The 2022 Election, Part I

What on earth?  President Biden was inaugurated just yesterday.  You can't be serious?

Yes, unfortunately we are.

Wyoming House of Representatives member Anthony Bouchard, one of  a handful of consistently hard right Republicans in the Legislature (but in a party now controlled by the hard right) announced he is running in the 2022 primary against Liz Cheney.  And amazingly he wasn't alone.

Bouchard is upset by what he feels is Cheney's failure to support former President Trump, citing her record in general.  Having said that, Bouchard was one of two Wyoming legislators calling for Cheney to be hauled in front of the legislature to account for herself prior to the insurrection.

Bouchard is from Goshen County, which is a region of the state which has produced some consistently far right Wyoming Republicans for decades.

Bouchard is joined by Bryon Eugene Keller of Cheyenne, about whom not much is known, and Pavilion Mayor Melissa Selvig, who was also critical of Cheney's vote to impeach the President.

These filings are all excessively early and it might be noted that early filings are usually marked by later failures.  For example, the Montana Governor who first announced his campaign for the 2020 election for the Presidency failed really early.  

Beyond that, the Republican Party is splitting in two.  Huge rifts already exist in the state's party and now the Trump wing of the party has been declared an anathema at the Senate level by Mitch McConnell.  Americans tend to have really short political memories and even as dramatic as recent events have been Cheney's opposition to Trump is highly unlikely to be remembered by the fall of 2022.  Indeed, Cynthia Lummis view that Trump was a poor candidate in 2016 was easily forgotten by the electorate to such an extent that she was able to embrace him in 2020.

All of which assumes that there will actually be a Republican Party in 2022.  Right now Mitch McConnell is in an open effort to expel the Trumpites from the party, which would result in the hard right of Wyoming's legislature and the leadership of the GOP with no real place to go nationally, assuming that there is only one conservative party left.  It's known that Donald Trump is considering forming a new party, with a working name of the Patriot Party, and bolting the GOP. That would be a doomed effort, but Trump's action in the last few months of his Presidency have demonstrated an astonishing degree of hubris which make his chances of starting such an effort at least 50/50.  If he does, the leadership of the state's GOP and individuals like Bouchard will really have no home in the national party at all and the split in the state party, as well as the national party, will become de facto, leading ultimately to the demise of the populist Trump camp entirely, but also leading to a greatly weakened GOP everywhere.

January 29, 2021

A rally against Liz Cheney featuring Florida freshman Congressman Matt Gaetz  and a call from Donald Trump Jr. occurred yesterday in Cheyenne.  It drew reportedly between 700 to 1,000 people which is not particularly large in context.

Attendees remain upset by Cheney's vote to impeach Donald Trump following the insurrection of several weeks ago.  According to a Trump supporting pollster Anthony Bouchard, one of several hard to alt right Wyoming figures who has registered to run against Cheney in the 2022 primary is now ahead of her in support, but such polls at this time are nearly meaningless.

Also perhaps meaningless, published comments in journals such as the Tribune overwhelmingly support Cheney.

While it is difficult to tell at this stage, there's some reason to suspect that what this event really was is a Trump mission to explore the formation of a third party.  If that's the case, the thesis would be that Wyoming is Trump's strongest base of support and if a party could be formed here it would be part of a springboard to the creation of a party to replace the GOP.  The theory suffers in a variety ways, including that Trump support is really that strong in the Wyoming base, as opposed to the transient base, the two not being the same.  It likewise would suffer from the assumption that Wyoming, which has fewer voters than Dayton Ohio, really could amount to a strong base of support for such an effort.

Gaetz insulted not only Liz Cheney, but Dick Cheney, an odd approach to things by an outsider such as Gaetz in a state where such speakers will draw criticism for that reason alone, and for the fact that Dick Cheney has long been one of the local GOP's political icons.

In other news, Ronna McDaniel, chairman of the GOP, stated this week when asked about supporting Trump for a 2024 run, the following:

The party has to stay neutral. I'm not telling anybody to run or not to run in 2024. That's going to be up to those candidates going forward. What I really do want to see him do, though, is help us win back majorities in 2022.

Given McDaniel's diehard support for Trump up until literally that moment, that's not only interesting, but a pretty clear signal that a departure from the Trump wing of the party in the party's leadership is well underway.

