By next Wednesday, Wyoming’s roughly 26,000 unaffiliated registered voters must choose a political party affiliation.

Otherwise they will not have an opportunity to participate in most of the primary races, said Karen Jerger, a League of Women Voters of Wyoming member.

A confluence of new state laws and deadlines means voters are heading into the upcoming decision a bit blind.

“We’re being asked to declare our party affiliation before we’ll know the full slate of candidates,” Jerger said.

This year, candidates have from May 14 until May 29 to file to run.

Wyoming’s majority Republican voter base makes most of its biggest decisions in the primary, as a majority of candidates and voters are party members.

This year is stacking up to be a test of Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsements. He has already chosen favorites for a high-profile governor’s race and the U.S. Senate. He has yet to weigh in on the crowded field jockeying for the state’s lone U.S. House seat.

Registered voters who aren't affiliated with a political party “will not have an opportunity to participate in any of [those] primary races,” Jerger said.

Wyoming used to have some of the most open primaries, as voters could change their affiliation on election day. That changed in 2023 when state lawmakers passed a law preventing the move, which had allowed Democrats to vote for more moderate Republicans.

It was seen by many as retaliation against the mass exodus of the state’s Democrats to stop the ouster of former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, who lost to Harriet Hageman, Trump’s current endorsee for U.S. Senate.

For those who remain unaffiliated, or the few Constitution and Libertarian party members, primary choices will be limited or nonexistent.

All changes can be made in person with identification at county election offices by the end of May 13. New voters can register, declare a party and vote up until and on election day, August 18.

Teton County Clerk Maureen “Mo” Murphy said that “a few” people have been into the elections office each day in recent weeks to change their registration, but far less than the thousand-person deluge of party switchers of 2022.

Four years ago, Wyoming’s sole U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney conceded her loss to the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman at the Mead Ranch in Jackson, owned by a family that has long represented the Cowboy State in U.S. Congress and Cheyenne.

Now the Mead family is mounting the largest challenge in what had seemed like Hageman’s inevitable path to the Senate.

Samuel Mead, 36, a tech worker who was formerly head distiller for the family business, Wyoming Whiskey. Also the nephew of former Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, he’s running for the open seat left by Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who plans to retire.

“I want to show my kids that if you see something wrong with the world, you should fix it,” he told KHOL in the first interview of his campaign.

Mead is the first major challenger to U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman. Though Jimmy Skovgard, a National Guard veteran, is also challenging on the Republican side, and former state Rep. James Byrd has stepped up for the Democrats. (Wyoming’s last Democratic senator was Gale McGee in 1977.)

Mead plans to run as a Republican. He differentiates himself from the two-term Hageman, a lawyer and fellow rancher, by being unafraid to push back against Trump on issues like public lands and foreign wars.

“We need someone that's going to stand up for Wyoming and even when it's unpopular say, ‘I don't agree with this,’” Mead said.

Hageman has supported plans to sell public lands, which she said restricts economic growth. She wants to eliminate the roadless rule, which for 25 years has limited building near national forests. And she has backed Trump’s strikes on Iran.

Hageman’s December announcement to run for the upper chamber created a scrum to replace her House seat. Ten candidates have entered the GOP primary. They include current state officials and familiar Jackson names like Steve Friess, son of Republican megadonors. Trump hasn’t weighed in.

That’s in stark contrast to the Senate side. Trump endorsed Hageman immediately after she announced her run. Sens. John Barrasso and Lummis also endorsed her. Since then, it’s been quiet.

Some voters have called Hageman’s rise a “coronation, not an election,” suggesting they’d like more of a say.

“Those endorsements come with a lot of baggage,” said Sam Mead, “and the expectation that you're going to support the administration no matter what.”

“I have principles, and I'll stand for them. And if something isn't good for Wyoming, I'll disagree with it.”

His announcement comes the same week as the Wyoming Republican convention in Douglas, where some of the state’s key power brokers are expected to hash out who to support.

Sam is the son of Kate and Brad Mead, collegiate ski racers, lawyers, ranchers and the founders of Wyoming Whiskey.

Sam was a winter athlete in his own right, having won a handful of ski competitions before blowing out his knee. He is also the great-grandson of former U.S. Senator and Wyoming Governor Clifford Hansen.

“There's no doubt that the name recognition helps me,” Mead said. “But I think there also is a sense that we can do better. I think people feel that their interests aren't being served.”

His dad, Brad, used to say he wanted to ranch forever, even though there were more sensible things to do with land in Teton County than raise cows.

