National Republican party dynamics at play in Cascade County commission primary

Rainbow Dam, one of the "Five Falls of the Missouri," pictured on Sept. 17, 2021. (Photo by Nicole Girten/Daily Montanan)

As Cascade County has turned more red, with Republican wins across legislative districts and most local offices in recent years, the commissioner election this year could be a bellwether for what brand of Republican the county wants in local leadership the next six years.

It may also be a reflection on whether voters choose the status quo, which has featured open hostility among commissioners and internal leadership overhauls, or a return to more moderate new blood in the seat and calmer waters on the board.

Eric Hinebauch is a middle-of-the-road Republican who has been endorsed across party lines before. Hinebauch was appointed in 2021 to the Great Falls City Commission to serve out the remainder of former Commissioner Tracy Houck’s term, but lost his re-election bid in November.

In an interview with the Daily Montanan, Hinebauch described himself as a fiscal conservative but shied away from the label “moderate,” and so did Great Falls legislator and Senate Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick in describing Hinebauch. But others who work closely with him know him as a centrist looking to get things done.

Republican Commissioner Rae Grulkowski, who filed last week, won her seat on the County Commission in 2022 to fill out the remainder of Democrat Jane Weber’s term. Grulkowski was a leader in the anti-Big Sky National Heritage Area movement, revolving around a conspiracy the federal government was targeting private property in the county, debunked in the New York Times in 2021.

In her first year in office, Grulkowski has been at the center of some of the county’s most controversial debates, including how to deal with an inexperienced elections administrator whose leadership led to breakdowns in local elections.

Democrat Don Ryan — who has held the seat before — is also on the ballot, but Cascade County, reliably blue a couple of decades ago, has shifted politically. At least one Democrat has held one of the three commission seats in the last decade, but with Grulkowski’s election the board has been all Republican. However, there are stark differences in Grulkowski’s ideology and those of the other two more old-guard conservatives on the commission.

In this June’s Republican primary, voters in Cascade County will choose whether to go with the middle-of-the-road conservative or a far-right conspiracist. The differences between the two candidates mirror what Republican politics and division is serving at a national level, a Montana political analyst attests — although Republican leadership says the party in Cascade County is seeing more harmony now than in recent months.

Political science professor at Montana State University Jessi Bennion said the election denial wing of the party, which sprung up after former President Donald Trump rejected the results of the 2020 election, is strong and has seen some success in Cascade County. But she’s also not surprised to see the more traditional wing of the party try to fill the seat with a more mainstream candidate, especially given the tension in the last year.

In an interview about changing politics on his home turf, Fitzpatrick pushed back on the observations of strife within the party. However, he said if you went back to 1990 and told people Cascade County would be a “solid red county,” it would have been laughable.

“Times have changed,” Fitzpatrick said.

Influence from unions fade, Trump increases

The Anaconda Company smelter and refinery, once an iconic regional landmark in Black Eagle at the very edge of Great Falls, stood over the Electric City for 90 years before new management announced in 1980 operations would be shutting down. A shift in politics followed.

Fitzpatrick, the party leader, attributes the red wave to demographic changes in the region, with “union Democrats” dying off and working class residents affiliating more now with the Republican party. Fitzpatrick said the Democrats of yester-year didn’t identify as “liberal” – and that the social justice causes on the left around race and protecting transgender rights pushed those voters away.

Political science professor Bennion also attributed Republicans gaining ground in Cascade County to the loss of union Democrats, but said the populist message former President Donald Trump touted did a lot to attract working class voters in the region.

In at least the last year, the nature of the commission has changed as well.

Commissioners in contempt

Hinebauch told the Daily Montanan people in the county are “fed up” with the drama on the county commission and his goal is to build trust back from constituents and across departments.

The commission has made controversial decisions in recent months that have drawn large crowds and outrage — often from a split in the commission between Grulkowski and her supporters against the two long-serving, more moderate Republican commissioners.

The meeting in December to vote to remove election duties from Sandra Merchant, the then-embattled clerk and recorder, had to be held in the ExpoPark to accommodate the crowd, and commissioners heard more than seven hours of public comment from residents on both sides of the issue.

Ultimately, Grulkowski, a Merchant ally, was the sole vote in opposition to the resolution that ultimately passed to strip Merchant of election duties after multiple botched elections, although she remains clerk and recorder. A petition is circulating in the hopes of getting a repeal of the resolution on the ballot in 2024.

