Some of these signs will be coming down after the first entry on this thread on August 21, 2018.
The polls will be opening in one hour at the time this post goes up on Tuesday, August 21, 2018; the Primary Election Day.
And hence the new thread. They'll soon be an update here on who won, who lost, and maybe why those things occurred.
August 21, 2018 The Primary Results Edition.
For the first called races, it's clear that John Barrasso handily defeated Dodson in spite a of a vigorous well monied campaigned by Dodson. Barrasso appeared to be worried towards the end but he seems to have pulled in over 60% of the vote. He'll go on to face Trauner in November, who nearly unseated Barbara Cubin for the House some years ago but who has a tougher candidate in Barrasso. The Tribunes endorsement of Dodson doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. Unless final results change, Dodson only carried his home county, Teton.
Cheney defeated her two challengers with nearly 70% of the vote. The surprising thing in that race is that Blake Stanley, who was virtually unheard of in the campaign, pulled down over 10% of the vote. She'll face Gregg Hunter in the fall, who prevailed in the Democratic primary and who has nearly no chance whatsoever of winning in the fall.
While it hasn't been called, Kristi Racines seems to have won the Republican Primary against Nathan Winters. She will face Jeff Dockter in the fall, who is unlikely to win.
Ed Buchanan prevailed in an uncontested race for Secretary of State and will face respected Democrat James Byrd.
Mark Gordon, who early on was regarded as the favorite, will in fact be the nominee. He appears set to pull over 30% of the vote in a crowded field. Gordon was the victim of a really aggressive campaign by Harriet Hageman, who appears likely to come in third place behind Foster Friess, the eccentric conservative monied import. Friess appears likely to cone in with about 26% of the vote and Hageman about 22% of the vote. Galeotos, who did really well early on just tanked late in the campaign, pulling in only, so far, about 13% of the vote.
In my view, Galeotos made a big miscalculation by associating himself with Trump during the campaign and just before all the most recent news about Russian intrigue. To add to that, real Trump fans were probably more likely to go to Friess who received the endorsement of Donald Trump, Jr. and, just yesterday, Donald Trump. So Galeotos likely lost favor with Republicans who are not keen on Trump and those who really are likely went for Friess or Hageman. Gordon, who never associated himself with Trump but who ran to the more or less center as the campaign went on can take some comfort in the fact that if Galeotos had dropped out, as he probably should have, most of those votes would have gone to him, which would have put him up around 45% of the vote.
Hageman did take some counties, with all of them either being farm belt or coal belt counties, which is telling. Elsewhere, at least in my view, she did some damage to those associating themselves with her campaign. One local candidate that invested a lot in signs lost his race as an example. He heavily associated himself with her effort, and at least a couple of people I know determined not to vote for him for that reason.
Gordon goes on to face Mary Throne in the fall. Throne has been a very active Democratic candidate but her chances are now decreased by Gordon winning the primary. Her best chances would have been against a more extreme Republican so she's now lost that
(Note, quite a few of the races were called as I was typing this, which is probably why it reads a bit odd).
August 22, 2018. The Day After Edition.
Well, now its the day after, so to speak.
So what does the primary race tell us. And it's a question worth asking as, for many of these races, they are now over.
Wyoming is a Republican state. The Democratic Party, in the past thirty or so years, has been capable of putting a candidate into the Governor's office and to that of the Secretary of State, and to elect a few legislators, but little else. While that the Democrats can get a candidate through the door anywhere in Wyoming at all is actually impressive, the trend line has been towards Democratic deminishment, not increase.
But the GOP hasn't been healthy either. Starting at some point during Governor Mead's term in office, or perhaps more accurately Barrack Obama's Presidency, a minority, but a significant one, turned towards the Tea Party element of the party.
Yesterday that element was repudiated.
That doesn't mean it's gone, but it did receive, to borrow the term of Tom and Ray, the dope slap.
And so, to an extent, did Trump loyalist in a state that's presumed to be the most loyal to Trump, but which is highly likely not.
In choosing Mark Gordon as the GOP candidate for Governor, the state went with a candidate that went increasingly towards the middle as the campaign went on. Wisely, when attacked for essentially being a RINO, Gordon talked up his local credentials and didn't go to the hard right. Indeed, while he's a poor speaker, in my view, he and those on his staff proved to be politically savvy on the Wyoming voter, going increasingly towards the middle rather than the right. Hageman's efforts to taint him with the Sierra Club and the like didn't hurt him, and in fact likely helped him, something that people with Hageman's frame of mind should keep in mind.
