Family · Statewide · MT · October 14, 2026
2026 State Supreme Court Races Could Decide Abortion, Trans-Care Rules Nationwide
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 10
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
The story's own premise is attrition across venues: after Dobbs (2022) and Skrmetti (2025) moved these fights out of federal court, the contest reappeared in all fifty state judiciaries at once — 31 states voting on more than 60 seats in a single 2026 cycle. Montana shows the same pattern in miniature: the privacy clause fights ran through Weems in 2023, the 2024 rulings striking the 2021 abortion laws and the parental-consent law, the Cross litigation on SB 99 from 2023 to 2025, the CI-128 campaign in 2024, and now a judicial election in 2026. No single ruling or election ends it; each one simply resets the venue.
Counter-Rule 10 · The Long Game
Plan in decades against a campaign built on attrition. Succession and endurance beat any single victory.
Plan in election cycles, not news cycles: write down on one page when each Montana Supreme Court seat next comes up (this one is an eight-year term decided November 3, 2026) and put the next filing deadline in your calendar now. Read one primary document rather than ten commentaries — Cross v. State, 2024 MT 303 is free on Justia — so your knowledge compounds instead of resetting. Recruit one younger person in your congregation to learn the same calendar with you; succession is what outlasts attrition.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
Judicial races are precisely the ground most church-going voters have never studied: the ballot line is nonpartisan, the candidates cannot campaign on promised outcomes, and the substance sits in appellate opinions almost nobody reads. The alert's own action items concede this — it tells readers to go find out which seats are even on their ballot. Whoever is already fluent in judicial selection, retention rules and court-of-record procedure operates on terrain where the ordinary voter has no footing.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Get fluent before November: pull the Ballotpedia pages for Amy Eddy and Dan Wilson, then read at least one actual opinion each has written as an Eleventh Judicial District judge rather than relying on endorsement lists. Learn how Montana fills a seat — eight-year term, nonpartisan ballot, top vote-getter wins — so you can explain it to your small group in two minutes. When someone asks you something you don't know about the race, say you'll find out and come back, then do.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The headline says these races "could decide abortion, trans-care rules nationwide," but the article's own facts say the opposite: state supreme courts construe state constitutions, so Montana's privacy-clause rulings bind Montana and nothing else. The unnamed, nationwide worst case does more motivating work than the specific, bounded one. In Montana the real stakes are narrower still, since CI-128 was approved 57–43 in November 2024 and put abortion rights in the constitutional text the court reads.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Name the actual worst case out loud and size it: in Montana, a new justice interprets a privacy clause and a 2024 amendment already ratified by voters, and cannot by herself change law in any other state. Before repeating the "nationwide" claim at a meeting, check whether the ruling you have in mind rested on the state constitution — Cross v. State says in its text that it did. Refuse to pass on the bigger version even when it would move people.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
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