One of Wyoming’s U.S. Senate seats is up for grabs this year since current one-term Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis is retiring.
Current Rep. Harriet Hageman, Wyoming’s lone U.S. House member, is vying for the seat as a Republican. She grew up on a Wyoming ranch and worked as a trial attorney for three decades, fighting what she calls federal overreach and working on property and water rights cases. She unseated former Rep. Liz Cheney in 2022.
James Byrd is running as a Democrat. He served a decade in the Wyoming Legislature representing Laramie County, following in the footsteps of his mom — the first Black woman elected to the state Legislature. Byrd’s family has been in Wyoming since pre-statehood. He spent his career working in oil exploration and then cybersecurity.
In the red state of Wyoming, congressional seats have historically gone to Republican candidates, last electing a Democrat in the 1960s.
In separate interviews with Wyoming Public Radio, Hageman and Byrd both said they would prioritize the state’s energy industry but in different ways. Hageman emphasized legacy industries. For example, she said she’s worked to bring more coal leases in the state, which hasn’t seen a new lease since 2012.
“That was really the primary funding that we used for building all of the beautiful schools that we have in the state of Wyoming,” Hageman said.
Byrd, however, said he wants the state to focus on investing its energy revenue in research into new technologies. He mentioned ones related to nuclear waste, solar and wind farms, and geothermal energy.
“Because I'm a capitalist, we could license these technologies to the rest of the world and make more money on the licensing than we would actually make on the energy production,” Byrd said.
On the topic of healthcare, both candidates said the state should play a key role in addressing care gaps. Hageman said the federal Rural Health Transformation Act, which allocated $205 million to Wyoming, will help fix healthcare systems, while Byrd was skeptical.
“ By the time these dollars roll into Wyoming, it'll be too late, and it won't be significant to make any difference,” he said.
Hageman argued the rural health dollars, which she backed in Congress, will be tailored toward the communities that need them due to the state Legislature’s role in divvying them out. But she added, “Government programs are not always the solution to providing these resources.”
Otherwise, both candidates said the U.S.’s legislative branch has abdicated its role and let the executive branch take too much power. Hageman was referring to “nameless, faceless bureaucrats," while Byrd was speaking about the Trump administration.
He said he would work with lawmakers across the aisle to take back power. Hageman said she’s been working with other Congresspeople to write laws with clearer definitions and sunset dates to reign in control.
They both highlighted the need to be transparent and available to Wyomingites.
Excerpts of the general election candidates’ interviews are below. They’ve been edited for clarity and brevity.
Hageman spoke to Wyoming Public Radio’s Hanna Merzbach for about 25 minutes on Sept. 23, 2026.
Hanna Merzbach: Tell me what you think are the two most pressing issues facing the Senate, and how you want to address them.
Harriet Hageman: Energy security is national security, and Wyoming is one of the most important energy states in the nation. My agenda in the House of Representatives has been to protect our energy industry, make sure that we can continue to produce oil and gas and coal and uranium. I will continue to do that over there as well.
One of the other things that I'm very interested in going to the Senate side is being on the Judiciary Committee. I was a trial attorney for many years, and I know what makes a really good federal district court judge, but I also know what can make some bad ones.
The other aspect that is very important, from my standpoint, is being able to work directly with the administrative agency heads when they are being nominated for particular positions. The agencies that would be the most significant there would obviously be the Department of [the] Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy. I wanna make sure that I have direct communication with those agency nominees to make sure that their priorities align with Wyoming's priorities.
HM: We're gonna move into a series of rapid fire questions. I'm going to throw out some topics, and I want you to respond with either a few words or a sentence at most.
HH: Okay.
HM: Your political heroes.
HH: Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and my father. My father was in the state Legislature for 24 years.
HM: Data centers.
HH: I think that that is a state issue. I think that we have the law in place [the Industrial Siting Act] to make sure that our local communities can properly address this issue.
HM: Flock cameras, or license plate readers used by law enforcement.
HH: I'm very concerned about them. They're keeping the data way too long, and I think there's a real concern about the Fourth Amendment and compliance with that.
HM: Age limits for members of the Senate.
HH: That would be unconstitutional.
HM: The war in Iran.
HH: I think that this is something that has been a long time in the coming. I think that it is absolutely appropriate that we did what was necessary to take out their nuclear program and to block them from continuing to wreak havoc in the Middle East.
HM: We're going to move to some longer form questions. During a forum this summer put on by Wyoming Public Media, WyoFile and the League of Women Voters, you said you think that executive agencies, which you referred to as "nameless, faceless bureaucrats," have taken too much power in the U.S., and the legislative branch has abdicated its role. How are you working to restore balance?
HH: There's many different ways. I'm the chairman of the Article One Task Force for the Republican Study Committee. We have been bringing in people to talk about ways in which we can be more effective as legislators. We need to be better at actually writing the legislation, and thereby taking away the power of bureaucrats to interpret or misinterpret certain laws.
For example, I think that we need to do a better job of using preambles, doing more in terms of definitions when we're writing statutes. Make sure that we're being explicit and unambiguous when we define the terms of art that we're using. I think that we should use sunset clauses more effectively. We're trying to deal with blockchain and Bitcoin and crypto using laws that were written 20, 30, 40, 80 years ago.
HM: I want to move on to healthcare. You and other congresspeople have been making changes to safety net programs like Medicaid. At the same time, Congress, yourself included, created the Rural Health Transformation Program to help fill some of those gaps. But health research group and news outlet KFF says that that $50 billion, five-year fund will not fully offset Medicaid cuts, which the group estimates at $137 billion in rural areas over the next 10 years.
