August 18, 2026
Today is primary election day.
Quite a few of us have already voted of course, myself in cluded.
This will bed a consequential day. After the polls close, most of the races in Wyoming will have been determined.
The polls, for that matter, just opened.
August 19, 2026
Results are in.
Like most elections, it's a mixed bag. Some good results, and in this instance, some really awful ones.
Governor:
Erick Barlow trounced his opposition including Trump endorsed Megen Degenfelder. A win for Wyoming and a loss for Trump and a major loss for the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The GOP/WFC endorsed Bien came in a career ending third.
A very good result. Barlow was the only good candidate, and stands to be a better Governor than Governor Gordon.
Senate:
Harriet Hageman, in spite of holding views on public lands and being fairly nasty publicly, handily beat out her competition. She'll face Democrat James Byrd whom is likely to lose, but who would win this contest in any normal situation.
A very bad result.
Wyoming will regret this choice, and almost immediately, if it sticks and Byrd doesn't win, which he's not likely to in spite of being the clearly better candidate.
House:
Chuck Gray took a minority of overall votes but more than anyone else to squeak by with 25.4% of the vote./ Friess came in second with 20% and Christensen just behind him.
How anyone could vote for Gray is a complete mystery. 75% of Wyoming Republican voters didn't.
He'll face Lisa Kinney who will lose. Gray will be our horrific complete Trump sycophantic Congressman. He'll be the worst Congressman in the state's history.
A very bad result. My guess is that he might be a one term Congressman, bucking the normal Wyoming trend.
Secretary of State
Robert Short won beating out WFC Rachel Williams. Wiliams was the titular head of the WFC, and her career is now over.
He'll face Bryan McCarthy, who will lose.
A very good result.
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Harsham easily beat his opponents and will win in the fall.
He'll face Ana Cordova, which is surprising. She's likely a good candidate, but will lose.
Local races.
Really interesting results locally. The night was a disaster for the well funded Freedom Caucus.
Freedom Caucus candidates in Natrona County were trounced. Bob Ide was sent packing, which was a great result. Tony Locke was booted. Jayme Lien was booted. Jeanette Ward lost big to Elissa Campbell in her bid to recapture her seat. Allemand retained his seat by only eight votes, which is pathetic and surprising.
Major Freedom Caucuser John Bear is out, a huge defeat for the WFC.
Elsewhere, Ogden Driscoll kicked out Freedom Caucus member Neiman
Melissa Butcher kicked out WFC member Ken Pendergraft.
Eve Brennan booted Daniel Singh, a WFC member.
Conservative Republican Albert Sommers is back in the House.
All in all the Wyoming Freedom Caucus lost at least fourteen seats in the legislature with two of its main figures, Ide and Bear, going down in defeat. Reps. Steve Johnson, Tony Locke, Ocean Andrew, Ken Pendergraft, Marlene Brady, Jayme Lien, Nina Webber, Mark Jennings, Gary Brown, Daniel Singh, Ann Lucas, Robert Wharff and Darin McCann, Chip Neimann and Sen. Bob Ide, all lost.
A very good result.
In the Natrona County Commissioner GOP race, where six candidates advance, ancient Dallas Laird took the highest number of votes, which is franky bizarre. The other candidates advancing aren't too surprising.
An interesting night, and a bit difficult to explain. At the statewide level, the voters made a hard correction towards the center, where as for Congress, they sent two people who don't represent Wyoming's views, and one who is a pathetic sycophantic liar.
Of course, the general is yet to come, but it's very difficult to imagine Lisa Kinney, who is ancient, beating screaming whiner Chuck Gray, even though 75% of Wyomigites voted against Gray. It's not impossible to imagine Byrd defeating Hageman, but it'll be hard.
August 20, 2026
The impact of Tuesday's primary in Wyoming is still being widely discussed. The rejection of the WFC was on the historic level.
They are not all taking it well.
As earlier noted, they're back out of control of the House having suffered an election massacre and have reduced influence in the Senate. Their members are pouting and declaring that they'll come back, which they will not, and that they have had a positive impact on Wyoming, which they haven't.
Some news articles:
It's dead.
On the Freedom Caucus, right now it's defeated members seem to largely be a state of shock, but as noted, there's some angry defiance there. The WFC posted this:
The broadside is more than a little ironic. The WRC liked to defend its extremism by claiming that the voters had elected them and it was the will of the people. Now, the will of the people has shown them the door, and they're saying they're not leaving.
As a movement, they will be.
And much of what they did in the legislature, which was darned little, will pass like a fart in a windstorm.
