The 2022 Election Part XI. Primary Election Day.

April 16, 2020.  12:00 a.m.

It's finally here.

When this post goes live, the polls will be opening seven hours later.  Twelve hours from that, they'll close, and the results will start to come in.  Depending on how things go in various races, we may not know who won some races until tomorrow, or the day after, or, if they're really close. . .

No primary race in Wyoming's history has been followed anywhere near as close as this one. And while some elections could claim to be equally or more important, particularly the one that followed the 1892 Johnson County War which resulted in the Republicans briefly losing power in the state, none have been as existential since at least that time.  Indeed, in some ways this race and that race are loosely, but only loosely, comparable, as that race was over whether big monied interest would dominate the state's life in every sense.  That isn't as true, but it's partially true, of this race as well, although that's been very little noted.

Hanging over everything is whether a radical populist right wing of the GOP, which has been up and coming in the state's politics, and which has had monied backing, shall complete the process of taking over the party or not.  In some races, such as the Governor's, it clearly will not succeed.  In others, however, down at the legislature and county level, it stands a much better chance, and that may stand to make more of a long term difference in real terms.

This contest, however, certainly has filtered up to other races.  The contest for Congress is certainly one, with the issue being whether the radical populist right will prevail over the traditional party, with Harriet Hageman ironically acting as the stalking horse for the radical right in spite of a lack of history of an association with it.  The Secretary of State's office features the same contest, with radical right populist Chuck Gray, who lacks any qualification for the job, squaring off against attorney-legislator Tara Nethercott.  Even the race for the Superintendent of Public Instruction features it.

It should be an interesting day.

April 16, cont.

With 45 minutes left to go, the national news has been reporting on the stakes in the Wyoming, and Alaska, primaries.  Wyoming is reporting record turn outs.

April 16, cont.

So, as of 9:46 p.m., it appears fairly certain that:

Harriet Hageman won the GOP nomination for Congress, taking about 63% of the vote to 32% of Cheney's, actually a little lower than polls had predicted.  So, Wyomingites voted for loyalty to Trump and bought off on his lies rather than principal.

While she's a long shot, as she's a Democrat, Lynette Grey Bull was nominated in the Democratic contest.

Chuck Gray, another big lie candidate, beat out Tara Nethercott for Secretary of State 48% to 42%, with the balance going to Armstrong.

Mark Gordon was nominated for a second term for the GOP with a big lead over his contenders.

Theresa Livingston, who might as well not even be running, was nominated for the Democrats.

Curt Meier was nominated in the GOP contest for a second term as Treasurer.

April 17, 2022

An extraordinary, and frankly an extraordinarily frightening, election.

Let's start with the statewide elections.

• Congressman

GOP Nominee:  Harriet Hageman.

Democratic Nominee:  Lynette Gray Bull.

Hageman won in spite of large numbers of Democrats, to the extent that Wyoming has large numbers of Democrats, and independents registering to vote in the GOP primary.  The only real issue was loyalty to Donald Trump.

This is, quite frankly, a frightening anti-democratic result in the GOP, evidence of the extent to which democratic principles are being abandoned in the rank and file of the party, or of the degree to which Trump's fables about the election being stolen have been bought by the GOP rank and file.  Wyoming will now exchange a conservative GOP Congressman with outsized power for a freshman stalking horse with no power at all.

This assuming, of course, Hageman wins in the Fall, which she almost surely will.  Still, this does put Gray Bull in a unique position as the first Democrat to actually have a chance at winning, albeit a small one.

• Governor

Governor Gordon took the GOP nomination and therefore the office.  

One might hope that gadfly Rex Rammell, who did not even poll 10,000 votes and therefore polled about a fifth of that of his Bien, who trailed Gordon massively, would finally knock it off, but that's unlikley.

Theresa Livingstone took the Democratic nomination.

• State Auditor

GOP Nominee:  Kristie Racines was running unopposed for reelection.

Democratic Nominee:  None.

• State Treasurer

GOP Nominee:  Curt Meier running for reelection came out the victor, although his opponent took about half the number of votes he did, an interesting result ni that Meier was running to be reelected and had been endorsed by Trump.