February 2, 2021

In advance of a House conference on assignments coming up this week for the GOP, Senate Minority Whip Mitch McConnell gave loud praise to Liz Cheney.   By doing so, he waded even deeper into the developing rift in the GOP and praised Cheney for her bravery.

Ten of Wyoming's 23 counties have seen their country GOP organization issue censures of Cheney for her vote to impeach.  A few more counties are set to consider them.  Natrona County rejected one, however, and letters to media, to the extent we've seen them, have been much more on Cheney's side than against her.

February 4, 2021

Liz Cheney survived a vote regarding her leadership position in the House of Representatives, retaining her position as the number 3 in the Republican hierarchy.  She survived it pretty handily, 145 to 61.

Still, its disturbing that a vote of conscience would lead over 1/3d of the Republicans in Congress to oppose her, and its emblematic of a rift in the GOP which its leadership has not gotten under control and which threatens to split it into two parties. The interesting thing here is that this likely shows us what that split would mean, party wise, if it were to soon occur.  The GOP would go from nearly controlling the House to two much smaller minority parties, but the traditional GOP would still be the larger of the two.

On this story, Mitch McConnell of the Senate spoke earlier in the week in Cheney's favor.  John Barrasso came to her support as well. But Cynthia Lummis did not, instead noting that the House was going to do whatever it was going to do.

That was as much as an attack on Cheney by Lummis, and its noteworthy that it seems that some bad blood between the two goes back to this past election.  It seems Cheney was seriously contemplating, and perhaps had decided upon, a Senate race.  Lummis did contact her before announcing, and then announced before Cheney had made up her mind.  It took some time for Cheney to come around to announcing that she was running to retain her House seat.  Reading between the lines, it appears as if Cheney had more or less decided to run for the Senate and Lummis jumped the gun on her.  

Doing so would have been fair.  Running for office is running for office.  But some lasting animosity seems to exist.

February 5, 2021

Because I have no other thread to put it in, and because I don't want to start another one, I'll note here that the state central Republican organization voted to censure Elizabeth Cheney yesterday for her vote to impeach Donald Trump. The resolution apparently references Antifa and BLM as instigators at the insurrection that gave rise to this, which is completely false.

Cheney is the third Republican figure censured by the committee in a year.

The GOP here is now firmly set to split.  My guess is that by the fall of November 22 it will be firmly two parties in practice, although perhaps not de jure, which it nearly is now.

February 18, 2021

Perennial extreme Republican candidate, Rex Rammell, a veterinarian originally from Idaho who is on the extreme right, is running for Governor again.

Rammell is fixated on trying to take the Federal lands in Wyoming away from the Federal government, a darling position of the extreme right in Wyoming which is detested by the vast majority of Wyomingites.  He lost last time, and lost in his prior runs for office, and he'll lose again.

February 19, 2021

Anthony Bouchard is in the news but not for his campaign against Cheney, but rather because the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce has fired a salvo at him related to the 2020 election.

Bouchard is a central figure in something called the Wyoming Gun Owners Association, a firearms rights organization to the right of the NRA.  The Chamber of Commerce is accusing the organization of suing "dark money" in the 2020 campaign.  The head of the chamber stated to the Press in Cheyenne that:

During Anthony’s election in Laramie County last year, he was saying some things about his opponent that were outright lies. . . That’s illegal in Wyoming law. We saw a number of issues, so we called a bunch of attorneys that were involved with the chamber and asked them them to look into it.

What the chamber is accusing the association of is acting as a lobbying group without disclosing donors.  It's sent the issue over to the AG's office.  

The association is reacting in spectacular fashion.  I won't try to quote them here, but you can look it on up on their page.  Bouchard himself accused the Chamber of trying to get the organization to disclose "gun owners" names, when of course it wants campaign donors names disclosed.  The head of the Chamber replied that Bouchard's statement was "100% false" and a "lie" on his Facebook page.

This plays out in the context of the 2020 and 2022 elections in that Laramie County, where Cheyenne is located had a traditionally run county GOP organization whereas Bouchard is from the hard right Trump wing.  Where that presently stands is unclear as Laramie County voted to censure Cheney.  In any event, Bouchard's supporters and the organization will see this as a politically motivated attack and are accordingly reacting in that fashion.  It's interesting to note that they point out that the Attorney General is "appointed", which is true, as there is a bill in the legislature right now to change that position to being an elective office. Bouchard is one of the sponsors of that bill .While that is no doubt unrelated to this matter, it's probably that hard right members of the legislature have been upset by Governor Gordon's declination to join in with Texas on that state's doomed post election suit.