It's a shame, frankly, that most of the carpetbaggers who represented the face of the movement won't be packing up and moving back to where they acquired their extremism. This election should have informed them that the Wyoming they live in isn't the imaginary one that they thought they did. The far right tends to be delusional, but a defeat of this magnitude is such that a delusion will be hard to maintain.
Still, one of the first Freedom Caucusers in the legislature, who lost her position two years ago and lost again this week, Jeanette Ward, commented that it was "curious" that she lost as it didn't reflect her canvassing results which shows that people who answer doors are a lot more politie to visiting politicians than I am.
On the Freedom Caucus/MAGA hard right, it turns out that fifty Republican Sheridan County voters tried to change how votes were counted by getting the county to conceded that its electronic voting was out of date and revert to the really out of date hand counting, giving the county less than a week to accede to their demands. Almost all of the signatories to the letter signed it on August 9 and were members of Cowboy Church of the Big Horns, which was founded by Mark Jennings, who was running for House District 30.
I have another thread I'm working on regarding the association of the Evangelical hard right with the conspiratorial thinking of MAGA/hard right/WFC, but this provides an example. The church proclaims itself to be "Nondenominational Bible-based Worship" which means it is denominational and a member of a minoritarian view of Christianity that's common in the US.
The incoming legislature will return to sanity. Before we get there, however, we have the outgoing legislature holding hearings on proposed legislation now, and will all the way until the new legislature convenes. The Freedom Caucus influence in those has been felt, but by the same token its been muted as they never controlled the Senate. This probably kills off Freedom Caucus bills for the 2027 legislature, although it may also mean that they'll work to stall any bills contrary to their desires as well.
The next session is a budget session.
Tempering the general rejoicing over the death of the Freedom Caucus has been the bad news on the primary victories of Gray and Hageman.
On the costs of that:
Primary Election Winners: Curt Meier Got The Best Deal Per Vote, Chuck Gray The Worst
Distress over Gray's victory is widespread. He only took 25% of the vote and a lot of Wyomingites are not happy about his winning the primary. There's already serious discussion of a write in campaign for Kevin Christensen.
Some disaffected Republicans are indicating that they'll vote for Democratic nominee Lisa Kinney. I'm sure some will, but Kinney is a weak candidate and stands very little chance of beating Gray. Christensen would stand a real chance. It'll be interesting to see how this develops. Suffice it to say a large number of Republicans are unhappy with Gray's candidacy and its pretty clear but for the vote splitting he would have gone down with the rest of the Freedom Caucus.
Hageman would not have.
Hageman took 65% of the GOP votes in the primary, which is not only stunning, it's mysterious. Sam Mead seemed to be a good candidate, but he took 28%, well below expectation.
Hageman took 70% of the vote in the general election for House two years ago, riding on a Trump endorsement and the sudden outbreak of far right hatred of Liz Cheney. A disadvantage that Cheney had which is often missed is not only that she stood up for what was right, but she had been a plurality candidate in her first run for the House, like Gray, and she was a carpetbagger, like Gray. Indeed, I was very much opposed to her early on and only came to respect her as she grew into her office in her last two terms. Be that as it may, she was an import branded by the GOP as a Wyomingite and only got in as the vote was split between two other good candidates originally.
Again, note the similarities to Gray there.
Anyhow, Hageman has been a horrible Congressman, supporting anti public lands positions in the GOP while being anti science. That she did so well is really hard to explain.
She's facing James Byrd in the general.election.
Byrd is a Democrat from a Democratic family, but his platform reads like that of a Republican. In his campaign website he states:
James Byrd is a native son of Wyoming, a man who has spent his life working on the front lines of our state. With a distinguished career spanning business leadership and public service, James brings a deep understanding of the challenges facing our families. His platform is built on the core values of transparency, economic resilience, and the unwavering protection of Wyoming’s unique heritage.
James has proven his ability to deliver results under pressure. He is running for the United States Senate to act as a fierce advocate for our energy independence, rural education, and veteran support services. His vision for the future is as bold as the Wyoming landscape itself, focused on creating a legacy of prosperity for generations to come. Join James in fighting for the heart and soul of Wyoming.
Any Republican could have stated the same thing on his website.
Not only that, but Byrd has strong Wyoming credentials. Hageman is a fourth generation Wyomingite, but Byrd is a fifth generation son of the state, which is phenomenal. He was a geophysicist who worked for the Compagnie Générale de Géophysique and British Petroleum Amoco before going into high tech in the 1980s. He served in the legislature up until 2018.
