Don “K” Kaltschmidt doesn’t like to lose. While he was chair of Montana’s Republican Party, he didn’t do it often.

A Flathead High graduate, a veteran, a local businessman and, as of June, the former chair of Montana’s Republican Party, Kaltschmidt led the GOP as Montana’s political winds underwent a change. The state, long-regarded as a purple one with a predilection for split-ticket voting, is now vividly red.

Analysts have attributed the shifts in the state’s political fabric to a variety of factors including nationalization of politics and the political alignments of those moving to the state.

Those shifts were met with a Republican Party that, by some accounts, transformed into a juggernaut under Kaltschmidt’s leadership. Party chairs set the party’s direction, lead fundraising eff

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