Democratic Nominee:  None.

• Secretary of State

GOP Nominee:  Chuck Grey

Democratic Nominee:  None.

Grey, with little in the way of qualifications, goes on to become Secretary of State after taking a minority of the vote.  Nethercott and Armstrong combined took slightly more, with Armstrong taking ly about 8%.  

Here too, the issue turned out to be the 2020 election and the elevation of Grey to this office is more than a little worrisome.

• Superintendent of Public Instruction

GOP Nominee:  Megan Degefelder.  In a very tight race against appointed incumbent Brian Schroeder, Degenfelder pulled out in front to take the most votes, but not over 50%.  The strength of the appointed Schroeder shows the strength of far right candidates this year.

Democratic Nominee:  Sergio A. Maldonaldo, Sr.  

From here will turn to some interesting legislative races.

• Senate District 25.

Long time conservative Republican from Fremont County Cale Case won the GOP nomination, and will run uncontested, but he only barely survived a challenger.  Case, whose conservative credentials are unimpeachable, had come under fire from the far right earlier this year.

• Senate District 29

Long time Natrona County Senator Drew Perkins was defeated by far right challenger Bob Ide.  Perkins had barely survived a challenge from Ide the last time he ran, in this atmosphere, he did not, although the margin may have been closer than the last election.

• House District 2

GOP incumbent J.D. Williams, serving out his first term, lost by about fifteen votes to challenger Alan Slagle in a vote in which county residence seemed to be the deciding factor.

• House District 9

Moderate Republican Landon Brown survived a challenge from the right easily in the GOP contest.

• House District 35.

Incumbent Republican Joe MacGuire was defeated by challenger from the right, Tony Locke.

• House District 43

Incumbent Dan Zwonitzer, who has been heavily attacked from the right for some time, easily won renomination to his GOP House seat.

• House District 57

This district saw the rise of Chuck Grey and now has nominated Jeanette Ward, his endorsed successor who is every bit as far to the right as he is, and who moved here only recently from Chicago.

• House District 58

Long serving Patrick Sweeney went down in defeat to challenger Bill Allemand in this district, whose boundaries were heavily redrawn this year.  Allemand challenged from the right. Sweeney had always been a moderate in the GOP.

• Natrona County Commission

In the GOP race for the four-year seat, voters mad over local assessments tossed out the incumbent, Paul Bertoglio, but preserved that of incumbent Jim Milne, who trailed third in a race which will only advance three candidates to the general.  In that race, they'll be joined by Dr. Tom Radosevich, who was running as the only Democrat. Milne barely did better than recent Democratic cross over Terry Wingerter.  Recent appointee Peter Nicolaysen gained renomination.

In the two-year contest, Steve Freel defeated long time commissioner Rob Hendry.

As a result of this, the Natrona County Commission is going to be seeing mostly new commissioners.

• Natrona County Assessor.

This position has been hotly contested seemingly forever, and this time former assessor Tammy Saulsbury took the nomination over current assessor Matt Keating.  

Elsewhere

Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, a target of Trump ire like Liz Cheney, survived a challenge from the right.

Commentary

In this election, Wyoming blindly embraced the far right in what might be regarded as a Trump fueled sense of rage over a stolen election that wasn't stolen.  Beyond that, however, this reflects a steady drift to the far right fringe to the degree the state has largely crossed over into the extreme right.

We can look for the next legislature to back measures that Wyomingites will ultimately find horrific, including measures to grab the state lands.  The state's rank and file population will grow upset with what they've voted in, but only in rare years will they remove incumbents, this being one of them, so this development likely defines the next ten to fifteen years.

While overall predications are difficult to make, generally the nation is likely not to head in this direction, meaning that politically, and likely economically, the state will be marginalizing itself but unable to appreciate that, and in turn will retrench even further.  Comparative eras for Wyoming would be difficult to find, but politically in the US the best analogy would likely be the post Reconstruction American South of the late 19th Century and early 20th, an era which saw the same at work in the American South and which operated very much against the interset of the common people.