We're making a fortune. So if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump Dividend. Congratulations.
Donald Trump at the GOP Midterm Convention.
A person would have to be stupid on stilts to believe that promise, and a similar one has been extended before.
Seriously, what kind of a dumbass believes anything Trump promises at this point?
The fact that the GOP is having a "Midterm" convention is itself an example of outright desperation and hubris on the part of Trump. Trump loves Trump and you must love Trump, so he's reminding you of Trump Love so that you love him and vote for the GOP candidates to show your mindless cult like love.
The fact of the matter is that everything associated with Trump is going badly and his approval ranking is sinking like a rock. In Wyoming it's down to 54% and the impact of the tariffs on Canada haven't even hit yet, much. The war hasn't ended, inflation is about to ramp back up, and Trump's own weirdness is now too weird for anyone to ignore. The result is that Democrats, who were slated to take back the House, now appear likely to take back the Senate as well. Even in Wyoming there's some hint that the Senate may be in play and it's clear that a large number of people really aren't keen on Chuck Gray, who has been pretty quiet since the primary.
Indeed, I've seen a little lashing out at John Barrasso, who isn't running for anything. Now days we mostly see Dr. John looking at Donald Trump as if he, Barrasso, is suffering from a severe case of constipation. He may be, as he's kept his true views on everything, none of which we know, bottled up inside of himself for so long. Anyhow, if people are mad at Barrasso, who seems to have forgotten which state he's from, it doesn't bode well for Hageman and Gray, although they are both clearly the favorites.
This does bring us to some questions that should be asked in the next two months, however. Those being:
1. Do you support the undeclared war against Iran, and if yes, how do you justify no declaration of war existing?
2. On data centers, a big deal here in Wyoming, are you against them like seemingly the majority of Wyomingites are, or for them, like Donald Trump is?
3. What is your position on public lands?
4. For people who go outside, there are clearly environmental matters to be concerned about. Do you have any concerns, and if no, just don't tell us "it's a big fib", as that's just telling us that you'll lie for votes. What is your justification?
5. Epstein files. Why aren't they being released.
6. What is your real plan for balancing the budget and addressing the debt and show us that it works.
7. Do you support ending the trade war with Canada?
A note, prior endorsements on running candidates are below. I'm doing that in this edition so as to not clog up the first part of it too much.
September 11, 2026
Two events occured yesterday which should; 1) cause a sane nation to invoke the 25th Amendment and 2) cause every Republican running for office to have to answer where they stand or never be voted on again.
The first.
Trump sworn his acolytes in so that they will be able to be called up as Long Knives to attack the upcoming Republican defeat in November.
It's not the pledge to go out and vote. Frankly, most MAGA isn't paying any attention this anyway.
It's the pledge to cheat.
Things Trump says cannot any longer be dismissed. People who think that one liner means nothing are ignoring recent history. He intends to steal the election. If he pulls that off, if he's still living and semi coherent, he intends to serve a third term.
The second was a truly bizarre video based on the Paul Harvey "God made farmers" video of years ago with a "God gave us Trump" theme.
This latches on to the extreme Evangelical leg of the MAGA stool. It would make most Christians of any branch absolutely cringe, and to claim a Divine mission like this may be very well blasphemous.
The questions that should be asked, and of any Republican candidate?
1. Will you support the results of the November election no matter what they are. If there's any hedging at all, tell the person they don't have your support for anything whatsoever.
2. Do you believe that Trump has a Divine mission? Any answer than an unqualified no should disqualify the candidate.
I can guarantee you that almost any GOP candidate, particularly if they don't know your view going into the question, will waffle and not give a straight answer.
Carrying on a bit, the religiosity of this midterm Republican convention is really something else. Protestant ministers showed up to speak at it and Tim Scott sounded like an Evangelist. At some point Protestants who are members of these communities really have to ask their pastors how they can reconcile their faith with a man who so clearly ignores Christianity.
Closer to home, Harriet Hageman is ignoring calls for a debate with James Byrd and Byrd is calling her out on it. His post from Facebook:
James Byrd for United States Senate
IF YOU WON'T FIGHT FOR WYOMING ON A DEBATE STAGE, WHO ARE YOU FIGHTING FOR?
Harriet Hageman won't stand on a stage. She won't return calls. She won't even respond. And now her silence is about to cancel the one chance Wyoming voters had to see both Senate candidates side by side.
You don't get to represent this state if you won't show up and defend what you believe in front of it. Silence isn't leadership. It's a candidate deciding Wyoming doesn't deserve a real conversation at all.
Tell Wyoming PBS: don't let her refusal to stand for what she believes in decide this for the rest of us.
