PAC spent $760K supporting center-right GOP legislative candidates in one month

A coalition of center-right Republican candidates who have decried the flood of out-of-state money into this year’s GOP legislative primaries are themselves benefitting from a political action committee that’s bankrolled by undisclosed donors and has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Montana elections.

Conservatives4MT, a group that supports more moderate Republicans, reported spending $760,380 in the single month between March 26 and April 25, state records show, a colossal jump from past election cycles.

Much of the money that landed in the political committee’s bank account can be tied back to organizations known to support left-leaning causes across the country. Beyond that, the money trail quickly disappears behind dark money groups that aren't legally required to report their financiers.

Those dollars have since shown up in Montana as highway billboards throughout eight combative legislative primary elections as well as mailers, radio and digital advertisements attempting to persuade voters to cast their ballots for or against 46 different candidates. Where the group has spent maps neatly onto the races that represent the most acute displays of the GOP’s ongoing intra-party feud between hardliners and centrists.

One month out from the June 2 primary, spending on legislative races has reached a fever pitch. The deluge of dollars comes from groups affiliated with both poles of the Republican party – the rightward flank that enjoys the blessing of the state GOP and the centrist faction that’s known to work across the aisle and has been ousted from proverbial headquarters as a result.

Groups behind Republican candidates further to the right came out of the gate quickest – almost immediately following the end of the 2025 Legislature – and have led the spending race for months. The latest push from Conservatives4MT represents a significant shift for the coalition that’s coalesced around moderate Republicans, even as its harps on the same tactic being used by its opponents.

Conservatives4MT is an independent expenditure group, which means it’s legally barred from giving directly to campaigns, but it’s able to spend unlimited amounts on materials that support or oppose a candidate so long as they don’t coordinate.

When reached by phone this week, Ross Fitzgerald, the PAC’s treasurer and a former Republican lawmaker from Fairfield, claimed he had no idea the group had spent more than $760,000 in the course of a single month.

“I’ll be darned,” he said when reached by phone last week.

Conservatives4MT’s expenditures are overseen by a small board of three or four individuals.

Fitzgerald and deputy treasurer Roger Hagan, also a former GOP legislator, both declined to share who sits on the board, how they are selected or how they decide to distribute funds; Fitzgerald noted that all board members live in Montana.

“Conservatives4MT supports conservative Republicans who put their constituents over party bosses. We like candidates who obey the law and pay their taxes just like Montanans they are elected to serve,” Hagan said. “We understand that the needs in Phillips County are necessarily different than those in Flathead County, and we appreciate individuals who work for the needs of their constituents.”

The PAC has thrown its weight behind campaigns from Red Lodge to Polson and Lewistown to Plentywood. Those include bids for open Senate seats by Rep. Llew Jones, the tenured legislator from Conrad who has long been at odds with the far-right, and Rep. David Bedey from Hamilton. It’s also poured money into materials supporting Great Falls Reps. George Nikolakakos and Ed Buttrey in their campaigns for the upper chamber and Rep. John Fitzpatrick in Deer Lodge, among others.

Many of those same candidates have been disavowed by the Montana Republican Party and for months have been the subject of robocalls, postcards and advertisements accusing them of “plundering” the state budget and advancing a socialist health care agenda, messaging that’s been largely paid for by national groups such as Americans for Prosperity.

“I and others have been under relentless attack since October, and this money coming in from out of the state has been used exclusively to attack me and make attacks that are gross distortions of my voting record or, in many cases, outright lies,” Bedey said on Friday. “This was a necessary corrective to the vulgar campaign that was being orchestrated undoubtedly out of the Montana GOP.”

The Montana State News Bureau previously reported on the early season blitz conducted by AFP, which gets much of its money from the powerful and ultra-conservative Koch network.

Until March 9, AFP was able to take advantage of a campaign finance loophole that permits organizations to spend freely without reporting requirements, so long as the materials don’t explicitly tell voters to support or oppose a candidate.

Since the reporting requirement kicked in, the group has disclosed spending upwards of $422,000 on door-knocking outreach, mailers and digital advertisements for the candidates it has endorsed, state records show. Other PACs have gotten in on the action, too, helping to create the environment that Conservatives4MT says required it to take such a big swing in recent weeks.

“It’s obviously lit up since then, there’s no question about that,” Hagan said. “I would say that’s probably why the big push.”

Between March 26 and April 25, Conservatives4MT brought in about $600,000 entirely from political committees based in other states. WayBack PAC and Western Futures Fund, Inc. both left-leaning outfits based in Sheridan, WY, each donated $250,000.

Western Futures Fund, for example, has a long track record of promoting Democratic-aligned issues in the Mountain West, and some of its funding can be tied to what Politico called the “left’s dark money behemoth,” the Sixteen Thirty Fund out of Washington, D.C.. Tax filings for that group show that in 2024 it received 33 donations of $1 million or more from single individuals, but it does not have to reveal who those donors are.

Earlier this year, Conservatives4MT received smaller donations from Montana-based political committees that list their treasurers as known Republicans in the state. Among them was Treasure State Stewards, which gave $34,000 to the PAC, and Big Sky Fiscal Guardians, which gave $22,000. Neither are required to list their donors.

This election cycle isn’t the first where Conservatives4MT has gotten involved, but it is the costliest to date.

In 2024, the PAC spent about $240,000 across contested GOP primaries, again supporting more moderate Republicans. The majority of its funding during that cycle also came from out of state groups, including one funded almost entirely by billionaire philanthropist and former Enron executive John Arnold.

Bedey said, if elected, he’d be interested in pursuing changes to state law that make it harder for dark money to play such an outsized role in elections. Until then, though, he sees the work of Conservatives4MT as an essential antidote to what’s been hurled at him and others for months.

“In the context of this particular election, I would reject the notion that suddenly I have to disavow people that are in a positive way supporting me after having endured withering and slanderous attacks ever since October,” Bedey said. “Going forward is a different thing. But if I'm supposed to disarm in all that’s been done to besmirch my reputation, I think that’s a whole different question.”