The Road to Cheyenne is our special series about the primary elections. This week, we’re breaking down the results – who were Tuesday night’s winners and losers, and what that tells us about the state of Wyoming’s politics. Wyoming Public Radio’s statehouse reporter Chris Clements and news director Kamila Kudelska talk through highlights.
KK: Before we get into state legislative races, Wyoming’s lone House seat in U.S. Congress and a U.S. Senate seat were on the ballot.
CC: That’s right. As many expected, both Rep. Harriet Hagemen (R-Wyoming) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) handily beat their primary challengers.
Looking ahead to the November general election, Barrasso will face Democrat Scott Morrow of Laramie. Hageman will face Kyle Cameron of Cheyenne.
KK: Got it. We’ve a little bit of an update on campaign finance reporting. Rep. Barry Crago’s (R-Buffalo) fundraising wasn’t included in the Secretary of State’s top fundraising chart we looked at last week.
CC: When we physically tallied up his contributions for the cycle [contributions from Jan. 1, 2023 to Dec. 31, 2024], he was actually the highest fundraiser. He raised over $89,000. That’s $4,000 more than the top fundraiser in the SoS chart, which was Darin Smith (R-Cheyenne) running for Senate District 6.
KK: Big money. Crago did win his seat by about 10 percent of the votes. Darin Smith won Senate District 6, that was the most crowded competition. Smith had five other opponents.
We hope to dig into why Crago’s fundraising wasn’t counted in the SoS’s top fundraising chart a little more in the future and will be updating our listeners on that. But we just want to note it now.
Earlier this year, about 90,000 Wyomingites were purged from the voter roll for being inactive voters – basically meaning they didn’t vote in the last election. What did turnout look like in this primary?
CC: The Secretary of State’s unofficial results show 122,693 votes cast this year. That’s down about 60,000 from the 2022 primary, which had 182,232. And it’s actually the lowest turnout since 2016. Worth noting, though, that statewide seats, like the governorship, were on the ballot in 2022 and not this year.
KK: So there was a little more to come out to vote for.
Alright, moving on to the primary election results. Am I safe in saying that the far-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus has gained a majority in the state House?
CC: With caveats, it looks like that’s where things may be heading.
Heading into the primary, the Freedom Caucus counted 26 members. When I look at their list of 42 endorsed candidates, 26 won and won’t see an opponent in the general election in November.
KK: So, they broke even, at the very least.
CC: Yes. But there are a handful of lawmakers who weren’t endorsed by the caucus but who are expected to vote with them. I know of at least five, and three of them won with no general opponent.
KK: So that brings Freedom Caucus-endorsed and -aligned for-sure wins to a total of at least 29.
CC: Correct, and the Freedom Caucus could gain six more seats if all the candidates who are facing contested general elections all win.
KK: So if everything goes their way, the Freedom Caucus could have an even split, or maybe a clear majority this coming session?
CC: That’s what I’m thinking.
KK: A lot of nuance. [And] some races could potentially still be contested in the general.
CC: Right. I talked to Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette), the chairman of the caucus, about exactly how many seats he’s thinking they’ll pick up once the dust settles.
John Bear: So all in all, you'll see, I believe, a net increase anywhere from 11 to 14, and there are still races ongoing in the general. That's another reason I think once you see the votes starting to tally up in the next session, it'll be pretty clear.
KK: That’s more than we’re estimating. Why can’t the chair of the caucus say a specific number?
CC: Well, I asked him exactly that. Here’s how he responded.
JB: We don't invite people to become members until after they have a proven voting record. So we won't put out any new invitations for those people who were recently elected in the primary, and maybe there will be a couple more very conservative legislators after the general, but they will go through at least one session and obtain a voting record before we will offer them an invitation to join.
Now, there's a big difference, really, between being an ally and being a member of the Freedom Caucus, and that really has to do with whatever the wishes are of that legislator.
CC: So, like Bear just said, even if a candidate was endorsed by the Freedom Caucus, it doesn’t mean they will become members or vote with the caucus come January. So this is all still very fluid.
KK: Let’s pause here and switch gears. It seems like incumbent candidates didn’t do too well this week.
CC: One surprising example of that was Speaker of the House Albert Sommers losing to Laura Pearson, who’s been endorsed by the Freedom Caucus. Meanwhile, my fellow state government reporter, David Dudley, was at a watch party for Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) on Tuesday, and Zwonitzer told him something pretty interesting.
Dan Zwonitzer: This is the new normal in Wyoming. We knocked off probably 75 percent of the leaders in the House. The people had been there multiple terms, decades, if not a century of institutional knowledge will be taken out this year.
