by Helena Lovick | Sep 16, 2026 | Democrats, Politics, Republicans
This post is from WTF406.com’s archives. You can see other archived posts by searching on a name or topic on WTF406.com’s landing page. Please hit the subscribe button if you are not already a subscriber. This post ran on August 8, 2025.
Let’s talk about “moderate” Republicans. I’ve been hearing about this perspective for years. Some political “experts” think we should support moderate Republicans when they run for districts that are an uphill battle for Democrats. This is different from the calls for voting in a Republican primary to help ensure a more reasonable politician is elected as the blog previously discussed here. Instead, the moderate Republican strategy I’m talking about includes: not investing in Democrats, not supporting Democrats in general elections, not endorsing Democratic candidates, even all the way up to voting for a Republican in a general election.
Rather than recruiting a strong Democrat and trying to put it all on the field, some people believe it is a winning strategy to not even put up a fight, roll over and give the win to a moderate. “At least we can elect someone that is easy to work with!” So….does that strategy payoff? Do these Republicans vote more moderately? Is it preferable to throw support behind a moderate Republican rather than trying to help a Democrat in a lop-sided race?
I’m going to have to say HELL NO. There’s a reason why Wayne Gretzky said, “you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” If you want to make in-roads in a district, you actually have to work on building relationships with the voters in that district.
But another aspect of “at least we elected a moderate” is that THEY AREN’T MODERATE. Over and over again we have seen that the people who are willing to run for office as a Republican in these times are extremists. Sure, they might throw you a bone and help Medicaid expansion get across the finish line (as they did in 2025), but they throw working people and marginalized groups under the bus every day. We’ve written about GOP bigotry of the moderates and MAGA in 2023, but here we are again!
I mean just take a look at how our Great Falls area Republicans voted during the 2025 Legislative Session.
Great Falls Area Republican Legislators
First, here is your list of Great Falls area Republican Legislators with their moderate or MAGA label. The Moderate descriptor is based on participation in the Solutions Caucus, support by the Conservatives4MT PAC, and/or community perspective.
How did they vote? (Shocker – Against us and our future)
In the following table, some key votes of moderate Great Falls area Republicans are listed. Bill descriptions are listed on the left. State Senators Trebas and Emrich are consistently MAGA bigots, and they voted the wrong way on every one of the following bills. Their votes are not shown in the table. Votes are coded with a green color when they are bipartisan and pro-working people.
As you can see in the table, in the vast majority of cases, so-called moderate Republicans vote with the Republican caucus and against the people. If you’re looking for more data on how these clowns voted, you can check out the deeper dive by the Daily Montanan here.
Any Good News? What about the Democrats?
It’s worth noting that our lone Democratic legislator in the Great Falls area, Jane Weber, voted the kind, forward-thinking way on all of these bills. I also give some credit to Republican Senator Wendy McKamey for voting against her caucus significantly more frequently than any other Great Falls area Republican.
It was good to see that Medicaid Expansion in Montana lived another day with the 2025 legislature. But the Big Ugly Bill passed by our federal government (also run by Republicans) just made giant cuts to Medicaid. So what is the benefit to electing moderates when we expect nearly 40,000 Montanans to lose insurance? Sure doesn’t seem like the payoff for ditching Democrats to support Republican Lite is worth it.
What should I do to help turn things around?
Inform yourself when politicians ask for your vote. Is the way they vote kind to you or your neighbors? Is it kind to attack our environment and attack our freedoms to be who we are and to have bodily autonomy? Is that the future you want? I sure don’t.
It is a lot easier to sleep at night when you know that your elected representatives have your back. (Rather than have a knife in your back.) Let’s put up a left leaning candidate in every district and try to build some real momentum away from the rightward slide of Montana and our country. And whoever gets elected, let’s continue to pressure them to do the right thing.
by Helena Lovick | Aug 19, 2026 | Elections
Great Falls, MT
Now that the deadline for candidate withdrawal from the 2026 Montana General Election Ballot has passed….what the hell is happening with the Montana U.S. Senate Race???
We wrote multiple times about the independent run by Seth Bodnar, here, here, and here. But let’s take a few steps back and discuss what happened on the Democratic side of that race.
