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Montana GOP headed for new leadership after six years of Don ‘K'

Montana GOP headed for new leadership after six years of Don ‘K'

Yahoo09-06-2025

Montana Republican Party Chairperson Don Kaltschmidt speaks to attendees at a rally for Tim Sheehy and Donald Trump in Bozeman on Aug. 9, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)
For six years, Whitefish businessman Don 'K' Kaltschmidt has presided as chairman of the Montana Republican Central Committee, the recognized leader of the GOP in the state.
During three consecutive two-year terms, Kaltschmidt oversaw a wave of success for Republicans. The party captured every statewide elected office in 2020, including breaking a 16-year streak of Democratic governors, and in 2024, succeeded in unseated an incumbent U.S. Senator, turning Montana its brightest shade of red in a century.
Kaltschmidt is not running for a fourth term as party chair, setting up a four-way race for the future direction of the Montana GOP, which party leaders will decide at the state convention at the end of June.
In 2019, Kaltschmidt said several of the state's top elected Republicans, including then-U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte and U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, approached him about running for party chair with a goal of turning the state central committee into a 24/7 operation, rather than one that surfaced during election cycles and took more of a backseat when votes weren't imminent.
The goal was to turn Montana red.
Just a decade ago, Montana was strongly considered to be a purple state.
In 2015, Montana had its second, two-term Democratic Governor, and Democrats serving in the offices of Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Auditor, and Secretary of State. The state had been represented in the U.S. Senate by two Democrats from 2006 until 2014, when Sen. Steve Daines won his seat.
'When I came on board, things were starting to shift our way, but we needed a strong party to help guide things in that direction,' Kaltschmidt told the Daily Montanan. 'We put together the grassroots organizations, were able to raise the funding, put together a good ground game, work with the RNC on a national level… to get to where we are today.'
The 2020 election was a big breakthrough, as all statewide elected offices flipped to Republican control. The last holdout was in the U.S. Senate, where Democrat Jon Tester had shown a knack for appealing to Republican voters in the state.
In a race that broke spending records, Tim Sheehy, a former Navy Seal and founder of Bridger Aerospace, unseated Tester, securing an all-GOP delegation for Montana for the first time in 100 years.
'We've accomplished all the goals we talked about in 2019,' Kaltschmidt said. 'It's really up to the next chairman to take it to the next level, which would be learning how to be a red state.'
Kaltschmidt said that he's studied other red states in the region — Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas — to better understand what challenges the state party could face even as it became more dominant.
He noticed that a dominant party tends to have more fractures and factions than a minority party, which must stay united to accomplish anything. Uniting a broader party with myriad ideas of how to best represent Republican values will be key for the next leader, Kaltschmidt said.
'The chairman needs to be fair to all sides,' he said. 'I have a saying — if I have all parts of the party mad at me, I'm doing my job.'
Fractures among Montana Republicans were evident during the 2025 Legislative session, when nine Republican Senators bucked party leadership and worked closely with Democrats to effectively run the Senate floor and push through big-ticket pieces of legislation, including the state's budget and property tax bills.
Their actions led to public rebuke from the state party, including the unprecedented step of rescinding recognition of the nine senators as Republicans.
'I think we could have gotten a lot more things done if we had stayed together,' Kaltschmidt said, calling the Nine's actions 'selfish,' and emphasizing the need to be loyal to party leadership.
'It was very unfortunate and we had to do an unfortunate thing– censuring nine senators, it's never been done that I know of. It was a very sad day for the Republican Party,'he said.
With the upcoming change in leadership, Kaltschmidt said it will be critical to navigate the factions and unify the party, in order to hold onto the elected seats the GOP holds and improve their majorities in the Legislature.
'Each of the candidates… they need to make their message known to the electorate,' Kaltschmidt said. 'They need to make that message clear on where they want to take (the party).'
Four candidates have declared candidacy to succeed Kaltschmidt as party leader — Stacy Zinn, Tanner Smith, Art Wittich and Troy Miller
Under the party's bylaws, delegates to the state convention will vote for party officers. Eligible delegates include Republican members of the Legislature, Public Service Commission, statewide and national offices, and members of the State Central Committee, comprising each county's party chair, finance chair and committee man and woman.
Zinn is a former special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency from Billings, who ran in the Republican primary for the eastern U.S. House seat last year, finishing third in a field of nine candidates.