Also telling was the spectacular fall of Sam Galeotos in the race. Galeotos was at one time nearly neck and neck with Gordon but fell sharply at the end of the race. Some of that was likely due to his supporters seeing that Gordon was a little stronger and opting to make sure that Hageman was defeated. Some of, however, was that he tainted himself in a political miscalculation in which he embraced Trump. That likely drove GOP moderates who are conservatives but not Trump fans towards Gordon. I know for a fact that at least some younger voters were horrified by Galeotos' Trump embrace and totally rejected him at that point.
Galeotos didn't do well anywhere, but did come in third position, behind Gordon and Fiess (but not necessarily in that order) in Sweetwater and Laramie Counties, the latter being his home county.
Somebody who did much better than I would have anticipated and who did embrace Trump was Foster Friess. I frankly regarded Friess as a joke when he entered the race but he ended up with 26% of the vote, more than Hageman's 21%. Friess is a true conservative who was endorsed by the Trumps in the race and likely did pick up some Trump fans who were not fans of Hageman's hard right Tea Party views, the two not being the same. And to his credit, Friess managed to sound less goofy as time went on. He ended up taking the majority of the votes in six of Wyoming's twenty three counties in geographic groupings that are a bit hard to figure. One group was concentrated heavily in the southwest corner of the state which suggests, but only suggests, that he may have pulled well with Mormon voters who make up a significant demographic in that region. Friess is not Mormon but an evangelical Christian, but he did campaign on that in a state where that's almost never done, suggesting that whoever discerned a voting block of religious voters may have been right. He also did well in Park and Big Horn Counties, both of which also feature a large Mormon demographic. That's just a guess as to what was going on in those areas, however.
Teton County, where Friess hangs his Stetson, went overwhelmingly for Gordon, which is interesting. They also put Hageman in the basement with less than 10% in third place which means that Galeotos grossly under performed in that county.
Friess was less than 1% behind Gordon in Natrona County, the state's second most populous county, and I don't know what that means, so I could be off the mark on why people did or did not go for Friess.
The map reveals that Hageman pulled in the majority of votes in the few Wyoming counties that are farming, rather than ranching, counties, and the coal counties. While little discussed, the farming counties have tended to be much more aggressive in "taking control" of this or that than the other counties, including the ranching counties, which is more than a bit of an irony in that there's little public land in those counties. Those counties were the epicenter of a landowner effort to seize control of hunting licenses back in the 1980s. Apparently much of that view simply remains. She did very well in all of those five counties save for Campbell County, the state's biggest coal county, where she was less than 1% in front of Friess. That was the only county which went for Hageman in which Gordon wasn't in second position. Hageman did not do well in the Friess counties (nor in all of the Gordon counties either, obvious, given her overall third place finish) which raises the question of whether her discourtesy was a factor in counties that went for a very courteous Friess.
Hageman was sufficiently divisive, I'm convinced, that association with her took at least one local candidate down. One of the county commissioner candidates in Natrona County heavily associated himself with her during the campaign, with his sign appearing in very high frequency with hers, and with him endorsing her. I know that this turned off GOP voters in the primary and while I never heard a single person suggest that they'd vote for him due to the association, I did hear some say that they would not based on the association.
It's worth noting that the strongest dose of tea, that offered by candidate Taylor Haynes, was flat out rejected by the voters . . . again. Haynes pulled 5.6% of the vote. Even if his share of the polls was added to Hageman's, which it would have been if he had not run (at one time I thought he'd act as a spoiler in regards to Hageman, but that didn't occur), she still would have fallen short of defeating Gordon, although that would have placed her in second position. As noted, if Galeotos has likewise pulled out, and towards the end I thought he might act as a spoiler to Gordon. . .and he somewhat did, he would have polled much higher as Galeotos did pull down 12% of the vote.
What all of this would seem to tell us is that Tea Party elements remain strong in the state, but they also remain a distinct minority and are concentrated in areas where the impact of their views are actually unlikely to be felt or where coal has been a significant employer. Public land issues, which came up a lot during the race, but not as much as public land backers would have like, likely surfaced and drove a lot of voters towards Gordon, which individuals who have proposed monkeying around in this area should remember.
The Tribune, on the other hand, noted the reelection of Chuck Gray as evidence that these views remain strong and growing, but they may wish to take a second look at the pool results. Gray won reelection, but 36% of the vote when for GOP contender Daniel Sandoval who barely campaigned. Sandoval's main point was that Gray, in his view, was a divisive extremist. If Sandoval could pull 36% of the vote without really campaigning it shouldn't be assumed that Gray is all that popular in his own district.
