The Road to Cheyenne is our special series previewing the primary elections. This week, we’re taking a look at legislative races in the central part of the state and we’ll dig into recently released campaign finance reports.
Kamila Kudelska: Here with me today are Hannah Habermann, our rural and tribal affairs reporter, and our two state government reporters – David Dudley, based in Cheyenne, and Chris Clements based in Laramie. Thanks for being here!
Hannah Habermann: Thanks!
David Dudley: Happy to be here.
Chris Clements: Thanks for having us.
KK: Hannah, some of the primary races in central Wyoming follow this trend we’ve been talking about all summer: infighting within the Republican Party. Tell me about House District 54.
HH: So, House District 54 covers Lander. It used to be more agriculturally-focused, but now it’s more of a hub for outdoor recreation, education and tourism.
Lloyd Larsen is the incumbent – he’s been in the House for the last 12 years. He hasn’t had many serious challengers in previous primaries, but he was the subject of a mailer this year created by the Wyoming Freedom Caucus PAC, which claimed that he voted with the “radical left” to vote Trump off the ballot in 2024.
KK: What’s been his focus?
HH: Two big themes he brought up were mental health and energy. He chairs the state’s Mental Health Task Force and wants to figure out the state’s role in providing mental health services in K-12 schools.
Larsen’s also been on the state’s Energy Council since 2017. He has a background in oil and gas and talked about trying to find what he called “synergy” between pre-existing oil, gas and coal, as well as renewables and nuclear.
Loyd Larsen: I really think the potential is there because the demand for energy in our nation is only increasing and the demand for our energy and our resources globally are increasing.
KK: Who’s his challenger?
HH: That’s Tina Clifford. She’s a former schoolteacher. She didn’t respond to my requests for an interview, but her website highlights her stances on issues like limited government and taxes. She’s pro-life and pro-second amendment, and she takes issue with Wyoming’s current representation. She writes “They know that the people of Wyoming have conservative values, so they put an “R” by their names to get elected and then vote to increase spending and grow the government.”
KK: Interesting. Another race of interest in this area is Senate 26, held by Tim Salazar.
HH: Yep! So, that includes Riverton, Pavilion and up to Dubois. Salazar’s a retired army officer and is aligned with the Freedom Caucus. He was first elected to the House in 2016, then moved into his current Senate seat in 2020 and handily won that primary.
KK: So what’s been his focus while in office?
HH: Salazar told me he feels strongly about addressing rising food prices and rising property taxes. Last year he sponsored and passed an amendment to the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, which allows farmers to sell dairy products at farmer’s markets.
Tim Salazar: The food issue or the farmer's market isn't the fanciest issue out there, but I will tell you that people are hurting financially when it comes to the cost of food and they want something done.
HH: He backed a similar measure for ranchers to bypass federal meat inspections, but Governor Gordon vetoed it. He told me he’d like to continue that fight if re-elected.
Salazar also sponsored a bill that sought to ban the prescription of drugs for abortion in the state. It was the first of its kind in the nation and was signed by Gordon, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against banning medication abortions this summer.
KK: And who’s his challenger?
HH: So, Elizabeth Philip ranches out at Lysite and has worked in the agriculture world her whole career. She told me she’s running to find solutions that benefit hard-working Wyomingites.
Elizabeth Philip: My platform is about returning civility and common sense to the Wyoming legislature so that we're focused on Wyoming issues and not so much on out-of-state issues that are introduced and take up valuable time.
HH: She said she wants to support the top sectors of the state’s economy, which she identified as oil, natural gas, coal, tourism and agriculture. She also highlighted supporting schools so that people can get their education in Wyoming and stay in the state to make a livable wage.
KK: There are two more house races in the central part of the state that are contested this primary, right?
HH: Yeah, so that’s House District 34 – incumbent Pepper Ottman against Reg Phillips – and House District 55 – incumbent Ember Oakley against Joel Guggenmos.
KK: And there’s also a house seat that will be contested in the general election. That’s in District 33 and will be between Republican incumbent Sarah Penn and Democrat Ivan Posey.
HH: Ivan Posey is a member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, so if he wins, he’ll be the only Native representative in the legislature, since Navajo Senator Affie Ellis of Cheyenne announced her retirement this spring.
KK: Ok and half of the candidates that we just mentioned were in the news recently. Can you explain why?
HH: Right, so Clifford, Salazar, Ottman, Guggenmos and Penn all opted out of forums this summer organized by local Republican and Democratic parties, and the League of Women Voters of Fremont County. The candidates put an ad in a local newspaper saying they were concerned that the League of Women Voters wasn’t non-partisan. The Fremont County GOP chairman later criticized them in an op-ed, saying “I have never seen a group of individuals running for office that were ‘too conservative’ to answer questions in front of Republican voters.”
KK: Thanks for that, Hannah. David, I want to bring you in. Campaign finance reports were released earlier this week. You’ve been reading through them.
DD: Yes, some light reading.
KK: Totally. Talk me through the highlights.