The commission also voted in November to change how its chairperson is selected, which led to Grulkowski losing her position in leadership. Grulkowski, serving out the last of former Commissioner Jane Weber’s term, served as chairperson for the commission in 2023, her first year in office, because it had technically been Weber’s year to serve according to the old system.

At the time, Commissioner Joe Briggs critiqued Grulkowski’s lack of experience in the position, and Grulkowski pushed back against the change in how leadership is selected, saying it would result in voter suppression in her district. Legal staff for the county said her claim was not true.

The ordinance passed despite protest from Grulkowski, and Commissioner James Larson was later selected in a unanimous vote to serve as chairperson. But the infighting is new for the county.

Weber, co-founder of a local elections watchdog group, said in her experience as commissioner working with Briggs and Larson, she never saw the same kind of controversy that has plagued the office as of late.

“There’s almost like an open contempt for each other,” Weber said.

The candidates

Grulkowski lives with her husband in Stockett, just south of Great Falls. They have been working together on a multi-generational family business, Carp’s Drain Cleaning, Inc., according to her biography on her candidate website. She also owns a property management company, Mended Fence Property Solutions, renting out property in Great Falls.

Grulkowski did not respond to multiple interview requests left via voicemail, but Merchant endorsed Grulkowski in the race in an email response to the Daily Montanan.

She said Grulkowski brings a “fresh perspective” to the commission, had integrity and a “desire to follow the law, serve the County, and increase transparency in local government.”

“She communicates with and involves the public; getting the government back to the people is key to good governance and the way it was intended to be,” Merchant said.

Merchant said she didn’t know Hinebauch well enough to speak to his politics or leadership style, but said he was “challenging a known conservative Republican in the primary, which speaks for itself.”

Grulkowski’s first foray into local politics was through the anti-Big Sky National Heritage Area movement around 2020.

National Heritage Areas attract tourism, like a National Park, but are not federally owned and almost always remain in state, local, or private ownership. But a faction of largely right-wing residents in Cascade County felt this designation would allow tourists onto private property and would infringe on property owner’s rights, a claim that was dispelled most prominently in the New York Times. Grulkowski was heavily involved in the movement, which bought at least one billboard outside of town and consistently brought the issue before city and county officials.

In October 2021, Grulkowski spoke towards the end of an event intended to educate residents on another similar federal land acquisition conspiracy, the “30×30 Land Grab”. The event was hosted by the Great Falls Realtors Association, then headed up by Terry Thompson, who was recently selected to serve as election administrator in the county.

At the end of the event, Grulkowski got up to address the crowd the day after the New York Times story on the heritage area conspiracy ran.

“Don’t look down on the liberal news because they did this, this, that, the other,” Grulkowski told the group. “Let’s pick it apart and get the good stuff going out in the community. Use the energy, educate yourself and educate your community members, family and friends.”

In response to a question from the Great Falls Tribune when she was running for her current seat about her concerns over the Heritage Area and that issue driving her campaign, she said she was not motivated to run by the issue itself, “but rather, in realizing the way our current government handles its citizens as they express their ideas in controversial issues.”

“Whether you support or oppose federal designation of private property is not the issue – to have knowledge of and a voice over the leveraging of your private property is the issue. In the end, our affected citizens demonstrated they do not support a National Heritage Area,” she told the Tribune.

She said local government officials expressed disinterest in the issue.

“This is upside-down government. Our constitutional government is structured to work from the bottom, up,” she said.

Grulkowski, a known election denier, pushed to have the upcoming school election conducted with poll locations. Mail-in ballots are a subject of national conspiracy following Trump’s denial of the 2020 election results. But the vast majority of Great Falls voters have voted by mail for the better part of two decades. Ultimately, the election is running as a mail-in vote election per the school district’s contract with the county.

A younger Republican challenger

Hinebauch avoided criticizing his opponent in the primary, but he is doubling up efforts to win this election as opposed to past elections he’s run in.

Hinebauch was raised on a farm between Chinook and Havre and moved to Great Falls on a wrestling scholarship to what was then the College of Great Falls, now the University of Providence. After he graduated, Hinebauch started as an agent with Montana Farmers Union Insurance Agency.

In an interview with the Daily Montanan, Hinebauch said he’s always been a politics “junkie,” and was involved with campaigns in college, but didn’t come back to it until more recently.

He previously lost an election to the Great Falls School Board in 2020 but more recently was selected by his party to lead the Great Falls Republican Central Committee.

