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6/08/2026
Another primary in the books for Cascade County
Last week’s primary election cemented some fall election matchups, but it also locked in future terms for some local candidates.
One local official who will cruise through the November general election unopposed is Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, who defeated Republican primary opponent Mindy Kahle with a resounding 83% of the vote.
Slaughter told Montana Free Press last week that the win is humbling and that he didn’t take the contested primary for granted.
“When you get a win that big, it shows how much community support that you have and that the community stands by law enforcement and believes in what we do,” he said. “It feels really good.”
Slaughter also won an uncontested general election in 2022. He will start his third term as sheriff at the start of 2027 and said his top priorities include ramping up a school officer pilot program and seeking reforms in the revenue-based model at the county detention center.
In another notable local primary, Lynn DeRoche defeated Desarea Valentine to become the Republican candidate for Cascade County Clerk and Recorder. DeRoche previously worked in the clerk and recorder’s office and currently works in the county elections department.
“I’m excited that I won, and I’m a little shocked,” DeRoche told MTFP on Thursday. “I really didn’t know what to expect.”
DeRoche will face her former boss, Rina Fontana Moore, in the general election (more on that here).
Former police officer Tom Lynch won a three-way Republican primary for Cascade County commissioner. The seat currently held by board chair Jim Larson is up for grabs after Larson opted against another term.
A group of party-switchers had poor showings in the primary election for legislative seats. Former Libertarian Party members Tony Rosales and Kevin Leatherbarrow lost Republican primaries in House District 20 and House District 22, respectively. Incumbent Republican Melissa Nikolakakos will be the GOP candidate for HD 20, and business owner Jason Lorang will head to the general as the Republican candidate for HD 22.
Read more about legislative primaries and the divide within the Republican Party here.
Mark Winters and James Whitaker, two men who actively participated in Republican politics but ran in contested primaries as Democrats, lost their primary bids. Winters lost in Senate District 11 to Valynda Holland. Whitaker secured just 15% of the vote in Senate District 12 and lost to Mindy Leach to be the district’s Democratic candidate.
Whitaker did, however, secure the vote to be a committeeman in precinct 22B as a Republican. Read more about Whitaker and Winters here. There were no other contested Democratic primary races for local or state legislative positions.
Read more about the primary results for U.S. Senate and House races here.
You can find full primary results on the MTFP site here via The Associated Press. Preliminary results from the Montana Secretary of State website are here.
Verbatim
“On or about June 9, 2024, J.F. suffered serious and substantial burn injuries as the direct and proximate result of the pressure cooker’s lid being able to be rotated and opened while the pressure cooker retained pressure, during the normal, directed use of the pressure cooker, allowing its scalding hot contents to be forcefully ejected from the pressure cooker and onto Plaintiff.”
— Excerpted from the lawsuit J.F. and Laura Feist v. Walmart, Inc.
Reading between the lines of this lawsuit, it might appear that J.F. opened a pressure cooker and was burned by the steam. But the author of this recent lawsuit complaint took great pains to avoid mention of who or what actually opened the pressure cooker.
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit are Vaughn woman Laura Feist and her minor child. They sued Walmart in May, alleging negligence and claiming they purchased an Instant Pot pressure cooker from the retailer. Details of what happened are scant in the lawsuit, but Feist claims in her lawsuit that the cooker was “defectively and negligently designed” to be opened while hot, pressurized steam was still inside the unit.
However it happened, J.F. suffered “serious and substantial burn injuries” from steam, according to the lawsuit.
Walmart responded to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Great Falls. The company noted that it was not the manufacturer of the pressure cooker and that Feist provided no evidence so far that they purchased the unit from Walmart.
In their own legal jargon, Walmart’s attorneys wrote that Feist’s lawsuit may not have merit if “such damages were caused by the misuse of the subject pressure cooker” and if J.F. ignored the product’s safety warnings.
Attorneys for Feist didn’t respond to an MTFP inquiry about whether J.F. opened the pressure cooker.
5 Things to Know in Great Falls
A judge sentenced a Pondera County man to probation and a $3,000 fine for lying about killing a whitetail deer with a rifle. Tony Zimbelman, 23, initially told officials that he shot the deer with archery equipment during that designated season, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. His hunting, fishing and trapping licenses have been revoked for two years.
Dakota Wheeler, a British man living in Great Falls without citizenship or residency, is asking the court to release him from jail while his case continues. Wheeler has been at the Cascade County Detention Center since his arrest in November, and since then, his wife has given birth to their child. A judge hasn’t yet ruled on the request, and Wheeler’s challenge of his immigration removal order remains ongoing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Read about his case here.
Touro University announced approval for its forthcoming law school from the American Bar Association. The school has proposed a hybrid online and in-person learning model and hopes to recruit the first class in August 2027, according to a press release. The school also announced that it will create a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and that the Montana State Board of Nursing has approved it.
First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park near Ulm will hold a buffalo kite festival June 13 and 14. The free event is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is a collaboration between park officials and Terry Zee Lee, founder of SkyWindWorld, according to a press release. Zee Lee’s organization sponsors kite events and workshops in the region.
In case you missed it, Janicki Industries chose Great Falls as the site of a large manufacturing campus. The company said it could begin construction as early as July on the first of multiple building phases. Janicki specializes in the fabrication of metal tooling and parts for the aerospace, defense and marine industries. Local officials have been celebrating the development as an economic win for Great Falls. Speaking at the June 2 city commission meeting, City Manager Greg Doyon said the city had limited financial incentives to offer Janicki in competition with other potential sites. “Janicki saw something in Great Falls that we offered that our competitor didn’t. And that, simply stated, was our community,” Doyon said.
