Fireweed pitch: Unwinnable Democrats should back GOP, independents

If Democrats cannot win the 1st U.S. Congressional District race in Montana, the party is better positioned backing select moderate Republicans or independent candidates who can advance at least some of the agenda.

That’s what Fireweed Campaigns, a self-described politically independent Helena-based firm with only Republican clients, pitched to a room of about a dozen ‘Democrat-adjacent’ strategists mixed with at least one state representative during a quiet strategy meeting in Anaconda in the summer of 2025.

“I’ve heard that accusation,” said Tiffany Williams, former Montana Democratic Party digital communications coordinator. Citing external forces making her job untenable, Williams stepped down from the position she’s held since 2022 earlier this month.

Only rumors had circulated until now.

“If there was a meeting like that that was organized, I probably would have known about it,” former U.S. Senator Jon Tester told to the Chronicle. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it. Democrats are in the micro-minority. They have more things (to do). This is petty inside political bullshit. I wouldn’t write this shit.”

Joe Hancock, Gallatin County Democrats chairperson heard an alternative strategy was discussed at around that time.

“Before we hired a new executive director, staff turnover,” Hancock said.

Emily Marburger officially took over as the executive director of the Montana Democratic Party in February.

“I think (the meeting) did exist but no one currently on our staff was there,” said Sofia Perez, Montana Democratic Party communications director.

The Chronicle confirmed the meeting with two sources who said they were in the room. Fearing for their careers, both were granted anonymity to discuss the proceedings.

Both sources confirmed that Tester was not at the Anaconda meeting. Neither recalled any current 1st Congressional District candidate’s name mentioned during the meeting.

“In the meeting the conversation was almost like a pitch to not run a Democrat in CD1, but to just to run an independent,” one source said. “That it could be fun and interesting. That was the pitch.”

After Tester’s 2024 loss to Republican Tim Sheehy, national political investment and donor interest in the Montana Democratic Party flat-lined. National groups were deprioritizing the party in a Republican supermajority state.

The sparser donations suggest donors have little appetite for another massive, expensive campaign akin to the lost Tester race.

“There is no Democrat brand in Montana, so to speak, if you get outside Bozeman, Butte and Helena,” said Erik Nylund, a Butte resident and former Tester staffer. “We abandoned it as a party.”

Nylund, a lifelong Democrat, heard of the Anaconda meeting second-hand. He views the proposed attempt at advancing the party’s agenda via Republicans as “power-grabbing opportunism.”

He agrees with the pitch that Democrats are increasingly unlikely to win a federal seat in Montana.

“They’ve eviscerated the party enough to make this a self fulfilling prophecy,” Nylund said.

Fireweed Campaigns was founded by Lauren Caldwell, a political consultant and former director for the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee in 2024. Fireweed’s stated mission is to “empower leaders and candidates by using data-driven analytics via a grassroots campaign framework.”

Caldwell and Fireweed did not respond to the Chronicle’s request for comment.

Hearing confirmation from the Chronicle that the Anaconda meeting occurred, Democratic 1st Congressional District candidate Russell Cleveland was not surprised.

“The big picture of this, and it’s happened on the Republican side too, is people do not want their candidates picked for them,” Cleveland said. “That is not how democracy is supposed to work. Whether it’s Sen. Steve Daines sliding (Kurt Alme) in with five minutes before the deadline, Ryan Zinke backing out three days before, or a backroom meeting in Anaconda a year before the primary.

“People deserve transparency and the right to know what is happening. If this is being decided for them, then we don’t live in a democracy. It’s not cheating per se, but it makes me frustrated when I am running the right way that there are other people out there trying to take shortcuts. They are going to have to really convince their constituents they can be trusted if something like this is brought out in the open, which it should be.

“What we tend to see is this secretive nature. With what we’ve got going on at the federal level, there is too much of that backdoor dealing and secretive behavior happening, undermining our democracy. When you fill in that bubble next to someone’s name, what are you signing up for?

“It’s not slander; it’s me wanting the truth out there.”

Rival candidate Ryan Busse concurs with his challenger.

“This D.C. dark money stuff and all these consultants floating around — they don’t appreciate us and our campaigns, because we don’t bow down,” Busse said.

The Fireweed revelation partially validates claims from the Montana Freedom Caucus, a hard-line, ultra-conservative faction of the state Republican Party, that Fireweed’s management of 17 incumbent moderate Republican legislative primary candidates is more than meets the eye. The caucus labeled them “Fireweed frauds.”

Shelley Vance, running for state Senate District 34 encompassing Belgrade and Churchill, and former Belgrade Mayor Russ Nelson, running to represent Belgrade in House District 67, are Fireweed clientele.

The hardliners accuse the candidates of funneling “dark-money progressive” and out-of-state Democratic funds into Republican primaries to undermine conservative policies. In April, the MTGOP Executive Board unanimously passed a resolution officially stripping 19 representatives of their party status.