March 5, 2021

Hard right Casper legislator Chuck Gray announced he is also running against Liz Cheney.

Gray's move is interesting in that he and Bouchard tend to be fellow travelers in the legislature and GOP and they're now effectively running against each other for the same section of the GOP's votes, which means that there's a strong chance that the GOP hard right will split its vote among the two leaving Cheney in the poll position no matter how many votes the hard right candidates draw. This may particularly be the case as with Gray entering the race there's a strong chance that other hard righters are pondering doing the same thing.

This may explain why the GOP is now proposing to change its candidate selection process to require a runoff between the top two vote getters if neither gets 50% of the vote.  That would suggest that the GOP, whose leadership has gone over to the hard right in Wyoming, understands the risks but is unable to restrain its candidates from running when that situation is created.  Seemingly missed in that suggestion is that the primary races, which are effectively party elections, are paid for by the State, so the GOP is suggesting that the taxpayers pick up the tab for an extra election when that occurs.

We'll likely see more hard right candidates announce prior to the primary cutoff date next year.  Chances are high that hard right politicians, aware that they really don't reflect the majority views in the state or party, are aware that right now seems to be their moment in the sun.  By 2024 the moment may have permanently passed.

Indeed, this is likely the start of their passing.  Chuck Gray ran against incumbent Thomas Lockhart in his house district for the first time in 2014 and was fairly trounced in the primary by Lockhart.  He ran again, however, in 2016 when Lockhart retired and the GOP  competitor to the district was widely perceived to be left of center.  He drew competition again in 2018 but retained his seat and he had no Republican competition in 2020.  By running for Congress he's opening his seat in the legislature, which will almost certainly be filled by a candidate who is much more of a centrist.  Indeed, his large Casper district includes a lot of economic diversity and its not a natural fit for a hard right candidate.

Bouchard provides another example.  Bouchard first ran for office in 2012 and was defeated in the primary by incumbent Senator Wayne Johnson, although only narrowly.  In 2014 he ran for the House and was handily defeated in the primary by the incumbent.  In 2016 he very narrowly won the primary for his Senate seat when Johnson retired, and then won the general election with 52% of the vote which was remarkable as a write in independent took 48% of the vote.

All of this goes to suggest that in spite of the insurgency of the alt right in the GOP right now, it's grasp on the party is thin.  With Gray running for Congress he will not be able to run for the House and by 2022 chances are high that much of the current political tempest will have passed.  Cheney is unlikely to lose her seat, but the hard right candidates that leave their seats to challenge her are unlikely to be able to regain theirs once they give them up.  And because the GOP leadership is likely to be an opponent of Cheney's next fall its likely to get a bruising as a result following the election.

March 7, 2021

Directly asked by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press this morning, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso declared his support in the 2022 election for Liz Cheney, something that must be at least a little deflating for those now lining up to oppose her.

He also declared his support for Lisa Murkowski, putting him directly contrary to former President Trump.

April 1, 2021

Perennial candidate Rex Rammell, who is running for Governor in 2022, but who will lose, is facing a trial for failure to have four horses that were branded go across state lines.  He's challenging the brand inspection laws in a separate suit, which he'll lose, on the basis that they're unconstitutional.

April 15, 2021

A spokesman for former President Donald Trump announced that he is will be endorsing an opponent to Liz Cheney for the 2022 Wyoming House race.  Trump, or whomever works for him, or both, are weighing the current contenders.

While its too early to really predict the outcome of this, and 2022 is a long ways from now politically, Liz Cheney will retain her seat.

May 4, 2021

Former President Trump and Liz Cheney exchanged barbs yesterday by Twitter.  In them, Trump claimed that Cheney was extremely far behind in the polls.  I haven't seen any polls, but I very much doubt that and I'd give Cheney's contenders next to no chance of success.

Trump showed some political savvy in the exchange, however, in hoping that Cheney didn't draw multiple opponents and split the vote against her.  In fact, she already has, although my overall feeling is that her seat is safe.

