Montana Supreme Court candidate headlines GOP campaign kickoff event in Great Falls

GREAT FALLS — Montana Supreme Court candidate Dan Wilson on Friday headlined the state Republican Party’s premier campaign launch event where the nonpartisan status of his race was, intentionally or not, a punchline in the keynote speech.

“If you want to see a Supreme Court that just gives answers and doesn’t backfill its opinions with the personal or political agendas of certain members of the court, then I hope you’ll consider supporting me, a nonpartisan candidate for the Montana Supreme Court,” Wilson said, evoking some laughter and applause from the crowd of Republican candidates and donors.

As a backdrop to the evening’s speech, judicial elections in Montana remain nonpartisan. Republicans for years have sought to extend their political successes to their preferred candidates, although those efforts have not translated to many wins. Much of the GOP’s most controversial legislation has been stalled or struck down in the courts since the Republican Party in 2021 secured a governor’s office that would sign those policies into law after they were passed by the deeply Republican state Legislature.

Judicial candidates aren’t allowed to voice their opinions on hot-button political matters that serve as red meat for Republican voters, nor are they allowed to accept and use partisan endorsements from political parties in their campaigns.

Wilson, a Flathead County District Court judge, ran unsuccessfully for the Supreme Court in 2024, when the state GOP kept its support at a distance that seemed measured in plausible deniability. Acknowledging the partisan overtones around his campaign, Wilson said at the time he would not be beholden to any supporters if elected.

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The Montana Republican Party Winter Kickoff event is the unofficial start of campaign season for donors and candidates to drum up excitement for the year ahead.

Wilson's speech Friday rarely strayed into definitive support for Republican policies, but asserted instead that he would adhere closely to the state constitution. Anything beyond that, he said, is “judicial activism.”

Republicans cleared the last Democrat off of Montana’s slate of statewide election officials with the defeat of then-U.S. Sen. Jon Tester in 2024. Without a partisan opponent to focus on, the GOP now seems fully locked in on the lone Supreme Court election on the ballot this cycle.

“The party has to get involved with the Montana Supreme Court races. It just has to,” Montana Republican Party Chair Art Wittich said at the event’s opening on Friday. “We can control the Legislature. We can elect a Republican governor, and we have great laws being overturned and we have to do something about it.”

“Democrats know that that is their last stronghold, that is their last dying breath to control Montana government in the state,” Wittich continued.

Friday’s event featured plenty for candidates and donors to chew on in the coming months. The event kicked off mid-day with a speech from former University of Montana law professor Rob Natelson, who said the number of bills struck down by “far-fetched” rulings from the state Supreme Court has been “unprecedented” in his view.

During the marquee speech Friday evening, Wilson trotted out his most potent conservative judicial credential: rejecting the Democratic governor’s request for a court order in 2020 enforcing mask mandates in five businesses where patrons had been observed without masks.

“I could have put fear over facts, but I didn’t,” Wilson told the crowd. “I put facts over fear and principles above all else. And it just amazes me that anyone would have thought that was remarkable. The paper right away ran an article saying, ‘Well, he only made that decision because he’s conservative,’ and I wanted to say I made that decision because it was right.

“And if it happens to be conservative, then call me guilty,” he added.

Wilson and his lone opponent, District Court Judge Amy Eddy, have been nearly neck-and-neck in fundraising. Through last year, Wilson had raised $267,247 to Eddy’s $261,658. Wilson has, however, spent much more than his opponent, and headed into the new year with $137,000 in the bank compared to Eddy’s $217,000.

Candidate filing officially opens Feb. 17. If a third candidate does not enter the race, then both Wilson and Eddy will advance regardless of the primary race results.