Dark Money Flooded Our Democratic Primary
During the primary election, the Democratic candidates included Alani Bankhead, Reilly Neill, Michael Black Wolf, Christopher Kehoe, and Michael Hummert. Reilly Neill had started her campaign back in 2025 and had the largest fundraising amounts out of the Democratic candidates. Alani Bankhead joined the race in January 2026 and only raised about $59k before the end of the Democratic primary. But a multi-million dollar influx of dark money flooded the race in May, boosting Bankhead’s visibility. In particular, the newly formed Progressive Vet PAC spent $2.5M+ boosting Bankhead.
A lot of those weird ads people saw about Bankhead in the last couple weeks of the primary election were funded by this outside, “dark” money group. Many people don’t realize most of the political ads we see are NOT paid for by the candidates. They are called independent expenditures and it is illegal for the candidate to coordinate messaging with the Super Political Action Committees (PACs). The dark money messing around in our primary had multiple ties to political insiders. For example, the treasurer for the Progressive Vet PAC was former Democratic Montana legislator and leader in the Montana Federation of Public Employees (MFPE), Moffie Funk.
In the end, due to Alani Bankhead’s own campaigning and the dark money influx, Bankhead won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Montana with 43% of the vote (48,000+ votes) with Neill trailing with 33% of the vote (36,000+ votes).
Post-Primary Fuckery
But the dark money groups weren’t done fucking around with Democratic voters. Only a couple of weeks after the primary election, the Progressive Vet PAC announced it was withdrawing its support from Bankhead. [Supposedly because they believed she did not have a viable path to victory. Riiiiiight. They definitely think voters are stupid.]
In addition to the maneuvering of the Progressive Vet PAC, multiple groups pressured Bankhead to drop out of the Senate Race and cede the floor to Seth Bodnar to have the left-leaning votes. These groups also pressured the Montana Democratic Party to not appoint a replacement Democratic candidate (similar to what happened in Nebraska). Despite relentless pressure from groups like Montana Wild and Forward Montana and former high-level Democratic officials Nancy Keenan, Mary Sexton, Carol Williams, Jon Tester and Max Baucus, Bankhead justifiably refused to undo the will of the Montana Democratic voters and stayed in the race.
We now have a four-way race for the US Senate seat, with Alani Bankhead (Democrat), Kurt Alme (Republican), Kyle Austin (Libertarian), and Seth Bodnar (Independent) set up for November.
Good News for the Billionaires with or without a Democratic Candidate
You might be thinking because of the lack of candidate withdrawals in the race, that the dark money groups are singing “all that work and what did it get me? Why did I do it?” (audio for you peeps that don’t know this viral trend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM2sVNJxrY4).
And….you would be wrong. The main goal of all that spending was to undermine voter confidence in ALL candidates OTHER THAN Kurt Alme, the Republican nominee. They saw that Democrats had an opportunity to win our US Senate seat and they did their best to crush it. With the division on the left between the Bodnar and Bankhead camps, they have split our vote. There is still a chance that the left can come together and vote for one of Bodnar and Bankhead. But the likelihood of that is low. Good news for the billionaires I guess!
Dark Money Details
With friends like the Progressive Vet PAC and the Montana Freedom Fund dumping money into our Montana U.S. Senate race, who needs enemies?
Check out some of the crazy details about the dark money spending during the primary election. Images of some of their bullshit mailers that flooded voters’ mailboxes are shown below.
Images of Select Mailers Received During 2026 Montana Primary
Some of the mailers sure look like they were from the actual candidate. For example, the image below shows a Bankhead branded mailer…with her logo, her quote, and her pictures…only it was paid for by the Progressive Vet PAC.
PAC Sponsored Bankhead Mailer
That pile of mailers shown above? Not a single one was paid for by the actual candidate. The “Paid For By” attributions can be small, nearly illegible, and blend in on the mailer. Below are close-up images of several examples.