Operating against him is that he's a Democrat. That shouldn't matter, but in Wyoming it will. . . or perhaps we might say might. Hageman can't take him on, really, on anything else in regard to his declared positions which means that Hageman will resort to ignoring him at first, and then accuse him of being from the far left, which he isn't. As a last ditch fall back she'll claim that electing Byrd will help flip the Senate to the Democrats which would be betraying the Dear Leader.
Hageman is going to have to handle her disdain for public lands and science. Byrd will have to handle the Democrats general positions on social issues. He'd be well advised to surprise Hageman by saying he's opposed to abortion (I don't know that he is) and to transgenderism (and I don't know his position on that). That might upset some true hardcore Democrats but it would leave Hageman floundering on inflation, disdain of public lands, an illegal war in the Middle East and that she's genuinely not likeable.
That should give Republicans a reason to cross over and vote for him frankly. And some will. Hageman, as noted, drew 70% of the vote in the last election, when pro Trumpism and anti Cheneyism were at peak levels. Now that Wyomingites have returned to conventional conservatism Hageman will not do as well. But overcoming her simply being a Republican will be hard to do.
In other races, former Democratic U.S. Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska will advance to the general election for U.S. Senate in Alaska in that state's unique election system. She'll facie incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan and two other candidates, one of whom might be another Dan Sullivan.
Alaska's system is unique in that it uses ranked choices. So, you can vote for your favorite and second favorite. If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and voters that ranked that candidate first have their vote counted for their next choice. Peltola has a really good chance of winning.
Her campaign is using the catchphrase The fight for "Fish, Family, Freedom" which is a really good one. I wish some Wyoming candidate stood for that. Chuck Gray's, as far as we can tell, is "drill baby drill but oppose any industry which it seems that Wyomingites might be against while kissing Donald Trump's ass." Hageman's comes across as "Shut up, I"m smarter than you and a Republican".
Peltola booted back an effort by Kamala Harris to supporter her, which was wise, but also shows her political savvy.
In Florida DSA member Angie Nixon, who had just joined the DSA recently and then didn't campaign on its issues, defeated the much better-funded former national security official Alexander Vindman, for the Democratic Senatorial ticket reflecting a turn to the left in Florida, the state that Trump claims to be his home state. She'll face Republican Senator Ashley Moody in November in a special election for the final two years of former Senator Marco Rubio’s term. Trump backed African American Republican Byron Donalds won the GOP nomination to succeed term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis. He'll face former Republican turned Democrat David Jolly. Other Florida races are difficult to gauge as the legislature redrew Florida's election map in an effort to wipe out their Democrats in the House of Representatives. Suffice it to say, if the Democrats are in control in 2028, preventing this short of gerrymandering will be a priority for them.
On a really minor note, Stephanie Kessler, long associated with conservation efforts in the state and Fremont County, was elected to the Fremont County Commission.
And with this, which was focused on this week's' primaries, we'll end this edition and go on to a new one.
Addressing one of the WFC's favorite bogeymen:It's really the WFC, which is a Dixiecrat group, that are not real Republicans.And also Bob Ide, defeated WFC member.There would seem to be very little in common between those three candidates, but apparently the Libertarians see otherwise. Case and Ide are Republicans (Ide's a Dixiecrat), Provenza a well known Albany County Democrat. Apparently the law doesn't allow for a party to be nominated by two parties, although the fact that the Libertarians are a third party means they can pretty much do it and nothing will happen to them. The names won't appear for both parties on the ballots, however and in Ide's case, unless he changes parties, it won't appear at all.Anyhow, the law precluding that is likely unconstitutional. I doubt anyone will challenge it right now, but it is. This practice, fwiw, is not uncommon in some states and it used to be quite common in the US.Barlow reports that following his election to the Governor's office (yes, I know a Democrat is running, but he might as well not be) he visited with Megan Degenfelder, received a “nice message and text” from Curt Blake, but has heard from Brenth Bien.Sometimes money doesn't work:Alleman's reelection is really a blight on his district.
Not too surprisingly, election post mortems are being written:
In more ways than one:
In California, Progressive California state Sen. Aisha Wahab won a special election to serve the remainder of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s term in the US Congress. She defeated a centrist AIPAC backed Democrat.
This is a developing story in the upcoming 2027 general election. A lot of people are really sick of unquestioned US support for Israel and a major backlash to it is forming.
August 23, 2026
Lien asked for a recount which was held yesterday, confirming that she lost.
Last edition:
Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Check Gate, Chuck Gray, Eric Barlow, Kevin Christensen, Politics, Robert Short, Samuel Mead, Steve Friess, Steve Harshman, Wyoming, Wyoming Freedom Caucus