In 2022, the family put a third of their Spring Gulch land on the market. More than 500 acres are now for sale. But Sam hopes to pass on the homes, cattle and operation to his kids, who are currently 7 and 8. They don’t want him to run for Congress.

“Both started crying,” he said, when he told them the job would take him to Washington for months of the year.

Mead’s friends were skeptical, too. But now that he’s decided to run, a small cadre signed up to build out a proper campaign. “We wanted to do it right,” said campaign adviser Ben Mendelson.

“I've always kind of lived my life jumping into the deep end,” Mead said. “There's a lot of it that I probably won't enjoy, but my family has a history of public service, and I think it's important to carry that torch forward.”

The Mead Ranch hosted Liz Cheney’s concession speech in August 2022. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, attended. Sam rolled up on his dirt bike, straight from haying.

That crisp autumn display didn’t spur him to politics. “I was proud of her for standing up for the truth,” he said of Cheney. But he recognized her role investigating Jan. 6 was deeply unpopular in the state.

“Liz Cheney took a bit more of a martyr approach. And at least my feeling at the time was that it was more anti-Trump than making a policy distinction about things.”

His mother Kate, a lawyer and fifth-term Teton County School Board member, suggested at the time that Hageman could receive a bar complaint for claiming the election was stolen.

Mead said he never felt burdened by his family’s legacy of public service. His highest office so far was a two-year stint as mayor of Kirby, Wyoming — population: 60 — where Wyoming Whiskey distills.

But a few years later, there’s more he disagrees with: tariffs on building materials, attacks on public lands, and new foreign wars. And he’s betting that a growing list of Cowboy State residents feel the same way.

Mead has bounced around Minnesota, where his wife’s from, and the Seattle suburbs, where he worked as a technician for Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin. He currently works from home as a software engineer for Austin-based tech company Telnyx, while helping his wife Brianna manage the Mead Ranch. They’re raising their son and daughter in the same home on the property he grew up on.

Mead says he no longer drinks whiskey — a few years testing the more sour brews ruined the drink for him. But he still has a few bottles of Statesman, which they brewed a few years back in honor of his great-grandfather, which could make for the perfect donor gift.

“I have so many people from across the state that are exceptionally competent people helping me,” Mead said. “I couldn't do it without that relationship and that network. And I think we've got a pretty good shot here.”

This story is part of our Quick Hits series. This series will bring you breaking news and short updates from throughout the state.

Candidates for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat are raking in donations – and hefty self-loans – according to campaign finance reports submitted for the quarterly period ending March 31.

Eight Republicans are listed on the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) site, though other candidates have announced runs for the office.

WinRed, the fundraising platform endorsed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), is pouring tens of thousands into their campaigns, with the exception of current Secretary of State Chuck Gray and two candidates who aren’t showing data yet on the FEC’s site.

Casper entrepreneur Reid Rasner leads the way with $1,263,932.20 raised total, with more than $1.2 million of those dollars on loan from Rasner himself. WinRed is also giving big.

He’s followed by Gray, clocking in with $921,132.00 in receipts. Gray loaned himself $737,000, and currently leads the pack with cash on hand. His largest political action committee (PAC) donation came from Continental Resources, Inc., a petroleum and natural gas exploration and production company based in Oklahoma City. Gray also received thousands from U.S. Ambassador to the Argentine Republic Peter Lamelas and his wife.

Moran rancher Frank Chapman raised $561,783.31. He loaned himself $560,000. The rest came from two donors in Florida and WinRed.

Former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow pulled in $155,689.17. Balow contributed $125,000 to her campaign and received thousands from donors in Wyoming.

Casper Army vet David Giralt received $116,542.67, of which about $30,000 was a loan from himself. WinRed is pumping money into his campaign, and several individual donors from out of state are funneling contributions to Giralt through the PAC.

State Senate Pres. Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester) raised $29,585.14. About $15,000 came from WinRed, with the rest coming from Wyomingite donors. Biteman did not give any personal funds to his campaign in the reporting period.

Conservative activist Steve Friess and military vet Kevin Christensen did not report any contributions for the period.

The next round of reports are due on July 15.

Wyoming’s primary election is on August 18.

Financial Disclosure: Reid Rasner has been a financial supporter of Wyoming Public Media.

This story is part of our Quick Hits series. This series will bring you breaking news and short updates from throughout the state.

A former Democratic state senator has announced a run for Congress.

Lisa Kinney is an attorney from Laramie who served in the state Senate for 10 years. Her campaign website says she was also the director of the Albany County Library and former president of the Albany County Chamber of Commerce. She says she later registered as a Republican.

