Two candidates in Cascade County claim to be Democrats. Local party leadership says that’s a hoax.

Republican and Democratic political leaders in Cascade County allege that two candidates running as Democrats are not really Democrats, but Republicans trying to “game” the upcoming election for the Montana Legislature. 

The two candidates, James Whitaker and Mark Winters, publicly identified themselves as Republicans in the past but, in interviews with Montana Free Press, denied allegations this week that they are trying to bamboozle Democratic voters. 

Eric Hinebauch, chair of the Cascade County Republican Central Committee and a member of the Cascade County Commission, isn’t buying those claims. He 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. 

“This is a game,” Hinebauch said. 

After Hinebauch defeated incumbent Rae Grulkowski in the 2024 Republican primary for county commissioner, Grulkowski blamed her loss on Democrats voting in the Republican primary. In Montana, voters can cast their vote on either the Republican or Democratic ticket, but Hinebauch called the theory that conservative Republicans lose primaries to moderate Republicans because of crossover voting “ludicrous.” 

“The moderate candidates win because they have a better message, and they connect with the voters of Cascade County better,” Hinebauch said. Grulkowski did not respond to MTFP’s requests for comment.

Chair of Cascade County Democrats Matt Pipinich also doubts Whitaker’s and Winters’ legitimacy as Democrats. Though the local party generally does not participate in primaries, Pipinich said it will decide on March 19 whether to disavow the campaigns of both men in hopes of signaling to voters that the party doesn’t support either candidate.

In Senate District 11, Winters filed as a Democrat on March 4 and resigned his post as a Republican Party precinct committee man on March 6. He argued he is facing a double standard, highlighting that three Cascade County candidates, two former Libertarians and a former Democrat, submitted election filings as Republicans. The two former Libertarians, Tony Rosales and Kevin Leatherbarrow, triggered Republican primaries in their distinct races for the Montana House of Representatives. The former Democrat, incumbent Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki, announced last year that he was switching his allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. He’s running for reelection under the GOP banner this year.

“I don’t know if they’re getting asked the same question,” Winters said. 

Winters also maintains he really has flipped parties, and in an interview this week, he bashed Cascade County Republicans. 

“It’s run by the same connected people. And in my view, they’re going to Helena to predominantly advance their own interests,” Winters said. He supports Republican President Donald Trump, though he doesn’t like “everything he does.” He said he otherwise disdains state and national Republicans.

He doesn’t agree with everything in either party’s platform but said Democrats “seemed to be more caring about what would help people.” If elected, Winters said he would caucus with Democrats. If he loses the primary, he said would support the Democrat during the general election. 

But his only primary opponent, Valynda Holland, told MTFP that Winters’ decision to run as a Democrat doesn’t sit right with her. 

“If someone was truly seeing that light, the first thing that they would really do is support somebody like myself who’s running as a Democrat, who has been actively fighting for working families all along,” Holland said. 

Whitaker, a longtime Republican, filed Feb. 19 as a Republican committee representative for precinct 22B and on March 4 as a Democrat in Senate District 12. He previously served in the Montana House of Representatives as a Republican in the early 2000s, according to the Montana Secretary of State’s office. He lost to Great Falls Republican Rep. George Nikolakakos during House District 22’s Republican primary in 2024. 

Whitaker said his values are conservative, and, if elected, his priorities would be to reduce government spending, ensure candidates live in the district they represent and “stop the vaping, stop the kratom.” He said he didn’t know whether he agreed with the Democratic platform because he hadn’t studied it.  

He filed as a Democrat, he said, “to give some competition to the other candidates” and because he thought he would have a better chance of eventually winning a seat in the Legislature.

His only primary opponent, optometrist Mindy Leach, told MTFP she had “no idea why he’s doing this.”

“I’m just going to run my race,” Leach said.

Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices Chris Gallus declined to comment on Whitaker’s or Winters’ specific circumstances, but he pointed to two areas of Montana law that could relate to filing under an allegedly false party affiliation.

An individual could face criminal penalties if found guilty of deceptive election practices under Montana law. And, under another state statute, a person could file a complaint in state District Court over a candidate’s filing, alleging that “the person’s candidacy for the nomination is not in good faith.” 

Matt Hudson contributed to this reporting.

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