Tiny “Paid for By” Attributions on PAC Mailers
You can barely find the tiny attribution that tells you which PAC funded the mailer. And even if you know which PAC paid — you can’t 100% tell who is funding the effort. In many cases, PAC donors do not have to be disclosed and reporting of contributions can be delayed and extended, often after the end of the general election.
It’s like a shell game of PACs and other political organizations like 527 groups and 501(c)(4) groups. But in the table below you can see some of the richest of the rich funding this effort to pressure voters to keep a Republican in office.
| Super/Hybrid PACs |
Who gives them money? |
| More Jobs, Less Government |
Transfers from affiliated committees – Daines Senate Majority Fund ($290,580)
Individuals: Konstantin Sokolov (private equity gave $250,000), Rai Services Company ($200,000 – Reynolds American, the parent company of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco), International Bancshares Corp ($100,000) |
| Montana Freedom PAC |
WAY BACK PAC ($150,000) Individuals: Samuel Walton ($50k), Greg Avis ($10k) and Scott Shenker ($100k)
Way Back PAC is funded by Western Futures Fund ($1.2M), Toolbox ($650k), |
| Progressive Vet PAC |
American Values Project PAC gave $200,000, a PAC backed solely by Jason Carroll, a founder of Hudson River Trading
Contours, Inc. gave $2.6M a 501(c)(4) with opaque financials – not required to disclose its donors |
| Americans for Prosperity Action |
STAND TOGETHER INC./Stand together chamber of commerce Inc. ($26.5M) Koch, Inc. ($10M)
Individuals: S Robsen Walton ($7M) Jim C Walton ($7M), Anthony Ressler ($2M), Craig J Duchossois ($2M) |
I don’t have audio of the endless TV ads, but PACs funded those too with the same type of messaging. Pay attention to what they are trying to sell you, and consider the source. Do these anonymous billionaires have the best interests of every day Montanans at heart? Should you listen to them over every day Montanans and the candidate’s own words?
Dark money groups continue their spending to influence our elections. They are relentless because they have a nearly bottomless well of money to fund their efforts. Spending millions to influence your vote is worth it to them, because it helps them hoard their billions. Just think of the good these billionaires could do if they would accept a minor decrease in their insane wealth levels and actually put that money towards things that help the people, like feeding children, funding schools, protecting our environment…. What a world WE COULD AND SHOULD have.
Dark Money is Drowning Us
Candidates have enough trouble getting their message out. They don’t need billionaires from outside of Montana trying to drown out their voice.
One of the routes to get this dark money out of Montana is the Montana Plan. Maybe if we can get I-194 passed this year, we can let the voice of the candidates come through. Let’s learn about our candidates without getting flooded with billionaires’ distorted messages about them.
by Helena Lovick | Jun 16, 2026 | Uncategorized
–Great Falls, Montana
So what happened in the 2026 legislative primary election in Great Falls?
We saw some wild dark money spending in Montana’s U.S. Senate Race culminating in Alani Bankhead triumphing in the Democratic Primary. Along with consultants playing 4D chess for “Independent” Bodnar while he is building a war chest of campaign money.
After the rash of wild spending and fake Dem filings in Cascade County, how did things turn out?
Primarily Okay!
On the Republican side, George Nikolakakos triumphed over Randy Pinocci, maybe because he spent tens of thousands of his own money on his campaign or maybe because Randy Pinocci is a goober who sleeps on the job and threw us under the bus with his votes as a Public Service Commissioner.
Randy Pinocci sleeping on the job
Ed Buttrey fell to Steve Galloway in the Republican Primary for Montana Senate District 11 (SD 11). That was a nasty race with PACs dumping buckets of money to paint Buttrey as a RINO, “pretending to be a conservative” and “Obama’s MVP”. Which is laughable as we’ve discussed previously. Some of the Libertarians were taken out (Tony Rosales and Kevin Leatherbarrow) but Jessica Dyrdahl triumphed in SD 10.
Actual Democrats Won!
On the Democratic side, both Mindy Sterner Leach and Valynda Holland handily beat their fake Democratic (actually MAGAs) opponents. Woo hoo for informed voters! The slate is set for November, with the Great Falls area Democratic vs. Republican legislative lineups shown below.
by Helena Lovick | Apr 22, 2026 | Elections
Great Falls, MT
Watching television, the other night I’m suddenly seeing ads for several Republican legislative candidates. Why are they spending this kind of money for a state legislative seat?? Where is their money coming from?
