Crossing the line: The Spokane Democrat and Republican under fire for associating with the 'enemy'

Nicolette Ocheltree felt fairly confident when she walked out of the Spokane County Democrats' endorsement interview.

A Democratic candidate for one of two state House seats representing the 6th Legislative District, which covers northwest Spokane County, Ocheltree believed she was a shoo-in for the party nod.

She had been a well-known progressive activist for years, creating the "500 Drag Queen Strong" Facebook group to help rally counterprotests in support of Drag Queen Story Hour and abortion access, or speaking each week at City Council in favor of tenants' rights or improved homeless services. After experiencing homelessness herself as a child, she now manages the legislative body's homelessness initiatives.

And while Ocheltree wasn't the only Democrat running for the seat, the county party's endorsements weren't exactly competitive. Of the dozens who applied for the endorsement this year, nearly everyone who walked in got the party's endorsement, including all five Democrats who hope to unseat Rep. Michael Baumgartner this November.

Except for two: Ocheltree and Spokane County District Court judge candidate Michael Addams.

Party officers had been disappointed with Addams' comments about sentencing standards, said Paul Dillon, a Spokane council member and chair of the county Democrats. Judicial candidates are also in a tough spot in partisan interviews, Dillon noted, because the job they're seeking doesn't allow them to take strong positions on many issues.

Ocheltree, meanwhile, had clashed with Democrats before. She's as quick to criticize Mayor Lisa Brown's homelessness response as she was of Brown's conservative predecessor, Nadine Woodward, and was one of three council staffers who sued the city, arguing their salaries were improperly calculated. When Ocheltree began to suggest she might run for office, she rankled when she was asked "for what party?"

Ocheltree lost the party's endorsement because of a May story from Range Media that featured her unlikely friendship with Republican Jonathan Bingle, the former city councilman and anti-abortion hardliner, who Ocheltree had protested years before yet who also hired Ocheltree as his aide in 2022. He is running for the legislative district's other House seat, and although a Democrat is also running, Ocheltree told Range she would consider endorsing Bingle.

Cross-party animosity has become increasingly deep-rooted in U.S. politics, with nearly half of Americans reporting that they felt members of the opposing political party are "evil," according to a 2024 survey from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Across the aisle, Spokane Councilman Michael Cathcart is catching flak for accepting the endorsements of two Democrats.

A Spokane city councilman now running for county auditor , Cathcart's endorsements include more than two dozen current or past Republican leaders, but also the incumbent auditor, Democrat Vicki Dalton, and liberal Council President Betsy Wilkerson.

Last week, an anonymous mailer depicted Cathcart as an evil clown flanked by similarly villainous caricatures of Dalton and Wilkerson proclaimed in ominous type that the libertarian-inclined conservative is "ENDORSED BY THE LEFT."

In an interview, Spokane County GOP Chair Rob Linebarger called it "unconscionable" to not disclose the ad's origins, but said it was nevertheless "foolish" for Cathcart to accept the endorsement of two Democrats.

Linebarger compare d the attack ad to the resurfacing of the vacated assault conviction of the other Republican in the race, Dale Whitaker, for choking his now-wife in 2015. Discussion of this violent crime constituted a "smear campaign," Linebarger said, and he cautioned against the candidates "chewing each other up in the primary," arguing that in-fighting hurt the party.

Days before, however, in a newsletter to the party, Linebarger elaborated on why Cathcart had made a tactical and moral mistake, using a quote from Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu to compare the Democratic endorsements to a deception used to weaken an enemy.

"Therefore, a commander or leader should never accept aid and comfort from the enemy while engaged in battle (active, kinetic, or passive) because it is likely the enemy will use it against you," Linebarger added.

"I would advise any political figure on 'our side' to refrain from accepting 'favor' from the opposition primarily because we all see daily what they do and the damage it renders on all of us and the community," he concluded. "We are on the right side of the spiritual war that we find ourselves in and we can win without favor from those we are working to defeat."

Dillon called Linebarger's statement "pure nonsense" and criticized the comparison of political rivals with enemies on a battlefield.

"That was the worst attack ad I've seen in all my years in Spokane politics, and it should be 100%, unequivocally condemned," Dillon said, referring to the attack ad against Cathcart. "This community often rejects those kinds of politics, where, particularly on City Council, yes, believe it or not, there are times that we work together and that produces strong results."

No one in the Democratic Party considers Bingle to be 'the enemy' in the way Linebarger described, Dillon argued.

Not everyone seems to agree.

In late May, moments after three anti-ICE protesters were found guilty of conspiracy for their actions during the protest in Spokane last summer, Democratic state Rep. Natasha Hill gave a speech to a crowd of the protesters' friends, family and supporters.

Hill said she was disgusted and disappointed by the federal prosecution, who she believed targeted activists to undermine community organizing. She criticized the predominantly white jury, and also attacked Ben Stuckart, who she ran against in 2024 and who kicked off the protests, for not attending the verdict. Stuckart later said he couldn't attend without violating probation after he pleaded guilty rather than face trial.

After her speech, Hill confronted Ocheltree for her close ties to Bingle, yelling that she was endangering Hill, the convicted protesters and others like them, as Ocheltree sobbed. Using an expletive, Hill told Ocheltree to "pick a side."

"She was yelling and screaming that it was Nicolette's fault for the jury coming back the way they did," said Anwar Peace, a local police accountability activist and friend of Ocheltree's. "I heard her screaming about these endorsements and how she's dragging down the party, comments about the fact that Nicolette is friendly with Jonathan Bingle and that's part of the problem with Spokane, really at the top of her lungs."

Activist David Brookbank witnessed Hill's confrontation with Ocheltree.

"Natasha was expressing justifiable annoyance at Nicolette for 'playing the middle,' " Brookbank said.

Ocheltree argues that strong relationships with people she disagrees with makes her sharper and helps her refine her positions, and that has been the foundation of her friendship with Bingle.

She also believes the party is making a strategic blunder by rejecting bipartisanship in districts like the many in Eastern Washington that favor Republicans.

The 6th Legislative District is reliably red, with Republicans frequently getting 60% or more of the vote, and she'll need conservatives and independents to consider voting for a Democrat if she has a chance to win, she argues. Bingle is the only Republican in his race and, if for no other reason, this makes him the likely seatmate for whoever wins Ocheltree's race.

In an interview, Cathcart argued similarly that dealing in absolutes is harmful for the county GOP.

"It frankly is not going to help you win races when you're trying to attract independents and folks who might be on the other side of the aisle who see value in certain candidates," Cathcart said. "One candidate from another race said, 'I need thousands of Democrat votes to win my race, and this cannot help me.' "

He argued that two Democrats had endorsed him because he had proven he would serve with integrity, not because they thought he wasn't a conservative.

"The Auditor's Office serves 550,000 people, Republicans, Democrats, Green Party ... it serves everyone," he said. "You need to be able to say with a straight face you'll serve them all equally."

Dillon argues the reactions Ocheltree and Cathcart have gotten from their respective parties are fundamentally different because Cathcart and Bingle are fundamentally different, as are the seats they are seeking.

"With auditor, your job is to uphold the law, to count elections," Dillon said. "A legislative race, when you're talking about Bingle's attacks on trans youth and abortion access, it's a whole separate set of issues than an auditor race. Bingle was much more of a lightning rod."

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