DD: The top fundraiser since the start of last year was Darin Smith, a Cheyenne-based attorney who's running for the Senate seat in District 6. His site says he's endorsed by Donald Trump. He raised $85,000, and received $2,500 from the 307 Senate Majority PAC, out of Sheridan.
KK: Second best fundraiser?
DD: That's Albert Sommers of Pinedale, who's been in office since 2013. Current Speaker of the House, he's vying for a Senate seat. He raised nearly $48,000. He received $2,500 from the Wyoming Realtors PAC.
Third on that list is Bill Henderson, a banker who's seeking reelection in the House. He's held office since 2017 and raised nearly $44,000. Henderson's largest single donation was $3,000. It came from the Wyoming Caucus PAC.
KK: Anything notable about these top fundraisers?
DD: They're all Republicans. Henderson is the only true incumbent, as Sommers is trying to make the leap from House to Senate. Smith, on the other hand, is making his first foray into politics.
But no candidate has come close to Republican Paul Vogelheim's record of $111,000 in 20-22, which he raised in pursuit of a seat in House District 23, which is Teton County. Notably, he lost that race to current Democratic Rep. Liz Storer. So, money doesn't always predict who will win a race.
KK: How are candidates and their campaigns spending this money?
DD: Sommers focused on ads for radio, digital and newspapers. Henderson worked with Arena Wins LLC, a Salt Lake City-based advertising firm. He spent nearly $8,000 between print and radio advertising. Smith has spent much of his funds on TV, radio, and digital ads, as well as signs and buttons.
KK: What’s the gap between political parties, in terms of fundraising?
DD: Between Republicans and Democrats, it's not even close. Democrat Ivan Posey raised almost $19,000. He didn't even crack the top 30. Every candidate who did is a Republican.
KK: Chris, you’ve been taking a look at the caucus’s PACs – who are the biggest donors?
CC: Well, I’ll start with the more moderate Wyoming Caucus’s PAC, which raised about $104,000 since the start of this year. Their top donor was Governor Mark Gordon. He donated $30,000 of his own money. Aside from him, it was really interesting to see quite a few outgoing members of the House donate, too. That includes Representatives Dan Kirkbride, Lane Allred, and Jerry Obermueller. There weren’t too many out-of-state donations to the PAC, except for about $5,600 from individuals in Connecticut and Florida.
KK: What about the Freedom Caucus’s PAC?
CC: Their top donors were William and Jeanie Haas of Hulett. They both donated $30,000 each. Overall, the Freedom PAC raised roughly $143,000, definitely outraising the Wyoming Caucus. And something I found pretty interesting was that residents of solidly-blue Teton County donated about 30 percent of that sum. As with the Wyoming Caucus’s PAC, there weren't a lot of out-of-staters donating, aside from a few individual contributions and a $250 check from Gun Owners of America in Virginia.
KK: And what did the PACs spend those thousands of dollars on?
CC: The Wyoming Caucus PAC dished out $50,000 on digital ads in Cowboy State Daily, a news organization with a bit of a conservative bent here in Wyoming. And they paid around $37,000 for consulting from a company listed as “P-R 213.” There’s not much about it online except for its articles of incorporation. I talked to the registered agent and she told me whoever runs the company likely wants to keep their identity private.
KK: Mysterious.
CC: The Wyoming Caucus also donated thousands to a bunch of candidates – including Bob Nicholas, Cody Wylie, Ember Oakley, Tony Niemiec, and Lloyd Larson, who we mentioned earlier.
For its part, I didn’t see any expenditures from the Freedom Caucus PAC to individual candidates. The Freedom Caucus PAC spent almost $153,000 on consulting from McShane. It’s a firm based in Las Vegas that’s been reported to have ties to the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys. From the financial documents we’ve been pouring over, it looks like a lot of that sum was used to make and send campaign mailers – $31,000 just for postage. Thousands more on printing. I reported on some of these mailers last week – some lawmakers have called them out for containing inaccurate and, quote-unquote, “misleading” information about Republican candidates.
KK: And we heard about some of those on our show a couple weeks back. They were funded by a federal PAC called Make Liberty Win. Did the reports tell us any more about them?
CC: Yes, actually. We found out this week that Make Liberty Win, which we heard about in our last Open Spaces, it’s been funneling big money into supporting candidates and attacking others. They’ve spent a whopping $370,000 in Wyoming politics this year. The PAC has been sending out mailers containing misinformation, like the wrong dates for early voting and incorrect photos of state legislators. So for example, the PAC spent almost $7,500 supporting Representative Rachel Rodriguez-Williams with texts and phone calls to voters. She’s been endorsed by the Freedom Caucus. At the same time, they spent nearly $4,700 opposing Representative Barry Crago of Buffalo with the same methods.
KK: Like WyoFile’s Maggie Mullen told us in the last Open Spaces – at this point in the election, skepticism is a good baseline for assessing any kind of political literature. Well, Chris, David, Hannah, thanks all for sharing your reporting.
The primary election is August 20th. Wyoming Public Radio will be live on the air to bring you updates as results come in throughout the night. Or you can follow along online. We’ll have live results from the Associated Press and a running blog as races are called. That’s at wyomingpublicmedia.org.
