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Six states hold primary elections today, including Montana. Political parties usually avoid getting involved in primaries. That is changing. Here's Shaylee Ragar.
SHAYLEE RAGAR, BYLINE: The library in rural Drummond, just off the interstate in western Montana, is packed for a forum.
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RAGAR: More than a dozen congressional, statewide and local candidates give their elevator pitches. There isn't time to debate, but that doesn't stop candidates from taking subtle jabs at each other, or not so subtle, like from state representative John Fitzpatrick.
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JOHN FITZPATRICK: My opponent talked about how she has been supported or has been endorsed by the Montana Republican Party. It's sad to say that the Montana Republican Party leadership has completely lost its way. It has become the enemy of the people, particularly the taxpayer.
RAGAR: That may sound like typical mudslinging, but Fitzpatrick is a Republican himself. He's fallen out of the party's favor and isn't the only one. The state GOP has publicly shunned Fitzpatrick and other moderates for siding with Democrats on Medicaid expansion and other issues. Fitzpatrick says he listens to constituents over party leaders.
FITZPATRICK: I've knocked on roughly 1,900 doors so far in this particular cycle. Nobody has ever said to me, we want you to go to Helena, engage in ideological warfare and get nothing done. Yet that's exactly where the Republican Party leadership is taking us.
RAGAR: Montana political parties have historically refrained from getting involved in elections until after the primary. A hundred years ago, party leaders largely decided nominations behind closed doors. Political science professor Laurel Harbridge-Yong at Northwestern University says over the 20th century, many states wanted to democratize the process and instituted primary elections.
LAUREL HARBRIDGE-YONG: It was letting the people have a say in picking who would be the nominee for the party, instead of the party bosses just deciding amongst themselves.
RAGAR: Harbridge-Yong says parties like to avoid ugly, contentious primaries between their own members.
HARBRIDGE-YONG: That potentially weakens the candidate going into the general election because now your opponent in the general already has all these clips that they can show of, look, even fellow Republicans or fellow Democrats think this candidate is terrible for reasons XYZ.
RAGAR: Despite that history, the Montana GOP has publicly condemned more than a dozen legislative candidates. That approach is becoming more common across the country and parallels President Trump's tactics of pitting Republicans against one another in primaries. And Democrats in several states are criticizing the National Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year for doling out primary endorsements.
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TRISH SCHREIBER: It's official. I have filed with the Secretary of State for House District 76.
RAGAR: Trish Schreiber, Fitzpatrick's opponent. She's on the Montana GOP's honor roll. It's the first time the party has made a list of candidates deemed loyal. In a video posted to social media, Schreiber says Fitzpatrick doesn't represent rural values. At the forum in Drummond, she hits the GOP's top talking points.
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SCHREIBER: Our society has degraded our individual liberties by piling on rules, regulations and taxation that guide the people to be dependent on government.
RAGAR: New Montana GOP chair, Art Wittich, says moderates in the state have been a source of frustration for decades, and the party had to take action.
ART WITTICH: The party can't be a strong party if you have people working against it from the inside and having open rebellion.
RAGAR: Moderate Republicans argue they vote with leadership on the vast majority of bills, and that ideological tests should be left to voters. But Wittich says the GOP sweep of recent state elections means Montanans aren't interested in bipartisan compromise.
For NPR News, I'm Shaylee Ragar in Helena.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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