Gray not need worry, however, as the Democrats are running Jane Ifland, who is the type of candidate that pulls the Democrats down every election. Candidates like Mary Throne lose a lot of votes due to candidates like Ifland as it becomes hard for middle of the road voters to support somebody from a party that tends to regular field candidates who are so far to the left. So Gray is now secure, and Throne, who is a good candidate but who occupies the middle, is not really very likely to go anywhere in a campaign against Gordon.
On other races, incumbents did well, as expected. John Barrasso did much better than it looked like he might do, which means that Trauner now has virtually no chance, which Trauner, who had to have hope going into the primary, is likely aware of. Barrasso pulled down 65% of the vote in a race in which he didn't do much campaigning until the very end, when his campaigning looked a little desperate.
Cheney, whom I'm convinced was vulnerable to a primary challenge, pulled own 68% of the vote, better than Barrasso, but those results show that she likely was vulnerable. Her opponents basically didn't campaign at all and at least one could be regarded as highly eccentric. That they pulled over 30% of the GOP vote by doing nearly nothing is telling. Her seat is safe, however, as the Democrats chose Greg Hunter, an import from the Mid West, who has absolutely no chance whatsoever.
In other races, a trend toward the more traditional type of Wyoming Republican was seen in the election of Kristi Racine for GOP State Auditor candidate. She certainly had the credentials, but she was faced by candidate Nathan Winters who simply ran on his being a Baptist minister and a legislator. Winters supported one of the land grabbing bills earlier and his candidacy seemed to rely heavily on his legislative history and his occupation. It failed with Racine taking 60% of the vote.
So, at the end of the day, the Tea Party elements in Wyoming failed and the GOP received a wake up call. Whether those in Washington, who are really hard to unseat, heard it, is another matter. But locally the GOP should have. Republican voters went much more towards traditional Wyoming Republicans than they did for Tea Party insurgents. As has tended to be the history for state's entire existence, the state looked favorably on somebody occupying one of the state's traditional industries, indeed its longest traditional industry, as long as that person also respected the state's outdoor history. It rejected the extremes. Those who were claiming that "it's out time" and "time for a change", by which they meant a leap to the Tea Party right, were disappointed to learn that this isn't what Wyomingites wanted and its unlikely to ever be.
The alarm bell should also have gone off a bit for those who made a lot of assumptions about Wyoming voters and the state's economy, and in an interesting way. Hageman couldn't see an economy that extended beyond the state's two long time primary ones, agriculture and the extractive industries, and was hostile to the concept that the state should look at anything else. The state rejected that reward looking vision. But notable in that, the ranching counties rejected it as much as any other county. Only the coal and farming counties went for Hageman. The long held assumption heard by me personally during this election, that "all the ranchers are for Hageman" was flat out wrong. Of course, it didn't hurt that Gordon is a rancher, while Hageman could only say she was "from" a ranch, but rather obviously "is" a lawyer. But more than that, in ranching country the tide has turned in my view on the public lands issue as local ranch families fear a transfer from the Federal government to the state, and for good reason. That idea only is popular in the lower ranks of the extractive industries, were the decisions are not made, and in farming country, which it won't impact.
The state, however, also rejected a massive modification of the state's economy, which was a position that Galeotos took. This fits into a topic that I posted earlier which may be that the state
is basically comfortable with the economy as it is and perhaps only wants a slight modification of it. It didn't adopt the radical new computer economy proposed by Galeotos, and it didn't feel that businessmen who had done well elsewhere and then come back in, or just came in, such as Galeotos, Dodson and Friess had any solutions to things that they were willing to listen to.
A wake up call should also have been sent to those who like to believe that Wyoming always, and closely tracks national trends. It does track national trends to some extent, but often it doesn't, and often not closely. The results of the last general election left some assuming that Wyoming is super solid Trump Country. It isn't. Double Trump endorsements didn't carry Friess over the bar and embracing Trump in the primary probably doomed Galeotos to defeat.
The results by the end of the night also had to be a disappointment for Democrats, however. Democrats fielded a couple of good candidates for the fall but their chances are now basically dashed and they likely know it. Throne supporters who secretly hoped for Hageman to run, as she had her best chances against her, know that her chances against Gordon are extremely poor. Trauner supporters who would have hoped for Dodson on the basis that Trauner is more Dodson than Dodson, will have a straight forward race in front of them but one in which a Barrasso who is more unpopular than might have been supposed was still able to command a large majority in the primary. The Democrats didn't even field a candidate for some offices, and in the remainder where they did their candidates are unknown and have virtually no chance whatsoever, except for some local races where the odd Democrat or two who is well known stands a chance. The sole exception might be Jim Byrd's race against Ed Buchanan, but that's a real long shot. Against Elizabeth Cheney, who would have been vulnerable, they did not field a candidate who can win in the fall, which says a lot about the state of their party in general and also says why, for a lot of voters, including former Democrats, the Republican primary is the real election.