“I think differently from the other candidates,” she said in a campaign announcement. “They are asking for presidential endorsement. I am looking at what is going on in the world and how it affects Wyoming. All changes are not good, and we need to be prepared. If you recall the Industrial Revolution, the whole population had to change to survive. We are in the middle of a tech ‘revolution.’ Everything around us is revolving such as AI, cryptocurrency, diminishing work force, and energy to mention a few. … The effects are intense and involve electricity, water, no corporate taxes, noise and more. We need to be informed. Wyoming has been the ‘backbone of America’s energy’ for a century, so we must examine and learn if we want to remain involved in such changes.”

Kinney said her platform is based on her “R.E.A.L. priorities,” which are reintroduce, educate, affordability and law.

For reintroduce, she advocates for “getting Constitutional congressional power back to provide a system of checks and balances,” ending the war in Iran and other foreign conflicts, the notion of keeping Wyoming lands in Wyoming hands, decorum and tempering Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) surge tactics.

For educate, she said she supports public education and freedom of thought in public libraries and media, reestablishing the U.S. Department of Education, providing free lunch and breakfast for kids, bringing back “special education, gifted and talented and head start,” and eliminating the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s provisions regarding student loan forgiveness.

Under affordability, she listed continuing subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, using grants to states to lower housing costs, eliminating tariffs on common goods and reducing taxes for low-income earners while cutting tax benefits to millionaires and billionaires.

For law, she wants to see due process available to all people in the U.S., following court judgments, stop pardoning violent criminals and preserving decency by treating people “like the Sermon on the Mount—love, compassion, care for the poor, righteousness and integrity, feed the poor, provide shelter for the homeless, not hate one another because of political differences, love God and love each other as we love ourselves.”

She also frames herself as a “Congressional Robinhood.”

“Affordability should be the starting point: no one earning under $100,000 should be taxed into hardship while the ultra‑wealthy continue to benefit from policies written for them. In the years since massive tax cuts for the richest Americans, more billionaires have been created than ever before, yet regular people in Wyoming are struggling just to afford groceries, gas, and basic stability,” she wrote.

Kinney is the first Democrat to announce, whereas nine Republicans have thrown their hats in the ring to replace Harriet Hageman, who is running for U.S. Senate.

This story is part of our Quick Hits series. This series will bring you breaking news and short updates from throughout the state.

A ninth Republican is running to fill Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat, joining a crowded race of Trump loyalists.

Steve Friess, a conservative activist of Jackson, described himself as a “Trump Republican dedicated to promoting the America First agenda, defending the freedoms that are a birthright of every American, and preserving the Wyoming way of life” in a press release announcing his candidacy.

“Too many career politicians talk about solving problems but never do,” he said. “They make big promises and then sell us out to the lobbyists and special interests. I'm a businessman, not a politician. I can’t be bought, and I’m running for Congress to fight for our conservative values, support President Trump in his battle for the heart and soul of America, and continue representing our state with the impactful leadership Congresswoman Hageman has.”

U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman announced late last year she’ll run for U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis’ seat. Lummis said she will not seek a second term.

On his campaign website, Friess said he’s pledged to pass the SAVE America Act that’ll require photo identification and proof of citizenship to vote, oppose tax increases, reduce regulations, defend the Second Amendment and protect Social Security and Medicare for Wyoming seniors.

He said he also supports term limits for members of Congress, a ban on representatives and senators trading stocks while in office and withholding congressional pay if Congress fails to pass a budget.

Friess is the son of businessman, philanthropist and GOP megadonor Foster Friess, who lost the Republican nomination for governor to Mark Gordon in 2018. The elder Friess founded the investment management firm Friess Associates in 1974. He died in 2021. The Friess family was an early backer of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that aims to educate and mobilize the next generation of conservatives.

Steve Friess said he’s been a resident of Wyoming for nearly three decades and that he grew up “in a middle-class family, bussing tables, painting houses, and selling knives door to door in high school before joining the family business.”

So far in the House race, campaign finance reports show current Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray leading the way with $500,000 raised. Casper entrepreneur Reid Rasner had raised over $210,000 by the end of December.

Former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, Casper Army veteran David Giralt, Casper veteran Kevin Christensen and Wyoming Senate Pres. Bo Biteman have also filed for the race.

Rancher Frank Chapman of Moran and former Cheyenne Rep. John B. Romero-Martinez have also announced runs.

All are Republicans and no Democrats have filed in the race.

These candidates all announced their campaigns after the last finance reporting period in December.

Wyoming’s primary election is on Aug. 18.