A congressional candidate reenters the race despite allegations of sexual misconduct. A legislative candidate faces sexual abuse allegations. A GOP "dark money" PAC uses AI to disparage other Republicans. A House candidate worries western Montana could become the next Portland. A battle between Montana's attorney general and a county attorney ends up at the state Supreme Court.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau.
Sally Mauk Seaborn, last month eastern district House candidate Jonathan Windy Boy dropped out of the race citing health reasons, but really because of a slew of allegations of sexual abuse. And now this week Windy Boy is back in the race saying it's all dirty politics and making no mention of his health.
Seaborn Larson Right. It's the first time Windy Boy has spoken publicly since these allegations came out around three weeks ago, and his message here is that he's never been charged with a crime related to this, and he, like anybody else, has due process rights on this that haven't been honored. Windy Boy called the whole thing a political ambush by his Democratic primary opponents in the race for Montana's eastern congressional district. He said the Montana Democratic Party was persecuting him.
Back in April, a couple hours before Windy Boy said he was dropping out of the race for health reasons, the state Democratic Party's executive director released a statement saying that he would withdraw due to sexual abuse allegations. Brian Miller, one of his opponents in the Democratic primary, has been in contact with the alleged victim's mother and sharing some of these messages that this woman has held onto for over 20 years. Miller didn't really start doing that until Windy Boy dropped out of the race, but he is sharing this stuff on his campaign's social media, and he made a few videos where he's calling for Windy Boy to be convicted in the court of public opinion.
Windy Boy's press release didn't mention this week any of the past allegations of sexual harassment at the state Legislature where he's held office since 2003. And that's very much been a feature of news coverage around Windy Boy's campaign since he dropped out. Also, when Windy Boy dropped out last month, it was too late to remove his name from the ballot. So even before he revived his campaign this week, voters were still going to see his name on their ballots.
Sally Mauk Rob, it's hard to find anyone, at least publicly, who supports Windy Boy reentering the race.
Rob Saldin Right. You know what strikes me, Sally, is that our political system often relies on informal norms more than formal rules. In the not-too-distant past someone in this situation almost certainly would have dropped out of the campaign and resigned from office. But that was all based on societal norms of what was and wasn't acceptable behavior, not a formal rule. It relied on a sense of shame. If you're immune to shame, that's a real superpower and it allows you to play by a different set of rules. We've seen a sharp increase in this form of immunity over the last decade or so.
In this particular case, it's pretty clear – the state Democratic Party and its leaders, they want Windy Boy to go away. The Legislature has made it clear. They want him to go away. But Windy Boy was elected by his constituency. And he's met the requirements to run in the Democratic primary. Ultimately, if he digs in his heels and insists on staying, those are the rules that really matter. That said, Sally, at least insofar as the election is concerned, the voters will get their say here in just a few weeks.
Sally Mauk Meanwhile, Seaborn, a Republican legislative candidate from Helena, James Marshal, has also been accused of sexual abuse and is currently facing DUI charges.
Seaborn Larson Yeah, our Carly Graf last week got the scoop on James Henry Marshal. He's a Republican candidate for the state Legislature in the East Helena Valley. He's been vetted and endorsed by the state GOP, but he's actively facing several misdemeanor charges;:DUI, resisting arrest, and obstructing a peace officer. Those are related to an incident last November, and a further look into court records turned up a temporary order of protection against Marshal back in 2024. This was sought by his stepdaughter. She was a teenager at the time and claimed in court that Marshal had groomed and groped her in their home.
Marshal denied these allegations in an interview and said even after the restraining order was granted, he was never even questioned by law enforcement. I should note there is a much lower bar for getting an order of protection like this than there is for charging someone.
The stepdaughter told us that she was told there just wasn't much evidence to the case and that she shouldn't pursue charges, but she still stands by those claims she made in court.
The state Republican Party leadership, meanwhile, told us last week they knew about none of this. They haven't disavowed Marshal, but I did see this week that the primary endorsements called the GOP Honor Roll was taken down off their website.
Sally Mauk Rob, there seems to be an epidemic of male politicians on both the local and the national level and in both parties accused of sexual misconduct this campaign season. What's going on?
Rob Saldin I've noticed that too, Sally. These are real headaches for the parties who always have to respond to these things after they come out. It reflects poorly on the parties. It seems as though the state GOP would like to distance itself from Marshal just as a state Democratic Party would like to distance itself from Windy Boy. These just aren't the kinds of things party leaders want to be getting asked about during a campaign. In the old days, our political parties were in a position where they played a much more active role in vetting candidates and filtering out candidates who were potential liabilities, but we don't see that as much anymore. I think that's because, Sally, the parties just don't have the institutional capacity that they once did. And so we're in an age of strong partisanship, but weak parties.
Sally Mauk Seaborn, many of the ads we're seeing in the legislative races reflect the rift we've discussed many times before between moderate and conservative Republicans. Here's one of those ads attacking Red Lodge Representative Brad Barker:
Horman ad "While Montana celebrated Donald Trump's reelection, Brad Barker voted against congratulating Trump. And when Brad Barker had the opportunity to ban transgender surgeries on kids, here's what he said: 'I think it's overly broad. I think it creates risk for our medical community. I am going to be a no on this bill.' Now, Brad has received the maximum donation from a former Montana Democrat Party director. Reject Democrat in disguise, Brad Barker. Vote pro-Trump conservative, Mary Horman, on June 2nd."