Along similar lines, Mitt Romney was booed at the Utah GOP convention, showing that Trump does retain a lot of support in the region.  On This Week a Democratic commentator openly noted that riding the Trump train probably means an overall GOP defeat in the 2022 midterms, which Chris Christie tried to deflect with other topics.\

May 6 , 2021

The Club For Growth was recently in Wyoming shopping for a candidate to run against Liz Cheney.

The move is thick with irony as the CFG is a well established conservative PAC with a focus on economic issues, and Cheney is a well established conservative.  In normal times, the Club would fully back Cheney, and in fact has come out against the New York politician endorsed by President Trump who is making a run at Cheney's no 3 spot in the GOP in the House, whom they've termed a "liberal".  

That latter matter came about as Cheney isn't backing down on her views on the insurrection while its increasingly becoming clearer that endorsing the fantasy of election fraud is the price of remaining in the GOP's good graces and maybe even simply remaining in the GOP.  Former President Trump doesn't seem to have lost his grip on the party at all.  

Given this, its position going into the 2022 races may be pretty shaky, in spite of expectations to the contrary.  And this presents a real opportunity for the left in the Democratic Party, which is increasingly characterized by its left, to push forward.  Normally there's be fears of a strong mid term insurgence from the GOP, but the GOP is moving away from the center and losing its center right members.

May 7, 2021

Cheyenne businessman and attorney Darin Smith, who has run for Congress unsuccessfully in the past, has announced he's considering running against the embattled Cheney in 2022. In the Tribune article on Smith, he indicated he hadn't officially decided if he's running, but he already has a website dedicated to the effort.

Smith notes he's a "Deplorable" on his site, and would be running as a highly conservative candidate.  A Wyoming native, he's criticized Cheney for her low connections with Wyoming.

May 7, 2021

Smith officially announced today, stating: 

You see, there are some lines you just can’t cross, and Liz Cheney did just that when she voted against Wyoming and with the leftists when she voted to impeach Donald Trump

This is an unfortunate example of the rhetoric and logic that is common now, and which is likely to be common throughout the election season.  Cheney's vote on impeachment was principled and even if a person disagreed with it, it is not a vote "against Wyoming".  Indeed, the tribal concept of Congressional voting that is so prevalent now in the GOP in particular is shocking and stand long term, if not short term, to really damage the party and the conservative cause.

May 8, 2021

The Smith announcement continues to make some news as does Liz Cheney's troubles due to the vacated President Trump.

On the former, Smith's campaign manager is Foster Freiss, meaning the super wealthy Wisconsin import to Teton County who ran for Governor and lost in 2018 is backing Smith. That brings money to the race in a way that Gray and Bouchard lack.  Smith was apparently the Freiss manager in that campaign.

Smith is also taking an approach that Freiss backers will recognize, noting he's "pro God", "pro life" and "pro guns".  That same statement could be made by Gray and Bouchard, with Bouchard having built his early political career on being radically pro gun.  Cheney has a different style and talks about religion little, but she certainly has a pro gun and pro life record.  Freiss, in his 2018 campaign, had a style and a set of backers that made long time politcos recall the South in the 70s, and it didn't sell well with the voters. Smith is a Wyomingite so perhaps he'll avoid that, but the tone, and now a financial aspect of the race, is being set even this early on.

Smith, it turns out, was at the January 6 rally that turned into the January 6 insurrection, although he claims that he didn't participate in storming the capital.

Cheney is in trouble, if she is (and I have my doubts), because the GOP in DC is running into the embrace of Donald Trump. This has caused Michael Reagan, the son of Ronald Reagan and a political commentator, to lament the party's rearward gaze and recall his sister's phrase that the Republican Party was "the stupid party", a pretty blunt characterization of his lifelong party.  What Reagan finds stupid is the party's insistence on the lost race of 2020, in which it otherwise did well.  He's clearly afraid that by embracing Trump its dooming its prospects in 2022, which it likely is.

May 10, 2021

And now we have Denton Knapp, a retired Colonel in the Army, and a current Brigadier General in the California National Guard, running against Cheney.

Apparently Knapp is originally from Gillette.  He's a West Point graduate.

May 11, 2021

Adding a little to this drama, Knapp was appointed to West Point by Dick Cheney, and therefore owes his career to the Cheney's in some ways.

May 11, 2021 cont:

Knapp, it turns out, is presently ineligible to run as he's a Californian by residency.  The Orange County resident plans on returning to Gillette today to reestablish his residency.