Posting losses in Kalispell’s 2025 municipal elections wasn’t just humiliating for Flathead County Republicans — it was dumbfounding. This month they did something about it.  The northwest Montana community is known for punching above its weight in Republican politics. Fourth among Montan a counties in population, Flathead is second in Republican votes. Only Yellowstone County, with 58,000 more residents, produces more Republican votes in statewide elections. So losing the mayor’s race and three of eight City Commission seats to liberals in the 2025 November election was little like the Harlem Globetrotters losing to the Washington Generals. The Flathead Valley is home to both Montana Senate President Matt Regier and Montana GOP Chair Art Wittich, who was elected less than a year ago on a promise to make Montana “more red.” Infuriated by the local losses, Republicans in the Flathead business community captured 48 Republican precinct seats on March 4, this year’s candidate filing deadline. By law, each political party has to offer a male seat and a female seat to residents in every voting precinct. Precinct captains are the voting members of county central committees. They elect county and state party leadership. Precinct seats often go empty because behind-the-scenes work in party politics is typically thankless. If you get to march in the parade, it is usually to clean up after the pachyderms. The mass filers kept their powder dry until the final minutes of the filing window, which assured that they became uncontested candidates. “What we’re seeing is a grassroots reaction to what happened in November,” said Kisa Davison, a Republican businesswoman who campaigned in Kalispell’s nonpartisan mayor’s race, but emerged defeated by liberal candidate Ryan Hunter and frustrated that the local Republican Party hadn’t done more to signal which candidate was theirs. “A lot of people decided that enough was enough. The people who had been at the helm for too long failed us,” Davison said. Davison was among the upstart filers for the precinct seats. For lack of a primary election competitor, she will become committeewoman for Precinct 27. Davison’s husband, Travis, will be Precinct 27 committeeman. No one will be officially seated until sometime after primary election voting ends Tuesday, June 2.  While 48 of the filers are running unopposed, a few seats will be contested. Giuseppe “GMan” Caltabiano is challenging Wittich for Republican committeeman of Precinct 5, which includes Whitefish. Roxanne Ross is challenging Candace Wittich, Art Wittich’s wife, for committeewoman in the same precinct.  Caltabiano also serves on the Whitefish City Council and owns a business in Kalispell. He told Capitolized that he first ran for City Council after hitting a pothole in his sports car. He concluded that complaining was pointless. It was better to get elected to City Council and get the pothole fixed.  Now the Flathead Republican Party has a political pothole that needs fixing, Caltabiano said, which is why he’s running. Businesses in Kalispell were expecting a Republican mayor and council, said Corinne Kuntz, who runs a daycare business in town. She said it has become increasingly difficult to navigate city rules for things like business landscaping. Just getting approval to plant shrubbery was becoming tedious. Kuntz expected her local Republican Party to promote Kalispell conservatives for office. When that support didn’t materialize early and loudly, she grew frustrated. “I ran for Precinct 42 committeewoman because I’m done watching decisions get made about our community by people who don’t feel the day-to-day consequences. I’m a local business owner in childcare — something many communities now recognize as essential infrastructure — and I’ve lived firsthand how unpredictable processes, shifting interpretations, and avoidable city-imposed costs can stall projects and hurt working families.” Visiting with contractors who work in several Montana cities, Kuntz learned that several preferred working in Bozeman, which she said has more strict regulations but a clearer process.  Leading up to the election, business owners grew frustrated that the Flathead Republican Party wasn’t doing more to support Davison. The local party had formed a candidate vetting committee that concluded Davison didn’t have enough experience to get the party’s endorsement. Davison told Capitolized she was shocked that her years of business experience and participation on a local business committee weren’t enough.  Then the Republican vetting committee weighed the merits of endorsing Sid Daoud, the former chairman of the Montana Libertarian Party and 2024 Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate. Daoud was already a City Council member and had run for Kalispell mayor once before. Republicans like Daoud, who produced an endorsement from former U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, who has a following in the Flathead. The Flathead County Republican Party chair is Al Olszewski, who tells Capitolized that backing Davison was complicated. The committee as a whole voted on the second Thursday in October to recommend, not endorse, Davison for the job. After the vote, the committee produced flyers for precinct officers to hand out if they so chose. Davison’s campaign then asked for the flyers, which were provided. The flyers, Davison supporters told Capitolized, appeared to be printed on white copy paper. “Kisa is brand-new to the process. She was on a board, I think one city board, and didn’t jump into the race until late,” Olszewski said.  The mayor’s race is nonpartisan and Daoud had experience. So, Republicans heard him out, Olszewski said. The race’s nonpartisan status was also a challenge.  “We can’t endorse — best we could do is recommend. So, our hands are really tied as a political party,” Olszewski said. “What can we really do? It’s a city race, and we’re a county organization. As the chairman of the party, I encourage everybody to get involved as precinct captains, get involved in your school elections, and if it’s your city, you should be involved.” The issue of endorsements in nonpartisan races is a bone of contention in Republican politics. Conservatives in the 2025 Montana Legislature tried and failed to make Montana’s currently nonpartisan judicial elections partisan.  The same law that governs nonpartisan judicial elections governs nonpartisan municipal elections. A candidate in a nonpartisan race cannot declare a party affiliation and cannot signal to voters that they are Republican, Democrat or Libertarian. The nonpartisan endorsements question has been battled all the way to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded in 2017 that Montana’s political parties have a First Amendment right to endorse candidates. And that the state is within its rights to prohibit candidates in nonpartisan races from using party endorsements. The lawsuit that settled the endorsement issue involved Mark French, a candidate for Justice of the Peace in Sanders County, which neighbors the Flathead.  French wanted to use the endorsement of the Sanders County Republican Central Committee, which was chaired by French’s wife. The state Judicial Conduct Committee forbade French from using the endorsement. French lost, but in the process the Republican Party secured its right to free speech in nonpartisan races. The post A Republican reckoning in the Flathead appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less