On the same day that I posted the first edition of this post election thread, I posted this:
Tuesday, November 5, 1946. 1946 Midterm Election.
So, you might say?
Well, it's interesting in how history rhymes.
In 1946 the United States overwhelmingly turned towards the GOP after years of Democratic governance. The Depression was over, the Second World War was over, and the country was heading in a new direction politically. . . except Wyoming wasn't.
Dyed in the wool Republicans who like to scream that somebody they don't like is "a Democrat!" would be surprised to know that in 1945/46/47 Wyoming's Congressional representation was 2/3s Democratic and the Governor was a Democrat.
Oh my.
But it was.
In the 46 election, when the nation rejected the Democrats and brought the GOP back into power, Wyomingites did nothing of the same. They re elected all the major Democrats on the ballot.
It is, apparently, a Wyoming thing.
And so, in 2026, when we had two lousy candidates for Congress, one trying to move from the House to the Senate, and one trying to be a real boy, even if he has a nasty public disposition, is a liar, and a carpetbagger.
Why did we do that?
Well, they were both Republicans and one, Harriet Hageman, was a sort of kind of incumbent. Indeed, they both were.
Hageman is an enemy of public lands who basically told Wyomingites who weren't in favor of disposing of public lands on some scale were stupid. Wyomingites hate this. And yet we elected her anyhow. She's a far right wing anti public lands lawyer who claims to have had a career taking on what she now is, the Federal Government.
We know very little about Gray. He's a Californian child who had a job in his daddy's radio station after university in Pennsylvania and then became a legislator, by appointment, as at the time local committee people liked his right wing screeds against the government. He built on that and advanced with a carpet of lies to Secretary of STate, where he was campaigning for his next move ever since. That's all public.
Most people don't know anything else about him. He isn't married, and the only time he's ever been seen with women of his same approximate age is when he started showing up at US football games. Does he have friends, other than his campaign manager? There don't seem to be a lot of testimonials for him, unlike people who will say "I know Barlow", etc. There's no big family to be photographed with like Bextel.
His campaign manager is the exception. He claims Gray is one of his best friends, and that's probably true. He even claims that Gray is one of the few friends he's managed to keep since entering college, and having met him, I'd believe that too. In my experience, which is limited, he's arrogant. He's also a Charlie Kirk fan, also unmarried (he's quite young), and is known to have frequented Francoist websites, which caused him to get canned by Harriet Hageman.
He's no doubt angling for a political career himself, and now that he's successfully shepherded Gray around nearly universal dislike of Gray, he's well on his way to that. . . or a life of complete and utter irrlevancy.
In the primaries a major movement existed against Chuck, and while it carried on into the general, most people dutifully lined up and voted for him as the opponent was a Democrat.
Now, having said that, the opponent, Lisa Kinney, virtually signifies what's happened to the Democratic Party in Wyoming. She was a pathetic candidate, and old. Not a good choice. Byrd, who ran against Hageman, was no spring chicken, but was a pretty good candidate.
So, we're packing them off to D.C., from which they'll ultimately never return, having dusted off their sandals or Lucchese's.
Both will be entering a Democratic controlled Congress. Hageman is already talking tough, but going into Congress she'll get committee assignments from Democrats. And she'll be a freshman Senator. Chuck will be brand new, and also be getting assignments from Democrats.
So, both will end up being assigned to something like cleaning the men's room. That's about it.
At least they won't be harmful to the state, anyhow.
Be that as it may, voting the way it did, Wyoming no longer has any voice in D.C. whatsoever. Hageman will be free to talk tough, like she likes to do. Chuck will be free to sound like a pig at the Boucherie. John Barrasso will wonder around with his now patented dumb looking stare, perhaps being the Senate minority whip, although I doubt it. The incoming GOP is going to look at Thune and Barrasso and blame them for what occurred, in part. And they'll deserve it.
Good job Wyoming.
Well, Wyomingites like to complain about the Federal Government. Now we'll have reason to do so. Changes will becoming in the 120th, and if not htat, in 2028.
On Gray and Hageman, one final thing, maybe, to note.