KK: He ended up losing to a Freedom Caucus candidate, too. Well, let’s assume the caucus does have a majority in the next session. What did Bear say the caucus’s priorities are in January?
CC: He mentioned bringing back some property tax reform measures that Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed last session. He also said they’d go after eliminating gun-free zones in the House of Representatives. Also, that they’d limit or eliminate funding for diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] initiatives and programs in the University of Wyoming and in community colleges, among other priorities.
KK: I said earlier that the caucus is far-right. But he told you he disagrees with that characterization, didn’t he? Tell us about that.
CC: As you know, of course, it’s been an ongoing discussion of how best to describe the Freedom Caucus in our Wyoming Public Radio newsroom.
KK: As the caucus has gained traction in the state, we’ve used “further-right,” “far-right,” “more conservative,” to try to distinguish this bloc from the more moderate Republicans that have had power in the state Legislature over the past few decades.
CC: In Bear’s view, we’re alienating Wyomingites by using that terminology.
JB: The word “conservative” has been thrown around and misused, so you can't use that word any longer. So I would simply say that these are the true Republicans, or these are the true conservatives. Those who really believe in smaller government and protecting the liberties and freedoms of our constituents.
KK: Very interesting. What Bear is saying here kind of mirrors what the state GOP sent out in a statement after the primary saying Wyoming voters, “vetted their candidates and chose most of those dedicated to the Wyoming Republic Party Platform and Constitution.”
KK: We’ll have to keep talking that over as a team.
I do want to note, one example of the Freedom Caucus gaining popularity in the state in the past couple of years is House District 24 that represents Cody.
CC: Nina Webber won that seat, and wasn’t it her third time running for it?
KK: Yes, so I used to be the northwest reporter for WPM and covered both those elections. Both times previously, Webber was running against Sandy Newsome. Newsome won the seat in 2018 and is considered a more moderate Republican. Back in 2020 and 2022, Webber ran against her, each time Webber got closer and closer to beating her – until this time, when she actually won. Our colleague Olivia Weitz caught Webber the night of the primary.
Nina Webber: When I think about all of the voters that I had personal contact with, which was almost all of them, it tells me that they were looking for a change. They want transparency, and they want somebody who's going to stand up and not take a knee.
KK: So that kind of reflects this trend in the past couple of years.
But back to you, Chris. You went to a watch party on primary night, didn’t you?
CC: Yep, I was in Green River at the Sweetwater County Courthouse to watch Rep. Cody Wylie (R-Rock Springs) and J.T. Larson’s (R-Rock Springs) results come in.
KK: What was the vibe like over there?
CC: About 20 people showed up, mostly county-level candidates and their friends and families. Everyone just sort of milling about. It was a pretty tense scene as the numbers started to trickle in.
KK: Why was it tense? What was at stake for these two candidates?
CC: For Wylie and Larson, they’ve been the subject of some “inaccurate” mailers from the Freedom Caucus PAC that have said they
voted to remove Trump from the ballot. But they’re both saying they never did that and that that vote didn’t happen in the Legislature.
KK: Wylie and Larson aren’t part of the Freedom Caucus. So it was a tense watch party.
CC: That’s right. But at first things were pretty loud, and then it got quiet. Actually, the number two representative in the house was there, Rep. Clark Stith (R-Rock Springs). He’s been a lawmaker in Cheyenne for seven years. When the results unofficially came in that he’d lost, it was pretty much silent.
KK: How did Wylie and Larson do?
CC: They both fended off challengers endorsed by the Freedom Caucus, actually, but they were pretty narrow wins – less than 100 votes. I talked to J.T. Larson after the unofficial results showed he’d likely win against his opponent.
J.T. Larson: If there's common things that we can agree on that benefit the entire state, then that's where I think we need to figure out, are we just arguing over a small little detail that we can, you know, come to an agreement on, rather than just at each other's throats all the time?
CC: Wylie won by just 44 votes.
Cody Wylie: Wyoming is moving into a new direction. I don't know if it's good for the state. I've said several times, if we're not careful, it's just going to be a seasonal game show.
KK: Has the secretary of state certified the election results?
CC: Actually, no. The Wyoming State Canvassing Board will convene on Wed. at 10 a.m. to do just that. We will be watching that as well.
KK: So now we have to keep an out for the general election. Like we mentioned at the beginning, a couple of races where Freedom Caucus aligned candidates won their primaries will be determined in the general election. How many?
CC: Six all together. Some Independents and some Democrats are running against them.
KK: Alright, well thank you so much Chris. That’s a wrap for this week’s Road to Cheyenne. We’re going to take a break from this series but we will be back before the general with more analysis.
