Kootenai County GOP chairman Brent Regan loses precinct committee race as direction of party remains unclear

The longtime chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee lost his GOP precinct committee race Tuesday night by 14 votes, while his faction of supporters won exactly half of the committee seats, final unofficial results showed.

Dental anesthesiologist Rick Montandon won the Precinct 205 election with 51.3% of the vote over Brent Regan.

Regan was first elected a committeeman in 2014. Over the last decade under Regan’s leadership, the county party has pushed to recruit, vet and recommend candidates for all elected offices, controversially including Republican primaries and nonpartisan races.

The KCRCC is expected to elect a new chairman at its reorganization meeting May 28.

The races for party committeemen, who control the local political parties, are often quiet affairs. But in the last two election cycles for the positions, the North Idaho Republicans, which criticized Regan’s leadership of the party, has worked to elect more candidates they describe as “traditional conservatives.”

Regan could still be reelected chairman, however, since party rules do not require the position to be an elected committeeman. The chairman can break tie votes.

Regan did not respond to a request for comment.

The election for leadership could be a toss-up since two factions opposing the current KCRCC leadership won half of the 74 precinct elections.

The North Idaho Republicans picked up three additional seats for a total of 33. Four independent candidates, including Montandon, are not affiliated with either group, but are expected to oppose KCRCC leadership.

The other 37 winners were endorsed by the Kootenai Freedom Caucus, a PAC closely aligned with the current KCRCC majority.

Jack Riggs, former Idaho lieutenant governor and founding member of the North Idaho Republicans, said he is hesitant to predict what will happen since it is unclear whether the incumbents who supported Regan in the past will continue to do so.

“Obviously the numbers are close,” said Riggs, who did not run for a precinct, but helped organize the campaign.

“For North Idaho Republicans, our goal from the very beginning was to establish competent, conservative, honest leadership on the committee. So, we’re pretty happy with the election results.” Riggs said.

One prominent North Idaho Republican-endorsed committeeman, Coeur d’Alene Mayor Dan Gookin, lost his precinct seat to Jim Cooke.

Gookin said he assumed he might win from name recognition, but Cooke won because he put in the effort to campaign door-to-door. Gookin said the only reason he ran again was to make sure Regan would not be elected chair, and that he would have resigned after that.

“I’m too busy to devote time to be a precinct committeeman,” Gookin said. “And honestly, I am a lousy precinct committeeman anyway.”

Gookin said he burned out after six years – the first four of which he was the lone opposition voice on the committee.

Gookin has one last concern, though. He said Regan has called an emergency executive session for the old committeemen on Saturday, and that some speculate he might be planning something like spending the rest of the party’s money before the new committee can be seated.

“We don’t know because he’s not being transparent, which is expected,” Gookin said.