How can a person find out about money in Montana politics?
Well for those in the know (which now includes you!), you can look up certain information about a state candidate’s funding and their spending through the Office of Political Practices in the Campaign Electronic Reporting System. The Campaign Electronic Reporting System, also known as CERS, is the online reporting platform required to be used for all candidates and committees to track money in politics. You can check it out here: https://cers-ext.mt.gov/CampaignTracker/dashboard.
What are the Great Falls legislative candidates up to?
I went through CERS so you don’t have to! I looked at how much personal money candidates are throwing at the primaries. My findings are in the table below for your viewing pleasure. As you can see, Republican candidates in particular are loaning themselves or donating, thousands of dollars to their campaigns. Candidates can payback some or all of their personal loans to their campaigns if they raise enough money from donors and political action committees (PACs).
But……DO GEORGE AND MELISSA NIKOLAKAKOS EXPECT TO PAY THEMSELVES BACK $125,000?!? That is a lot of money to dump into state legislative races. Several other Republican candidates are also lending themselves thousands too. Steven Galloway at $11k, Ed Buttrey at $20k, Mark Winters (one of the fake Dems, we wrote about before) at $10k. That’s a lot of money. So why are they doing it?
Great Falls Area Legislative Candidates Loans/Self Donation as of April 2026
SD = Montana Senate District. HD = Montana House District. D = Democratic. R = Republican. “D” means the fake Democrats we wrote about before that are primarying actual Democrats.
Why are Republicans spending so much money to get elected?
The rich get richer because they can afford to either get elected themselves or they can help elect stooges to pass legislation they like. And the legislation they pass legislation benefits them instead of the working class. That is why we see insane income inequality in America.
Money in politics really does screw over the working class. On top of that, having to listen to more stupid TV ads? We’re already suffering in this economy, do they have to add torture to the mix? 
by Helena Lovick | Mar 26, 2026 | Elections
Alternative Titles: “2026: Blue Wave” or “Democrats Make Gains and Republicans Freak Out”
Great Falls, MT
The filing period for candidates has closed in Montana. So how are things looking? The energy reminds me of 2018, because of all the Democrats filing. Every legislative district in Cascade County has a Democrat on the slate. That is the best candidate recruitment we’ve seen since 2018. Really good news for Democrats. The left leaning folks are fired up and ready to go!
Behold this map! We can make it all blue, not just HD 19 that we hold right now!!
Well sorry folks we can’t celebrate too long. It’s back to the grind again, because the Republicans are imploding and trying to take us with them.
What Republican Tantrum Do We Have to Deal With Now?
Zinke and Daines are Out
First the good news, Congressman Ryan Zinke (MT-01) and U.S. Senator Steve Daines dropped out of their races!! While they may bring us fresh hell in the future as zombie candidates for governor or something….at least Republicans have lost the incumbency advantage in those races.
Let them Fight – Libertarians primarying Republicans
Then, three local Libertarians have decided to run as Republicans, calling themselves “Libertarian-Republicans.” They’re primarying known Republicans in state legislative races to do it (SD-10, HD-20, and HD-22).
State Representative George Nikolakakos is BIG MAD about it. He ranted on his public Facebook that Kevin Leatherbarrow, a candidate for HD-22, “is a perennial Libertarian candidate”…”running as a “Constitutional Republican” (whatever that means in his mind).” When Tony Rosales (the chair of the local Libertarian Party) filed to run in HD-20 against George’s wife Melissa, fellow State Representative George Nikolakakos declared, “It’s raining crazy in Great Falls with the filing deadline over!”
Looks like the Cascade County Libertarians and Republicans won’t be singing kumbaya together any time soon. Dang.
MAGA Republicans Filing as Democrats
If you squint, you can see how Libertarians and Republicans can overlap. But MAGA and Democrats? No.