Zinn told the Daily Montanan that she sees herself as a political outsider, having never held an elected office, but through her work for the DEA has seen how various governments operate and can be most successful.
'I've seen how one misstep or a bad actor can actually really shape the outcome for years within a political arena,' she said. 'I want to bridge the gap among all Republicans in the state, in terms of we may not all have the exact same thoughts, but we need to be walking in the same direction and working together as a team.'
Zinn said that she wants to build on the work done by Kaltschmidt, and make sure the state party doesn't get complacent with its position of power.
'You see this in high school or in junior high, when kids have too much time on their hands, they start getting restless and a little cranky,' She said. 'I want to make sure the Republican Party doesn't get that way here in the state. We have a lot of issues in the state we need to solve… as Republicans we need to step up and be part of the solutions.'
Zinn, currently a precinct committee member in Yellowstone County, said she wants to have an open-door policy as party chair, letting anyone come forward and share their opinions and work with all Republicans in the state.
Taking a more contrarian stance, former legislator Tanner Smith of Lakeside told the Daily Montanan that under his leadership, the party will undergo a 'full rebrand.'
'We've had a uni-party under Don K, Greg (Gianforte) and Steve (Daines),' said Smith, who ran a primary campaign against Gianforte in 2024. 'There's so many Republicans, like myself, who feel disenfranchised by the Republican party in Montana.'
Smith said he doesn't donate to the state GOP because 'I know it'll be spent on politics I don't believe in.'
Elected officials that he says don't represent true Republican Party values should be called out and made to justify their actions. He pointed to bills this session that shifted property taxes around, saying they would hit 'affluent people' in places like the Flathead Valley who have cabins or lake houses with exorbitant taxes — which he said isn't fair policy.
'What I see down the road is our Republican Party needs sideboards and expectations that are met to join our group,' he said, adding that Republican officials should have to sign an oath, pledging themselves to the party platform.
'I would feel honored and privileged to sign an oath,' he said. '… If you don't like the framework of the party doctrine — the Reagan doctrine, the MAGA movement — if you don't agree with those things, maybe it's not the party for you.'
'We are, on paper, in control. Now is the time to make the change to leadership at the state level, have expectations, and hold Republicans to account,' Smith said.
Kaltschmidt said he had some concerns that Smith might have difficulty fundraising under his idea of party purity.
Smith, in response, said Kaltschmidt has put out 'hit pieces' on him, and that when Republicans fall in line with Republican values, and individuals feel represented, 'you'll watch our coffers start filling up.'
Art Wittich, is another former state legislator who represented a portion of Gallatin County from 2011 to 2016.
Wittich served as Senate Majority Leader during a contentious 2013 session that also saw an interparty fissure between moderate Republicans and the more conservative wing of the party.
He told the Daily Montanan that more than a decade later, there are still Republican voters who aren't represented by their elected officials, and the party has a role to make sure conservative voices represent conservative voters.
'The Republican Party continues to have the preferable message between the two parties and has the best messengers,' Wittich said. 'We want to keep growing the party, but there are some frustrations to address… to me we need to make some modifications, but small ones.'
Wittich said the party can better help Republican voters through messaging and education during campaign season, especially during primaries. Getting information to voters on candidates' backgrounds and aspirations for being in government will help individuals know who they're casting a ballot for.
The last of the four candidates to throw their hat in the ring, Wittich said the party's primary goal should be to continue winning elections, and will be able to do so by presenting themselves as a 'common-sense alternative to Democrats.'
'We have a strong platform on freedom and liberty and conservatism, and we need to make sure our elected officials honor that platform,' Wittich said. 'Our goal has always been conservative governance. We can argue how conservative it should be, but we flipped those seats because we messaged the difference between conservative and liberal governance.'
Troy Miller is the last of the four declared candidates running for party chair. He currently serves as Finance Chairman for the Gallatin County Republicans.
The Daily Montanan was not able to speak with Miller about his reasons for running for party chair or his visions for the state GOP.
Kaltschmidt said that Miller has a reputation as a good fundraiser, which is a key role of the party chair.
While Kaltschmidt did not endorse a successor, he said he's happy with the candidates 'for the most part,' with his reservations about Smith.
He said Zim is a 'very good leader' and well liked in the eastern part of the state, and Wittich 'knows how the party works,' and is very experienced.
The Montana Republican Party officer's convention will take place in Helena on June 27 and 28.

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