A final note might be made of the very odd nature of American elections and the Wyoming primaries in general. Because of the suicide of the Democratic Party in Wyoming, as noted before, the primary has become the general election, effectively, for many offices. That's okay I suppose, and most Wyomingites, even those who register as Democrats, actually are Republicans of the old school variety. So the process is functioning democratically, if oddly. On the other hand, the first past the post system continues to provide some odd result, but then a party election, which this is, isn't supposed to provide the final results, even if it often does.
August 23, 2018. The Setting Records Edition.
According to the Tribune, Tuesday primary had an all time record number of voters participate in it, which likely reflects the nature of the candidates.
One thing, however, which wasn't a record, were the number of Democrats. . . all time low.
In other observations, between yesterday's post and today, I've now heard or read a couple of more observations that Galeotos' going for association with Trump did him in, with one of those observations coming from Bill Sniffin, in the Tribune, the former newspaper man and a backer of Galeotos.
And it can't help that the investigations of Trump are getting closer and closer to Trump himself.
August 24, 2018. The Conspiracy Theory Edition.
You'd think that you'd at least get a break from politics for a couple of days, but this unusual election continues to feature. . . well, the unusual.
And the absurd.
Reader's the Tribune today are graced by a story of the absurd in the form of a conspiracy theory being advanced by Rex Rammell. Rammell, you will recall, is the extreme libertarian with Constitutional ideas that befit his role, this election season, as a candidate for Wyoming's Constitution Party as that party seems to be populated by people who have a copy of the constitution that the rest of us don't. I.e, their interpretation of the Constitution is, well, wrong. Generally, they're state focused libertarians of a really extreme bent.
Rammell ran for Congress last time but dropped out prior to the end and endorsed another candidate who now holds a state office. He hasn't gone away, however. The relocated Idaho veterinarian who first showed up in Wyoming's newspapers when his Idaho elk ranch was causing problems announced early on to run in the GOP primary on a platform even more extreme than Taylor Haynes, which is really saying something.
Now Rammell is claiming that Mark Gordon "hijacked the [Republican] party" and he's only running as high ranking Republicans urged him to do so in anticipation of Gordon winning the primary as an illegitimate candidate. Rammell, Rammell claims, is the Republican Party's plan B.
Bull.
Rammell would have been the Democrats dream as there's no earthly way that he could win the race, but that must truly be regarded as a dream as he's so extreme there's no way that he could have won. The poor showing of Haynes is plenty proof of that, as is the defeat of the fairly extreme but nowhere near as extreme Harriet Hageman.
It's hard to know if Rammell really believes this absurdity, but he likely does. There's a group of people for whom the terms "conservative" and "liberal" are presumed to wholly define who is right and who is wrong, even though in the modern context the terms are less than applicable to many situations. I don't really regard Rammell and Haynes as "conservative" in the real sense, and I'm not sure that I fully put Hageman there either. Rammell certainly is extreme right wing, however.
Rammell isn't the only one grousing over the GOP primary results. Foster Friess is as well.
I never thought Friess had a chance until the very end of the election. He's not from here, he lives in Teton County (probably part of the kiss of political death for Dodson), and his connection with the state was obviously rather poor. So that he did as well as he did really surprised me. I still don't know what all to make of that, but I think the result showed us some sleeping demographic information and the combined results of a lingering late oilfield transient population combined with lots of advertising money. Be that as it may, Foster is now upset because he believes that thousands of Democrats switched parties to vote.
Before we go to that, his actual statement shows the delusion that some candidates, including Friess and Galeotos, had about Trump's popularity here. I frankly don't think Trump is popular in Wyoming and I now know of several voters who would have voted for him but for his self identification with Trump. One of the Cheyenne newspapers reported his choice to attempt that association as risky at the time.
Friess did that as well and secured, as readers here know, the endorsement of father and son Donalds prior to the election. Donald Jr.'s, I thought, read particularly oddly as it essentially emphasized that the Trumps have a lot of money and Friess has a lot of money and they met at things that people who have a lot of money meet at. . . which you and I, Wyoming voter, don't go to.