Stand and fight.
That really is a chicken move by Hageman, but it seems to me she's taken that approach in the past as well.
In the past it struck me as arrogance. She stopped debating as a wave of the hand type of move, although Grey Bull pulled down 25% of the vote in 2022 and Cameron 23% in 2024. Here, it strikes me as fear. Gray Bull was a good debater and still drew 25% in a year that heavily favored Hageman. Now, with four years in, Hageman has an extremely exposed record. She poked Wyoming voters in the eye on public lands and basically called them dumb. In the category of dumb, her family's homestead burned to the ground but she still is a climate change denier. She was endorsed by Trump and has yet to explain how Wyoming farmer and ranchers should view South American beef. It's unfortunate that she lost to Mead, who was such a better candidate.
It's pretty questionable how she'd do in a debate against Byrd. Byrd would likely best her, and what's more, he knows that. So he's making her chicken move an issue.
Hageman ought to be held to account for hiding.
AN OPEN LETTER TO WYOMING PBS
August 11, 2026
To the Leadership of Wyoming PBS,
On August 10, our campaign was notified that Wyoming PBS would not be holding a primary debate for U.S. Senate, because our opponent declined the invitation to participate. A similar notice was given to Lisa Kinney, one of the Democratic candidates for Wyoming's U.S. House seat, whose opponent also declined. As a result, neither of Wyoming's federal Democratic primary races will be represented in a debate on Wyoming PBS this cycle.
I want the public to know directly: I did not refuse this invitation. I remain ready and willing to speak to Wyoming voters in this format, and if Wyoming PBS were to offer me the opportunity, I would be there.
We understand the position Wyoming PBS is in. Federal equal-time provisions limit what a broadcaster can do when only one candidate is willing to appear, so PBS can't simply offer a solo forum in place of a debate, and balancing that against the responsibility to keep voters informed is a hard job. We don't take issue with that constraint itself.
But we do take issue with the precedent this sets.
If one candidate declining is all it takes to cancel a debate outright, then any candidate who wants to dodge scrutiny now has a guaranteed way to do it. That's not a neutral policy. It rewards avoidance and punishes the candidate who actually showed up. It hands one side the power to decide, unilaterally, whether Wyoming voters get to see a debate at all. That is not how this is supposed to work.
When journalism requires the participation of good faith actors, rather than holding all individuals to account regardless of whether they participate, it will ultimately fail at its own goal of accountability. It is always easier to hide than to be held to account.
We've also noticed a related pattern: nominees who clear a primary and then simply skip general election debates too. Put these trends together, and debate participation stops being something candidates owe their constituents. It becomes optional for anyone who calculates they have more to lose than gain by showing up. That should worry Wyoming PBS as much as it worries us.
We are asking Wyoming PBS to make a public commitment that the U.S. House and Senate debates ahead of the Nov. 3, 2026 general election will occur, period. That commitment should hold true regardless of the participation of our opponents.
If a candidate refuses to show up, hold the debate anyway and leave their podium empty. Stations across the country already do this when a candidate declines. It lets voters still hear from the candidates who did show up, and it makes the absent candidate's choice visible instead of erasing the event altogether. Voters deserve to hear from all candidates in each race. Short of that, they deserve to see plainly which candidates showed up to answer for their records and which ones didn't. No candidate should get to use their own absence as a weapon to keep another candidate off the stage.
We'd also push Wyoming PBS to rethink its approach for future primary cycles. One candidate's refusal shouldn't be enough to cancel a debate outright, and that shouldn't hinge on how many candidates happen to be on a given party's ballot. A party fielding one or two contested candidates deserves the same debate access as a party fielding a dozen. Anything less penalizes voters for the size of their party's field, not for anything they did.
We appreciate the work Wyoming PBS does for this state, and we expect a response.
Sincerely,
James Byrd
Byrd for Wyoming See less
Prior endorsements and race list:
And so we're off and running for the General Election, which in Wyoming's case means the election is pretty much over for the statewide races. Sure, the contest officially carries on, but chances are that the Republican nominees will take everything.
Still, this year, there's a chance, here and there. . .
So, our early predictions.*
Governor:
Republican. Eric Barlow
Barlow is a rancher, veterinarian, and long time legislature.
He's won this race and the General Election in this case is a mere formality.
Democrat. Kenneth Casner
75 year old making his third pointless bid for the Governor's office. He won't win, everyone knows he won't win, and he shouldn't be running.