Sally Mauk And this ad, Seaborn, was sponsored by a group called Montana Patriots.
Seaborn Larson Right. This primary has been really active, really frenetic, I think, with all the activity going on in the Republican Party primaries. This intra-party battle has been going on a long time at the legislative level, Sally, and this year it's gotten pretty vicious. That audio we heard is just one video, but we're seeing six figures come from outside groups into state-level PACs that are working to influence these primaries. One of the hardline PACs from Montana that's receiving huge contributions from out-of-state is Accountability in State Government. It's run by former Republican lawmaker Dan Bartel. His group recently produced and distributed these mailers with AI-generated images of some of these centrist Republican candidates holding pride flags. They filed complaints against him with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices saying the mailers are in violation of a new law passed by the Legislature last year that bans this kind of AI use from being used in election communications unless disclosed on the material. That law has criminal penalties. The third strike is a felony, and in this case, Bartel's PAC sent out three mailers, at least that we know about. On Wednesday, Bartel sued the state in federal court saying the law violates his First Amendment rights. I think it's just a good example of how many rabbit holes have opened up in the primary season this year.
Sally Mauk Expensive rabbit holes. Rob, all this PAC money being spent on state legislative races is probably setting a record.
Rob Saldin Oh, for sure, Sally. It's got to be. There's a reason for that, and that is that the differences between the two groups are significant. One way of understanding the difference, I think, is the way that each group thinks about its role within state and national politics. Barker and many of the other Republicans in the Solutions Caucus network, they embrace a type of conservatism oriented around making government work more effectively and with a kind of stability and predictability. It's a tradition that pursues those goals from within the existing system and its institutions and seeks to work with others within that system to find common ground and so forth. From this perspective, reform and change is often necessary, but it should be undertaken cautiously and incrementally. That's a disposition with a long lineage that can be traced all the way back to the great philosopher and politician Edmund Burke.
And then by contrast, there's this more right-wing contingent in the Montana Republican Party, which tends to see the system and our existing institutions as the source of our problems. From this perspective, the system in many regards is corrupt and it needs to be not so much accommodated, but aggressively confronted. And this outlook, of course, is fairly central to the MAGA movement. In some respects, Sally, I think it's actually less of a Conservative temperament than a kind of radical disposition insofar as it sometimes has a burn-it-all-down dimension to it. To the extent that that difference in outlook captures an important aspect of the animating spirit behind this split within the Montana GOP, that really is a pretty significant source of disagreement. And of course, it has all kinds of policy implications as we've seen in recent legislative sessions.
Sally Mauk Switching to the western district congressional race, Republican Aaron Flint has been getting airtime on some national Conservative media. And here's an excerpt from a recent interview he did with Newsmax talking about the importance of voters getting involved in this election:
"My goodness, we have got to get engaged in this congressional race here in western Montana because if we do not get engaged in this midterm election, we could turn into Portland. And Lord knows we don't want to see that happen here in western Montana"
Sally Mauk Rob, I'm not sure how a state turns into a city, but Flint did not mean this as a compliment to Portland.
Rob Saldin No. No, he certainly didn't. There's a lot to love about Portland, but its problems are also rather obvious. And these major urban centers, where Democrats are totally dominant, do make for rich targets for Flint and other Republicans. They're able to say that this is what Democratic governance looks like in its purest form, when it doesn't have any checks or adult supervision from Republicans. And Democrats and progressives often play right into that when they dismiss these attacks as self-evidently ridiculous or thinly disguised appeals to bigotry, certainly not something to be taken seriously. But the problem there is that while Flint is characteristically a bit hyperbolic in that interview, there's more than a grain of truth behind what he's saying insofar as he's referring to an element of dysfunction and disorder in Portland and many of our other great cities that's just hard to miss if you've visited these places in recent years. To the extent that Republicans are able to get it lodged in people's heads that this is what Democratic governance looks like, that's going to get some traction in Montana.
Sally Mauk Lastly, Seaborn, State Attorney General Austin Knudsen is battling with Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell, and that battle is now before the state Supreme Court.
Seaborn Larson This standoff has been kind of like a tennis match over the last month. Watching Knudsen order the county attorney to hand over information to ICE and then watching the county attorney volley back, saying ICE isn't abiding by the proper channels to get the records that they're seeking. She's referring to a process that weighs privacy rights against the disclosure of government records. Gallatin County attorney Audrey Cromwell said if Knudsen wanted to give ICE that carve-out, he could do so himself through an official AG's opinion. Those are legally binding. Instead, Knudsen invoked a different authority of his office, supervisory control of a county prosecutor. Through that, he ordered Cromwell's office to turn over those records. They're confidential, so we don't even know what's really in question here. Cromwell eventually brought it to the Montana Supreme Court, standing by her interpretation and arguing that Knudsen can't force her to take actions that are illegal. This week, the state Supreme Court ordered Knudsen to respond to that argument, and that's due next week.
Sally Mauk Rob, A.G. Knudsen is not shy about making headlines.
Rob Saldin No, this very much fits the pattern, Sally. Knudsen is very pleased to weigh in on these hot button issues that are divisive, but he sees that playing to his advantage.
Sally Mauk Well, guys, absentee ballots are in the mail, so voting in the primary begins soon. Rob and Seaborn, I'll talk to you next week.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau. Tune in on-air Fridays at 5:45 p.m. during All Things Considered, or Saturdays at 9:45 a.m., before Weekend Edition. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