But somehow the dumbass loony toons of James Whitaker and Mark Winters decided to file in Montana Senate Districts 11 and 12, respectively as Democrats. As if the voters wouldn’t notice James Whitaker running concurrently for a Republican precinct person position (an elected position as a voting member in the local Cascade County GOP), and the fact that Mark Winters is/was a Republican precinct person until he stepped down a couple of days after filing.
The Chair of the Local Republican Party had this to say about both candidates:
Eric Hinebauch, chair of the Cascade County Republican Central Committee and a member of the Cascade County Commission….believes the pair filed in Democratic primaries to deter Democratic voters from crossing over to vote in Republican primaries. He told Montana Free Press that he doesn’t believe either candidate is really a Democrat.
(quote from the Montana Free Press article: https://montanafreepress.org/2026/03/12/two-candidates-in-cascade-county-claim-to-be-democrats-local-party-leadership-says-thats-a-hoax/)
You Decide – MAGA or Democrat?
I will summarize some items I found in a 5 minute Google search and let you the reader be the judge! Do these people seem like Democrats? Would you say that their candidacies for the nominations were made in good faith? Or….do you think they are lying to the voters?
Google Search Results on Whitaker and Winters:
| James Whitaker |
Mark Winters |
- Running to be a Republican precinct person in the 2026 election
- Ran for HD-22 as a Republican in 2024
- Local GOP Party chair says he is not a Democrat
|
|
Based on that summary, I assume you agree with me that they are NOT Democrats. In my opinion, filing to run as a candidate for a political party where you do not overlap at all on party platform positions is completely disrespectful to voters. It is an honor and a privilege to be a candidate for political office. Meanwhile, Whitaker and Winters just spit in the voters’ faces instead.
Why are these MAGAs filing as Democrats?
In the Montana Free Press article, Rae Grulkowski’s loss to Eric Hinebauch in the 2024 Republican primary for Cascade County commissioner was brought up.
And foreshadowing, that loss is highly relevant to the rest of this post.
Grulkowski blamed her loss on Democrats voting in the Republican primary. You can read that twice. Grulkowski is pissed, and I suspect her little cabal of MAGA weirdos is behind the push for Republicans to file as Democrats in Cascade County. She is still mad she lost, and she blames Democrats rather than having some self-reflection. PEOPLE DIDN’T VOTE FOR YOU RAE, BECAUSE YOU WERE BAD AT YOUR JOB.
My conclusion is that Whitaker and Winters filed to force Democratic primaries and ensure that Democrats don’t crossover vote in the Republican primary. Yep. It’s worth lying to the voters to get their way! Sounds about MAGA.
AnYwAy, James Whitaker and Mark Winters are Rae Grulkowski’s people, and Steven Vinnedge and Kathryn Hansen are also her people. Since both Steven Vinnedge and Kathryn Hansen signed that stupid petition that was going around in 2021-2022 asking the county to eliminate mail ballots and count all ballots by hand instead of using the counting machines.
Why do I bring up Steven Vinnedge and Kathryn Hansen? More MAGA idiocy
Both Steven Vinnedge and Kathryn Hansen filed to be Democratic precinct people in Cascade County. Not satisfied with destroying their own party, the MAGA wing is trying to become voting members of the local Democratic Party. And yes, like Winters and Whitakers, it’s not hard to find the crazy on Vinnedge and Hansen. They are not Democrats.
Here are some lowlights from Steven Vinnedge’s public Facebook posts:
Yeah…Steven Vinnedge is not a Democrat.
What about Kathryn Hansen?
Like the others, it is well known that Hansen is a Republican. She spoke openly against the Great Falls Library Board recommendations at an October 2023 Great Falls City Commission meeting and asked them to appoint anti-library levy applicant Noelle Johnson. ::Shocker::, at the same meeting, Steven Vinnedge was there also dissing the library board. Almost like they align politically! As I pointed out above, both Kathryn Hansen and Steven Vinnedge signed that bananapants all return to paper ballots, all hand counting petition.
There you have it folks
MAGA is going through an extinction burst, and hopefully we can work around them until they finish destroying themselves. Meanwhile, the local Democratic Party is seriously kicking some ass with candidate recruitment and strengthening of their party.