Casner's appearance says something, however, about the state of the Democratic Party in Wyoming, and it's the opposite of what's happening in much of the rest of the country. In much of the country Democratic voters are rising up and tossing out geezer candidates, but in Wyoming the Democratic ranks are so depleted the Democrats are falling back on them, which is not a good sign.
Casner would have done his party a favor if he hadn't run.
Constitution Party: Rebecca Bextel.
The Constitution Party is a gadfly far right political party which was once the home of people who now populate the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Indeed, it's their proper home, which shows in the one candidate of theirs which we know to exist, Rebecca Bextel.
The central figure in CheckGate, Bextel is flat out delusional and is running as she feared that Brent Bien would lose and there would not be any candidates running for the true interpretation of the Double Secret Constitution known only to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Bextel appears to seriously believe that Barlow could only win if vast hoards of Democrats, which don't exist in Wyoming crossed over to vote for Barlow and that in the general election the great mass of MAGA/WFC true believers will carry the day.
With the WFC having received a titanic dope slap in the primary, a rational person in her position would drop out. But then, running as a Constitution Party candidate shows demonstrated irrationality.
Endorsement: Barlow by far.
Secretary of State
Republican: Robert Short.
Short is an excellent choice and will take the office.
Democrat: Bryan McCarthy.
McCarty actually has an impressive business background and has worked as an auditor. He should be given credit for running, although he probably should have run for State Auditor.
He's going to lose and it's not even going to be close.
Endorsement: Robert Short.
State Auditor
Republican Kristi Racines won an uncontested Republican primary race and no Democrats ran.
State Treasurer
Curt Meier won his bid to run again in the primary for the Republicans and no Democrats ran.
Senator
Republican: Harriet Hageman.
63 (soon to be 64) year old incumbent Congressman with a terrible record on public lands who came up due to the "hate Cheney" wave two years ago. If she wins, she'll be 70 at the end of her first term.
Democrat: James Byrd.
72 year old former legislator, geophysicist, and businessman. Really impressive overall, but he is in his 70s.
This race features two candidates who are pushing what we regard age limits. Hageman is a nightmare of a candidate however.
Byrd actually stands a chance in this race, but it's a real uphill battle.
Endorsement: We won't vote for Hageman, which leaves Byrd the only realistic choice, and by and large he's a good one, but we aren't doing an endorsement yet.
House of Representatives
Republican: Chuck Gray
Gray is a carpetbagger about whom Wyomingites know utterly nothing, other than he's an adoring sycophant of Donald Trump, he sent Wyoming's voter rolls to the Federal Government illegally, he has a nasty public personality, and he's a Californian who went to Wharton. About him personally, we know utterly nothing.
Having received only 25% of the primary vote, his election to the House can't be assured.
Democrat: Lisa Kinney
About the worst candidate the Democrats could have chosen for this position, 75 year old Kinney can't win the office and is a remnant of an earlier era in more ways than one. Her being the nominee is a sign of the absolutely pathetic state of the Wyoming Democratic Party.
Libertarian: Shaun Johnson
Like the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party has become so obscure their state's organization doesn't even list their candidates. This is the only one we know to exist.
Johnson is a lawyer presently in Thermopolis. I don't think he stands a chance, but I'll note that former Wyoming legislator Tim Stubson, who once ran for Congress, has endorsed him, which shows the depth to which a lot of Republicans despise Chuck Gray.
Write In: Kevin Christensen?
A building movement to mount a write in campaign for Christensen, who ran in the GOP primary, exists. He came up late in the primary election and got 21,632 to Chuck's 31,222. While that's about 9,000 more votes, both Balow and Gilat, both seen as early possibilities for defeating Chuck, received over 10,000 votes. Even gadfly Reid Rasner received a little over 10,000 votes.
If we had Alaska's system, Christensen, along with Friess and Balow, would be on the election in the Fall. If we had the system in which the top two vote getters were on the ballot, Gray and Friess would be. Given all of this, there's a really strong indicator that many of those who voted for a candidate other than Gray would vote for Christensen.
Overall, therefore, this race remains in a state of flux while its seen if enough momentum can build up to create a write in campaign for Christensen against a well funded Chuck.
Endorsement: Kevin Christensen. I'm early in doing this, and I note that some disaffected Republicans are saying they'll vote for Kinney. But Kinney is at best a lesser of two evils.
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Republican: Steve Harshman
Harsham is a long time Wyoming educator from Natrona County who was in the legislature for many years. He's an excellent choice for this office.and he will win it.
Democrat: Ana Cordova.
Cordova won the contested Democratic primary. She's a Wyoming native and extremely well educated. She only returned to the state recently, however, and really has no chance in this race.
Endorsement: Harshman.
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