control anything. Montana Republicans learned that lesson the hard way in 2025, and the lesson is still playing out — three of the nine have since sued the state GOP after the party moved to strip them of their voting rights as members of the party.

So here is the warning: don’t be surprised if it happens again.

The 2025 session was a predictable result of voters sending people to Helena without knowing who those people were. Some of the same dynamics that produced the Nasty Nine are still in place. Montana still has open primaries. Democrats who can’t win as Democrats can still file as Republicans. And if enough of them won their primaries, the 2027 session could open the same way the 2025 session did — with a handful of R’s on the roster siding with Democrats in the first hours of the first day to hand control of committees to the minority, and a conservative majority that exists only on paper.

If that happens, voters will certainly be angry. They’ll feel betrayed. They’ll wonder how Republicans won and still can’t lower taxes, curb spending, and create jobs. I know this for a fact because I heard this on the campaign trail time and time again leading up to the 2026 primaries. But the answer will be the same answer it was in 2025: you didn’t send Republicans. You sent people with R’s behind their names, and those are not always Republicans.

This isn’t an argument for giving up or staying home. It’s an argument for paying attention before the next primary — and I mean really paying attention. Not to campaign mailers. Not to yard signs. Not to which candidate shakes the most hands at the county fair. Pay attention to voting records. Pay attention to who endorses them and who funds them. Pay attention to the scorecards that conservative organizations publish after every session — the Montana Family Foundation, the Montana Shooting Sports Association, Legistats, and others track exactly how every legislator votes when the pressure is on and the cameras are off. Those grades don’t lie; they are accurate depictions of your representatives’ allegiance to the values you hold dear.

The general election decides whether an R or a D goes to Helena. The primary decides what that R actually stands for. Conservative voters who skip voting in the primary or walk in without doing their homework are playing a guessing game — and in an open primary state, that could mean voting for a Democrat who simply knows how to game the system.

The general election will play out the way it plays out because the primaries are over for this year. The legislative races are what they are. But there is one race on the ballot this November where Montana conservatives can still make a meaningful difference — and that is the Montana Supreme Court.

The activist judicial branch that frustrated conservatives throughout the 2025 session and continues to do so today didn’t emerge out of thin air. It is a direct result of our unwillingness to engage in our duties as the electorate. That cannot continue. Judge Dan Wilson is on the ballot for the Montana Supreme Court, and he represents exactly what Montanans should want in a justice: a conservative judge who is capable of setting aside partisan politics and ruling on each case through the lens of the United States Constitution and the Montana Constitution — nothing more, nothing less. That is what judicial restraint looks like, and it is increasingly rare.

You may not be able to change whether you get a true Republican in Helena in January. But you can help determine who sits on Montana’s highest court. Vote for Judge Dan Wilson for Montana Supreme Court.