Our neighbor to the North, Montana, is sending a Democratic smoke jumper to Congress, whereas we're sending a man who couldn't even muster up the traditional photo on a horse propaganda. Alaska is sending a woman who was a commercial fisherman to the Senate whereas we're sending a woman who just likes to sound like an old harpie. The darling of the far right in the election, Becky Bextel, spent he first part of her campaign bragging about the size of her presumably imaginary testicals.
Probably not in the 120th in 2027, but rather starting in 2029, Federal leasing for oil and gas will really start to be curtailed in a major way. That had started in the Biden Administration, but it's going to really take off in in 2029. 2027 and 2028 are going to be the Twilight of the Oil and Gas Industry. It was coming sooner or later. Coal will be as done as dinner. That was inevitable as well. Neither will go away immediately, but the carpetbaggers dream of Wyoming, where the young are all truck drivers and oil and gas workers is coming to an end, rapidly.
The shift will be monumental for Wyoming.
It'll be good for public lands in a major way. The GOP was starting to become land rapine. It still is. We have two years of that to endure, but that will start to reverse in 2029.
An open question is whether Gray wills survive a Republican challenge in 2028. He's widely detested already. Had the Democrats gotten their act together and not nominated somebody a bit flakey who came out on the Oregon Trail, he may have lost (it's a shame that Lynette Gray Bull chose not to run). Gray will not have achieved anything but spouting lies for two years by 2028.
There's also major news, of an odd sort, from the Governor's race.
Local races in Wyoming went much better than the Congressional one did. In the primaries the decamped armies of Nathan Bedford Forrest were sent packing in a major Wyoming Freedom Caucus defeat. Only Bill Allemand inexplicably remains. That actually fits into the national pattern with a return to rationality.
Eric Barlow won the Governor's office, but in doing so one of the Confederate acolytes crossed into the Constitution Party, Becky Bextel. Loud in claims that everyone who isn't with her is a Democrat, and with plans that amount to no plan at all other than to be obstructionist, she went down in inevitable defeat, but took enough ignoramuses with her to get the Constitution Party on the ballot in 2028 as a major party
Now they're nervous:
Constitution Party Happy Bextel Made It A Major Party, But Says It's Not Freedom Caucus
Oh, contraire, mon frère.
If the Republicans' learned anything locally this election, and their committees probably didn't, parties are made up of the people who register to vote in the polls. Wyoming Republicans turned out not to be a bunch of Confederate saps. The saps, mad, moved over to the Constitution Party. Some of the saps in county organizations, outright bolted to Bextel, while not surrendering their places. Like it or not, the Constitution Party, which was already right wing, is now the United Confederate Veterans.
They'll take the Constitution Party down, just as they did the WFC members of the legislature. All of that is a good thing. It removes the Partisan Ranger stain from the GOP.
The Libertarians, like the Democrats, really underperformed this election. If they couldn't make it to 10% in a major election in 2026, they have no hope of doing os in any election. They ought to just disband.
The 2027 Legislature, a full session, is going to be a mess. The WFC perpetually loaded up sessions with scary bills and will try to do so again, as the new legislature does not come into existence until January. By the time the legislature convenes we'll be seeing bills like "a bill to change Wyoming's name to Trumpistan", and "a bill to make school children bathe in crude oil". Lots of stuff will fail off the bat, but there really won't be much time to take on anything substantive.
The next two years are going to be rough for Wyoming. The 2027 Legislature is going to have to overcome the Cornfederate bittereinder remnant that's in office until January, which means the 2027 session may be a bit of a wreck. They have a lot to do, as the far right was wrecking things to start with. In Congress, we're now completely decapitated, which was perhaps predictable but now that we've sent to people who like to scream and another whose perfected the blank stare, we might as well have them stay home. Barrasso can stare at people here, and the budding crop of new charter schools with far right leanings would give Gray an audience to yell at. Hageman can rediscover her agricultural roots.
Another view:
Rod Miller: Autopsy Report — The Wyoming Republican Party
A final note. Just as Wyomingites can be really pleased with their legislative picks, and their picks for the top state offices, all contrary pretty much to the wishes of the Francoist controlling the GOP locally, we can also be very glad that Proposition 1 failed. It would have wrecked the funding for local governments and have been a disaster.
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