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.”