Anyhow, Friess sent a letter out to each GOP candidate running except for Gordon which stated, according to Wyofile:
It seems like the Democrats have
figured out this party switch deal to their advantage, . . . I guess there’s 114,000 registered Republicans and 17,000
registered Democrats. No way is that the actual mix, and with Trump
getting 70% of the vote, it shows how the Democrats have been able to
control our elections with putting on a Republican coat.
This is a really odd complaint in that both political parties claim they're right and that everyone should be in them. This shows, quite frankly, that candidates really mean everyone should think like them.
I'll get to the actual news, to the extent we have any, in people switching parties, but perhaps Friess should actually try to board the logic train here. Trump getting 70% of the Wyoming vote isn't a good result. It's awful. Hillary Clinton had about as much chance of winning in Wyoming as Karl Marx would, and yet Trump only got 70% of the vote. That doesn't show massive Trump support, it shows that even with Clinton as the single worst candidate that the Democrats could have run in 2016 he still didn't get almost every vote.
Indeed, it might be worth noting that Republican voters, when given a choice of candidates in the primary, only gave 7.2% of their vote to Trump. Not exactly a "woo-wee, we love Trump" vote. That 7.2% probably better reflects what Republican voters actually have been thinking of Trump even if 70% of the general voters went for Trump in the general election.
None of which means that he doesn't actually have a bit of a point, but even that doesn't play out the way people of his mindset might think.
The Albany County Clerk has stated that she think 2,000 to 3,000 Albany County voters switched parties this election. This happens every election, she notes, but this was more than normal. And those voters switched to the Republican Party.
Defeated Republicans, like Friess, view this as a conspiracy and are urging the laws be changed so that you have to change your registration twenty five days prior to the election, if you are going to, and also to feature a runoff between the top two vote getters. We note that Friess came in second. This, he feels, would make it more likely that a real "conservative" would get elected.
In actuality, what it likely would do is boost the overall chances of Democrats. What has been occurring is that there is an election season switch of independents and Democrats into the GOP as it's the only chance they have of actually getting a say. Frankly, there aren't that many Democrats left in the state anymore and of the ones who remain, quite a few are in the left wing extremist camp and aren't going to switch no matter what. So the Democrats who move over, and the independents, are the centerist ones who likely could be in either party but who don't go with the GOP as they view some of its candidates and politicians as extreme. The bigger story here, however, is that there's been a migration from the Democratic Party to the GOP in the state dating back to the 1980s.
Indeed this is best symbolized by the fact that some of the Republican stalwarts of long standing were at one time real Democrat standouts. Fremont County's Eli Bebout is a solid Republican legislator who at one time was a real Republican contender for the Governor's office. But before that, he was a really notable Fremont County Democrat. Indeed, Fremont County and Sweetwater Counties were very Democratic counties in Wyoming prior to the mid 1980s. As trends like this are long, it's worth noting what occurred.
Starting in the mid 80s and then continuing on to the present day voters who are really old style Democrats lost faith in the Democratic Party and started moving to the Republicans or to no party at all. As the Democrats became less blue collar and more abortion on demand and every radical social cause. With each step to the left more Democrats left, but some remain.
What's missed by the bellyaching from Friess and the like-minded on that is that at the same time that the Democrats were marching left nationally, the GOP tended to be marching right. A person can argue for or against any of these things but for middle of the road voters the GOP in Wyoming still tends to remain the only party that they can logically be in, which in turn means that the actual party isn't anywhere near as far right as Friess and Rammell believe it is.
And that's because the Wyoming electorate is actually sui generis.
Friess and Rammell, neither of whom are from here, don't seem to grasp that.
And that's why the GOP ought to rejoice about people joining it at the polls.
A lot of the new GOP voters will remain in the GOP. Yep, they'll pull it to the center. But that fact means that the GOP continues to remain viable.
If folks like Friess had their way, the result would mean that thousands of independent and moderate Democrats would have no say until the general election. And as the Democrats have managed to actually field moderates for the Governor's office and the D.C. offices most years, that means that the fortunes of Democrats would be enormously boosted.
Put another way, if Friess believes that because he's an evangelical Republican with a lot of money who is really conservative, he would have won the primary but for switching Democrats, how would have have done against Marty Throne, a Presbyterian Wyoming native who has lived here her whole life? I don't know where Throne stands on social issues and the election may have well come down to that, but he shouldn't assume that a more controlled primary yields a more "conservative" figure in the Governor's office.