Hinebauch said people in the community had approached him about running for the county seat, given the current stressed state of the commission. He lost his incumbent seat on the city commission in the fall, which he in part attributed to not putting much effort into his campaign. But this election is different, he said, noting he’s brought on experienced staff to help run his campaign.

When describing his politics, outside of being a Republican, he said he was for “fiscal responsibility.”

“With the increase in property taxes in Montana, we really need to be diligent and good stewards of our tax dollars,” Hinebauch said.

Fitzpatrick, who said he knows Hinebauch well and at one point lived on the same block as him, was wary of characterizing Hinebauch as a “moderate,” saying his support is broadly based.

Newly elected Mayor of Great Falls Corey Reeves, former second-in-charge to Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, endorsed Hinebauch earlier this month. Reeves said his support for Hinebauch was not about the incumbent candidate but about recognizing the qualities Hinebauch brings to the table.

“With his extensive experience and deep-rooted commitment to serving our county, Eric has proven time and again that he is the right choice to propel Cascade County forward,” he said in his social media post.

Others who have worked closely with Hinebauch on the city commission, former Mayor of Great Falls Bob Kelly and Commissioner Susan Wolff, both described Hinebauch as more middle of the road.

Kelly described Hinebauch as a “centrist” who “listens to both sides.” He said Hinebauch’s votes may not always be popular, but that’s not because he hasn’t worked hard.

One especially controversial vote Hinebauch took last fall was supporting an anti-Library levy candidate to serve on the Great Falls Public Library board. That candidate wound up winning the seat. The levy request came as libraries are at the center of national talking points around stocking obscene material, and an anti-levy group put billboards with that narrative around town before the election.

Hinebauch told the Daily Montanan at the time his hope was if someone who was opposed to the levy got on the board, they would see the reality at the library, and through some of the heated rhetoric.

The library asked the community for $1.5 million, and ultimately got it, to avoid cuts to staff and programming.

Hinebauch told the Daily Montanan in October he was worried his choice might hurt him politically in the city commission race, and that ended up coming true – he lost by 73 votes to more left-leaning Shannon Wilson, and conservative Rick Tryon took the lion’s share of the votes.

Hinebauch at 38 years old is also hoping his age will be an asset in this election, to bring a young voice and perspective to the commission. He said people his age get excited to see someone their age step up.

“A lot of people don’t want to touch politics,” Hinebauch said. “We can’t sit around and complain about things, not changing your community, unless you’re willing to step up.”

Enter the Democrats

Democrat Ryan is looking to get his seat back, but he wasn’t necessarily interested in a return to politics.

“I probably wouldn’t have run again if things had been running smoothly at the county,” he said.

Ryan served two terms as a state senator representing Great Falls in the early aughts, and previously served on the Great Falls District School Board and as Clerk and Recorder.

He lost to Grulkowski in 2022 after serving for the better part of two years. He’s looking to get experience back in the commission chambers.

“I enjoyed doing that job, I enjoyed working for the people and I’m too damn young to retire,” Ryan, 72, said.

Ryan said he was supposed to be chairperson for the commission as it was technically Weber’s turn to do so, but he passed, as he knew the other commissioners had more experience to lead.

He said people don’t know just how much work the commission does, from zoning to planning, and as the city plans for expansion – with the Sentinel project to replace the nuclear missiles expected to bring a lot of people to the region – local infrastructure and public safety needs to be able to meet that expected increase in demand.

Ryan said commissioners have always been civil with each other, but described Grulkowski’s tenure as “antagonistic,” especially in her pursuit to insulate Merchant.

One of the critiques Grulkowski’s supporters have said of the commission, especially during the discussion over the new chairperson selection process, was that the commission was an “Old Boy’s Club.”

Ryan said gender shouldn’t be a factor in this race.

“You should pick the person that’s most qualified,” he said.

The general election looms large

This election year, the eyes of the nation will be on Montana, and Cascade County is a battleground in the U.S. Senate race that may determine the party balance in the nation’s upper chamber.

Nationally, the Republican party still has an appetite for culture-war and conspiracy-driven politics, and political analysts say the national narratives and tenor are seeping into state and local politics.

In the commission race in Cascade County, some Democrats and Republicans side-step directly critiquing Grulkowski. Republicans want to keep the narrative positive and focused on Hinebauch — likely to avoid alienating potential supporters.

With Trump at the top of the ticket this year, Grulkowski may have an edge out of the gate despite those concerns, but with a coordinated effort and money, Hinebauch could upset the national storyline in Cascade County and bring back the decorum he has pledged.

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