What more, if any, do you think the Senate needs to do to ensure Wyomingites have easy access to quality healthcare?
HH: I'm going to push back a little bit, because just providing federal funds or Medicaid is not necessarily providing quality healthcare. Government programs are not always the solution to providing these resources. But Wyoming received $205 million so far from the Rural Transformation Healthcare Fund. The challenges in each state are going to be different depending upon population, the amount of miles you have to travel to get healthcare, so we wanted this to be a robust state-driven program.
Also, in terms of the cuts to Medicaid, all that we did is we made requirements that if you are an able-bodied adult with no dependent children, you have to work or go to school or be looking for a job for 20 hours a week. And it did move people off of Medicaid, which was the intent of this, because we want those people working. But also, those changes didn't apply to Medicaid in Wyoming anyway, because we never expanded that population.
HM: Let's move on past healthcare. You've gotten a bit of pushback from Wyomingites for supporting Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) proposal to sell some public lands. What do you want constituents to know going forward when it comes to your stance on public land transfers and sales?
HH: I think that there was a lot of misinformation about what Mike Lee's bill did. It was very much designed to be focused on local input and state involvement. I think at the end, it was for BLM [the Bureau of Land Management] to identify lands that would be contiguous to communities such as Kemmerer, Wyoming, which is landlocked with BLM land. The BLM would work with the local people and probably the state governor's office to identify lands if they needed it for housing.
Kemmerer's one of the areas where we have challenges in Wyoming because of the Natrium reactor that is being built there, and they need more housing. One of the things that I hear throughout Wyoming, and even some of the folks that have run against me, they've talked about the need for local control and like local involvement, and I very much agree with that.
Byrd spoke to Wyoming Public Radio’s Hanna Merzbach for about 25 minutes on Sept. 21, 2026.
HM: What do you see as the two most pressing issues facing the U.S. Senate, and how do you want to address them?
James Byrd: Getting our government back together and getting our government functioning again. The current resident of the White House has employed individuals to just wholesale destroy agencies and functionality of the federal government.
The second most important thing to do is to get the economy back to where it was two years ago, and that's by ending all of those needless tariffs that people like you and me pay every day, and that's driving up the cost of everything that we buy. So getting the economic factors, those things that the Congress should be in charge of, but for some reason has decided to neglect their responsibility there.
HM: That gets to one of my questions. You said at a summer forum that you will put the constitutional roles back in place. How would you do this?
JB: It's a simple thing that I learned when I was in the Wyoming Legislature. Being in the superminority, whether you're in the majority or the minority, you don't get things done by being siloed on one side by party. You have to reach across the aisle. I have to get other senators to work with me to take control of the things that are constitutionally mandated and get them to put those pressures back on the system and get us on the track going the right direction. It's important to the survival of our democracy.
HM: Now we're going to move to some more rapid fire topics and responses.
JB: Okay, go.
HM: Your political heroes.
JB: Bill Clinton because he balanced the budget.
HM: Selling public land for housing.
JB: Never. Now, the federal government could manage it better and so could the state government, but never.
HM: Flock cameras, or license plate readers used by law enforcement.
JB: They work, but right now they're being misused. So just one of the things that we need to get legislation in place, and then we can come back and readdress this, because it is a tool that law enforcement can and should be using.
HM: Age limits for members of the Senate.
JB: Absolutely. Term limits for everybody, not just the Senate. Term limits for the House, and especially term limits for the Supreme Court.
HM: The war in Iran.
JB: The war in Iran has to stop immediately. Then we need to go back in and start negotiating.
HM: Your negotiation style.
JB: For the people of Wyoming first, citizens of the United States second and then our allies third. My style is to bring everything to the table and to negotiate from a position of strength, and not to move backwards.
HM: We are done with our rapid response. Let’s move to some longer-form questions. You’ve said that Wyoming needs to figure out how to lead the way in nuclear energy rather than continuing to rely on coal. What makes you confident in the growing nuclear industry?
JB: I'm very confident in the growing nuclear industry, but it's not just the nuclear industry. It is the entire industry portfolio that Wyoming brings to the table. At one time, we were producing 35 to 38% of the nation's energy. But what we failed to do properly in that phase was take the revenues from that and reinvest part of those revenues back in new technologies, finding out what to do with nuclear waste, finding out how to do with more efficient solar farms, wind farms, geothermal.
We could own the technologies. And then here's a concept for you: Because I'm a capitalist, we could license these technologies to the rest of the world and make more money on the licensing than we would actually make on the energy production.
HM: On to healthcare. Congress created the Rural Health Transformation Program last summer, but also it has been slashing funding and making changes to safety net programs like Medicaid. One, what do you think of these changes? And two, what, if any, would you like to see instead?
JB: I've yet to see any of these dollars hit the ground, and this was over a year ago. To be frank with you, I think by the time these dollars roll into Wyoming, it'll be too late, and it won't be significant to make any difference. We have rural hospitals that are on the bubble. They're about 10 patients away from having to close their doors. The state should be stepping in here to help the counties and the local municipalities design these programs so these rural hospitals and these rural clinics are functional, and they're sustainable. And when the state can't do that, then the state needs to be backfilled and supported by the federal government. Not a federal program, a state program.
You can find more information about Wyoming’s 2026 general election on our How Do I Vote? page.