And for matter, there's no real reason that either party should burden the state with picking their candidate to run in the general, if they don't want an open primary. They could just do it in a convention. But there's no reason to believe that would result in a Friess or a Hageman either.
On other political matters, things aren't looking good for that figure that Friess cited in his example the other day, Donald Trump. Indeed, the chances of him getting impeached are getting higher and higher, although its still unlikely. Amazingly, Trump has managed to make his controversial choice for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, look really good, as Sessions turns out to be pretty principled and won't interfere with ongoing investigations.
So this of course means that the Democrats are beginning to lick their chops about their chances of retaking the House, which means that Nancy Pelosi is of course anticipating being Speaker again and is already saying she won't step out of the way in regards to that office.
Which of course brings us back to the modern Democratic Party and why it has done so poorly. Why can't it find anyone to run it other than those whose political views were formed when Lyndon Johnson was the President?
August 31, 2018 The Write In Edition
Oh, you thought you'd be so fortunate as to not have this thread reappear before September, didn't you.
So did I.
Well, no such luck. It turns out that the primary had some surprising results, and people who were surprised by the results continue to unfortunately make news as well.
First, the surprises.
Some Democrats mounted last minute, although very quite, write in campaigns that had an effect. The most significant of those was for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in which legislator and lawyer Mike Massie secured the Democratic nomination for that office.
Massie ran, and lost, for this position some years ago in a race that saw Cindy Hill take the position. In retrospect, most folks likely later wished that Massie had won. He likely stands less of a chance against incumbent Balow, but he is a solid candidate and it is a good thing that the race now features two solid candidates.
Chris Lowry took the Democratic nomination for State Treasurer. I know almost nothing about him other than that he's a chemist for a laboratory in Laramie. That's about all I know, and I feel he stands no chance of success, but at least there's now a choice.
Some state races also saw successful write in campaigns for both Republican and Democratic seats i the legislature, but as I don't know anything about them, I'll pass on further comment.
I can't help but comment, however, of Foster Friess who is taking his loss in the primary very badly.
Frankly, the degree to which Friess was successful really surprised me but I think there's a lot going on there. If I ever finish some threads that are pending, I'll expand more on that in the future. But what I'd note is that Friess seems absolutely convinced that Wyoming's politics are quite similar to Arkansas' and that his victory was assured but for mean old Democrats crossing into the GOP and stealing the election from him. I know that there's a case to be made there, somewhat, but there are other explanations for what occurred and what may very well have occurred is that his loss in the primary means his party won't see the other party take the Governor's chair in November.
Be that as it may, he apparently was seriously contemplating a run in campaign.
Friess, who isn't from here, and who has lived in Teton County only, seems to very seriously have a political demographic model of the state which fits a Southern state rather than a Western one. He'd do well to winter over in Helena, Missoula, Laramie or even Denver this year, and get a bit of a clue. He seems to think the nomination was his by applying almost Leninistic logic to the effect that he represents the people, those being the people who count, i.e., the conservative people, who think like he does. Frankly that isn't exactly how that works at all as Wyoming (future thread, maybe) isn't that type of conservative.
People who are that type of conservative have reason to be really concerned right now in general as it appears that the political winds really are changing in general. Friess is a diehard Trumpster and Trump is in huge trouble. By November the Trump political credit might very well be spent. In any event, it likely was never that great in Wyoming anyhow.
Friess was talked out of mounting a write in campaign, he says, by fellow Republicans who argued that this would only throw votes to Throne. They were probably correct.
I have to say that while Friess did much better than I thought he would, and while he seemed less of a gadfly as the election went on (and obviously a lot of Wyoming voters came to view him favorably enough to vote for him) there's been a real lack of humility here post election to a degree that's fairly stunning. To suggest that that the law ought to be changed as you lost, and then contemplate a write in campaign against your own party because you feel that you should have won by right, demonstrates a concept of possession of the office that's really stunning.
It would be different, in my view, if in a closely run race there was a major issue that was hugely distinct between your opponent and you. I can think of examples of that from the 1970s where national candidates reflected that, although not in a way that I think makes their personal stands admirable. But if you really have a big issue, such as on a national scale a topic of war vs. peace. Or if you have a have a local issue where your own party's candidate is sharply at odds with you on a matter of grave importance, that would make sense to me. But here that's simply not the case. There are really no issues where Friess and Gordon aren't basically on the same page, more or less. That means, quite frankly, that Friess was the weaker candidate simply because he's a rich outsider, and that would have been taken into account by some voters who would otherwise have gone fro the GOP in the Fall.
