HELENA — Delegates of the Montana Republican Party gathered in Helena Saturday to choose the party’s next chair – a process that took several hours and rules battles to complete.
The party picked Art Wittich, an attorney and former state lawmaker from Gallatin County, to lead them for the next two years.
(Watch the video to see the debates during Saturday's party convention.)
Wittich will replace “Don K” Kaltschmidt, who chaired the Montana GOP for the last six years. Over that time, Republicans won all the statewide elections in Montana and held firm control of the state Legislature – but Wittich said Saturday that he doesn’t believe that’s translated into the kind of conservative policy victories they’ve been hoping for.
“We’re not delivering on the full results the voters expect,” he told delegates in a speech before Saturday’s vote. “We are a 55% red state. We did not get 55% ideas out of the Legislature.”
Initially, 241 delegates participated in the party’s officer’s convention. However, almost immediately, there was a rules fight over whether the group of state senators known as “the Nine” should be allowed to vote.
The nine senators drew criticism from other Republicans during this year’s legislative session, when they broke with party leadership and sided with Democrats on a series of key procedural votes. In April, the state party’s executive committee released a statement saying they were “no longer considered by the MTGOP as Republicans.”
While Republican elected officials are entitled to vote at the state convention, some delegates challenged the Nine, arguing the April statement meant they were no longer eligible to represent the party.
“It is us who decides who is Republican,” said Rep. Jane Gillette, R-Three Forks. “Our executive board, through the powers vested to them through us electing those leaders, voted to declare the Nine not recognized Republicans in our private association, GOP.”
Kaltschmidt said, regardless of what he thought of the Nine, he didn’t believe party rules allowed him to remove their credentials.
“While the Executive Committee has expressed a clear belief about the senators, the Executive Committee does not have the ability to amend the party's bylaws unilaterally,” he said. “The nine senators are elected Republicans, and our rules make them members of this convention.”
But delegates forced a roll-call vote on whether to uphold Kaltschmidt’s ruling.
Some in attendance said those seeking to remove the Nine were trying to change rules that people had already agreed on.
“Imagine if you were in one of these counties with ‘the Evil Nine,’ and you show up, and you're not getting that vote for your county, for the representatives that we are to vote on,” said Jason Stephenson, chair of the Big Horn County Republican Central Committee. “So I'm asking you guys, think about fairness.”
But, after 20 minutes of roll-call voting, Kaltschmidt announced 136 delegates had voted to reopen the issue of credentials, with 97 voting to sustain his decision and 3 abstaining. A majority of the body then took a second vote to accept all the delegates except the Nine. The senators – along with proxy voters representing several of them – were asked to give up their seats at the event.
After the rules issues, leaders opened voting for the next party chair. There were four candidates for the position. In addition to Wittich, they included:
- Stacy Zinn, a former state supervisor for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a 2024 U.S. House candidate for Montana’s eastern district.
- Troy Miller, a financial planner and finance chair for the Gallatin County Republican Party.
- Tanner Smith, an excavation company owner, former state lawmaker and 2024 gubernatorial candidate.
Delegates voted by ballot. No candidate received a majority after the first round, so Wittich and Zinn, the top-two finishers, moved on to a second round.
Wittich was backed by some of the most conservative members of the party, including an endorsement from the Montana Freedom Caucus. During his speech before the vote, he criticized the property tax legislation passed during this year’s session, and he said lawmakers haven’t done enough to promote judicial transparency and election integrity. He also said he would establish a “conservative governance committee” that would vet and endorse candidates for office.
“I think that, if we show that conservative governance works – we're a red state, we could become a bright red state,” he told delegates after his election.
Kaltschmidt told MTN he thought the delegates had made the right selection, and that their actions Saturday signaled that they wanted the party “to unify in the Legislature as well as the voting booth.”
Wittich will be party chair for a two-year term, continuing through the 2026 elections and the 2027 legislative session.