A couple of real differences, although not ones, that are in sharp distinction, that may weigh into Friess' odd reaction is that Friess appears to be a genuine Trumpster. Most Wyomingites aren't, but those who are, tend to feel that Trump is right on things at a level that's dogmatic. That scares quite a few rank and file Republicans, but those who feel that way don't grasp that at all. Trump is right, they feel, on everything, and people who don't agree with that are deluded or worse. The second thing, however, is that Friess is clearly an evangelical Christian and thinks because Wyoming is a conservative state it is by default an evangelical Christian one. That's flat out wrong. In fact, historically Wyoming had been one of the least religiously observant states in the union, and that for its entire history. We will have more on that in the thread I keep mentioning, but in terms of really strong religious adherence that may make a difference in an election you have to look towards practicing Catholics and Mormons here, both of whom are a demographic minority and neither of which are evangelicals.
For all those reasons, it seems to me that Friess has forgotten where he says he lives, which was apparent during the election and which has become rather obvious after it.
September 6, 2018 The Money Edition and Fifth Column Edition.
The Tribune reported yesterday that the recent primary pushed this current election up to the most spendy in Wyoming's history. . . and its' not even over.
Costs for a Wyoming election do have to be kept in context. Even expensive Wyoming elections are cheaper than man of those around the country. But at the same time, with the smaller population, they should be.
The Tribune reports that the total amount spent in the 2010 Gubernatorial contest was a little over $4,000,000. That is, that's entire amount spent by all candidates during the entire campaign. This year, by contrasts, the Republican contestants have already spent $8,000,000.
Of those, Foster Friess spent a whopping $2, 680,000 in his race to defeat. The victor, Mark Gordon, spent a little over $2,000,000, which was a little under the amount spent by defeated candidate Sam Galeotos. Third place finisher Harriet Hageman, the only candidate to only use Wyoming vendors in her campaign, spent a little over $1,000,000.
This certainly tells us that the campaign was unusually vigorously contested, to be sure. It probably also tells us something about the role that Friess played in the campaign, as the megabucks Teton County import had a lot of money to spend, and frankly it worked fairly well for him as he did quite well in the overall vote count.
That may also give us a bit of an insight, sort of, as to why Friess has seemed to take the results badly. He seems to have expected to actually win and even commissioned a private poll that showed that he would. He's made some somewhat odd statements about perceiving a Devine mandate to run for the office and paradoxically seems to also view that mandate to have been frustrated by late Democratic changes to Republican registration at the polls, which if thought about deeply might tend to suggest that he ought to reconsider what he perceives to be that calling, or perhaps ought to be more careful how he phrases his statement so that its not misunderstood.
Wyoming's candidates to date spent more than those running for the same office in Maine, Nevada and Alaska, the latter of which doesn't total up to $1,000,000.
On spending less than $1,000,000, Democrat Mary Throne only spent $142,000. In that fashion this race continues to resemble the one in which Democrat Mike Sullivan took the office, as he basically didn't have to do much until the general election, by which time the Republicans had ripped themselves apart in the primary. We'll see if that history repeats itself.
Speaking of Friess, who received a couple of endorsements from Donald Trump, Jr. and one very late one from the President himself, that President is blaming a late reminder from Don Jr. for the lateness of that endorsement. According to the President, his son reminded him to make the endorsement a bit too late, which is why he came out at the bitter end rather than earlier.
I really have my doubts that a Trump endorsement would have pushed Friess up over the bar, and indeed, I think associating with Trump turned Galeotos' campaign into a $2,000,000 failure. As I've noted before, I don't think Trump is that popular in Wyoming and at any rate the news for Trump keeps getting worse and worse, which is beginning to have an undeniable impact in pending elections around the country. Galeotos has plenty of company. The Trump administration is beginning to recall the Nixon administration in its late stages more and more, something that's bound to play itself out on the national political stage.
Yesterday the New York Times ran an article by an individual they claim to know by name who reports himself as a conservative fifth columnist inside the Trump administration, and not the only one, who is secretly working against the Presidents wilder actions. Basically, the columnist reports that the truly conservative things that have been happening are largely the work of insiders who resist Trump's incoherent directions and that the nation should take solace that this is occurring. Basically, the columnist claims that there are a group of administration insiders acting as a conservative rear guard holding down the fort until the President is gone. It even claims that they considered removing him under the Constitutional impairment clause but elected instead just to sabotage Trump's worst inclinations and in their place enforce genuinely conservative ones.
In most administration this would be a real bombshell but by this time everyone is so acclimated to constant turmoil I'm skeptical that will occur. We'll see. This would actually explain why Trump seems to head in one direction, such as embracing Putin, while the official policy of the US heads in another, such as imposing tough sanctions.
But it's also a bit much in some ways. For one thing, if such a deeply caring person was a secret insider, why is he blowing it now (unless the whole administration is a house of cards and he knows its about to collapse). And the history of such "secret insider" events usually tends to show that real events are much more mundane and the big conspiracies tend to be just the urging of cabinet members on the office holder, rather than anything more fifth column. Indeed, the history also tends to show that the secret person is much more junior than the breaking news would hint at.
Of course, right now, we know none of that.
Trump, predictably, is raging against the New York Times.
My prediction is that Facebook will be left and right insane today.
September 6, 2016 Part Two: The Big Sky Edition
Donald Trump is going to Billings Montana today.
Why?
Well that's a good question and there are a number or reasons this is likely why. In former years Presidents who were in political trouble tended to fly overseas. . . or at least after World War Two they started doing that. That was always good for press. Now, however, Trump tends to appear at rallies. Appearing to his base appears to be the one thing that he can still definitely do that turns people out and gives him good press. . . although the results where he has appeared haven't been sterling by any means.
So why Montana?
Senator John Testor is the reason.
Montana's Senator John Testor.
Democratic Senator John Testor is running for reelection in Montana. He's occupied that office since January 2007 after moving to the United States Senate from being President of the Montana state senate.
Running against Testor is Matt Rosendale, who is going to lose. Rosendale is the Montana State Auditor and I frankly know almost nothing about him.
Which doesn't mean that this will be a cakewalk for Testor. Outsiders will note, inaccurately, that Montana is a Western state (correct), Western states are conservative (generally correct but misunderstood) and that Trump is popular in the West (incorrect). While those things have some element of truth in them, they're very misunderstood as the recent Wyoming primary demonstrated. Nonetheless, Testor has been pointing out recently things that he supported Trump on.
Testor's from a state that's very odd politically and he's always had to walk a fine line on some things. Montana is not nearly as conservative as people imagine it to be, and an immigration of California expatriots has impacted the state's politics in general. It tends to have an old fashioned mix of conservative, but Democratic, farm interests, conservative Republican ranch interests, and liberal town interests. And this has been the case for a long time and has reflected back in its politics. Montana had a stout mineral severance tax long before Wyoming did and has been really aggressive on water conservation in a way that Wyoming has not been. It passed really repressive and nativist legislation during World War One but it also sent Janette Rankin, the pacifist Democrat, to Congress twice making Montana the only state to have somebody in Congress who voted "no" on entering World War Two (which she also did in regards to World War One). Testor, therefore, fits a certain Montana mold.
And that mold is one that Republicans need to worry about and apparently are. Testor has been mentioned by insiders as a potential Presidential candidate in 2020.
Indeed, Testor has to be well aware that if he had run in 2016, and his name had been mentioned, he'd be the President now. He's not a whackadoodle Socialist like certain neo and paleo Democrats are, and he's not of the Democrats Bright Young Club of 1972, like every other Democrat who tends to be mentioned for the office tends to be. He's a wheat farmer by trade, which is about as American as you can get, never lived far from where he was born until elected to the Senate, butchers his own beef and takes it with him to Washington D. C.. and has a family that even now still looks like your average farm family from the anywhere farming. He has an A- rating from the NRA, higher than some Republicans get and almost certainly higher than anyone who the Democrats might otherwise ponder running. He's generally a moderate, but has exhibited the Democratic middle migration on social issues.
In other words, had he ran in 2016 he'd have looked like a Republican to Republicans who couldn't stand Trump.
The GOP is in a situation where, right now, it has to be worried about Democrats running for the office in 2020. Joe Biden is apparently considering doing so, knowing full well that his decision not to enter the race late gave the office to Trump. The Democrats being what they are, there will be serious discussion of dragging out some musty candidate from the 1970s again and I wouldn't even put it past them to run the Pants Suit one more time, but Testor has to be pondering entering the race.
Which is why Trump is in Billings in a quixotic effort to boost his opponent in a region where Trump isn't really that popular, but the GOP hasn't managed to figure that out. Perhaps Trump ought to stop and talk to Sam Galeotos on his way to Billings.]
September 12, 2018. The election wasn't stolen edition.
From University of Wyoming Senior Research Scientist Brian Harnisch's Twitter feed, and as followed up on by the Casper Star Tribune:
@BrianHarnisch
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