The 2026 Election, 25th Edition. The casting the vote edition.

 I have now voted.

October 13, 2026.

I went down to the old county courthouse and caste my votes.  I've now weighed in for 2026.

In some ways, it wasn't easy for me.  I knew who I wanted to vote for, but I was a bit tortured between not voting for Chuck Gray and Harriet Hageman and leaving my ballot blank, or for casting a vote for one of their opponents.

I did the latter.

The situation facing the country is just too dire.  We are, effectively, in the 1932 German election where the choices are boiling down to a desperate few.  Or, perhaps, we're in the June and November 1946 French election where the Catholic Christian Democrats were in a coalition with the Communists, which shows how dire the situation was in the Fourth Republic.  The choice now is to vote against a rising force of bloody fascism and acknowledge that the opponents retain some real taints, or to allow the country to do down the Via dei Fori Imperiali.

It's that dire.

The last few days made up my mind for me.  A government that makes an open spectacle of execution and then sides with Vladimir Putin.

I'm not going there, and I cannot tolerate going there.

Nien, Non, No.

In two years I'll reassess.  Chances are that at least one of the candidates I voted for I won't vote for again.

So, how did I vote?

Let's look at the state elections, that was easy.

Governor:¹

Eric Barlow.  He's the only real choice, and he's a good one.  Rebecca Bextel thinks she's a conservative, but she's a Dixiecrat through and through. She needs to go home to Sweet Home Alabama, where she is literally from.  Kenneth Casner is an overdone, baked in the sun, left out to dry, joke of a candidate.  He symbolizes the pathetic state the Wyoming Democratic Party is in.  The Democrats used to have some fine candidates, and it wasn't all that long ago that they were in the Governor's chair.  Casner? Give me a break.

Barlow's election will be the death of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, whose Bittereinders are already retreating to the Constitution Party Redoubt.

Good riddance to them.

So, here, I voted for a straight Republican ticket.

The other state races.

Other than Governor, we had a host of uncontested or barely contested races in which incumbents sought reelection. Fortunately for all of us, they are all really good candidates.

The one contested one is Superintendent of Public Instruction.  In that race Ana Cordova, a Democrat, contests with Steve Harshman, a Republican.

There's' no doubt that Harshman, an local educator of long and respected standing, is an excellent choice. Still, I thought about voting for Cordova, a young educator with an impressive background.  Harshman is 62 or 63, Cordova much younger.  I suspect that Harshman might look at running for Governor, but he'll be 72 years old at least before he can, given that Barlow will win two terms.

Again, here, on state races, I voted a straight Republican ticket.

The property tax initiatives

There is a Freedom Caucus ballot initiative to cut residential property taxes in half, which benefits the carpetbagger class.  It would but local governments like a fish, but hey, hey, the carpetbaggers have already educated their children and live behind walls, so they'll be okay.

I actually had a county commissioner explain this one to me in detail.  Rank and file property owners voting for it, given the other deductions a property owner is eligible for, are screwing themselves.

I voted against it.

Frankly, I'd impose a tax, if I could, on the property of the carpetbaggers, which drives up property values for anyone else. Raise your kids in California? Well, you weren't here while we were enduring the ups and downs of the Wyoming economy and now you can pay for it. Stay in California if you don't like it. Even if you do, stay in CAlifornia.

Anyway you look at it, I'm not for giving the Bextels and Biens an advantage in taxes at our expense.

Representation in Washington D.C.

It was this set of choices that were difficult for me.

There was never any question that I would never vote for Chuck Gray.  I never have, and I never will. Chuck needs to go back to Los Angeles and work for a good twenty years at a convenience store in Watts so he knows who real people are.  Likewise, there was never any question I'd vote for my law school near contemporary Harriet Hageman, whose evolution from farm girl, polo shirt wearing, cute student to dressed in black lawyer for the rich and powerful is a disappointing memory of a very long career.

She didn't have to turn out like this.  If she'd gone to work for one of the real civil firms in the state, she would not have.

No, the question was whether I'd vote for Kinney, Johnson, or Byrd or nobody at all.

In the end, given the dire situation, I voted for the Democratic candidates.

Now, I'll note that I think Byrd is an excellent candidate. Better than Hageman in every way, save perhaps for two ways.  

Gray symbolizes everything wrong with the GOP in Wyoming except that instead of being a carpetbagger from the Confederacy, he's a carpetbagger from Los Angeles, and a pathetic one. California conservatism was real conservatism.  Gray's father was an admirer of Reagan, not Strom Thurmond.  Gray is an example of how Sun Yat-Sen tragically gave us Mao Tse-Tung.  A movement gone preversely wrong, although Reagan's embrace of the fowl Dixiecrats made that predictable.  And Gray, about whom we know very little, is still young enough that he can be forced into evading the fate of Donald Trump, a rich kid who publicly putrefies to the detriment of us all.

Gray's only platform is that he loves Donald Trump more than Trump loves Trump, that he's a latter day opponent of wind energy, for what appears to be opportunistic, and that as a 36 year old man whose not married and not known to have a publicly acknowledged interest in any identified female, he's opposed to transvestites in women's sports.

Seems like populist bullshit.

Gray would support Trump in anything, which in the next two years is going to be extremely dangerous.  I could not vote for him.

Which left me voting for Kinney.  

Kinney is a moderate left Democrat, and I'm not. I'm sure she's for "choice" or "reproductive rights', which infanticide, and I am not.  I suspect this would be Byrd's position as well  Should she be elected, in two years I'm voting for whichever rational Republican emerges.  If a better GOP candidate emerges for the Senate, abortion would be my defining issue there as well, in six years.  The next two years are the key, however. The Democrats are going to take the House and its necessary they do so.  Giving Chuck Gray a titanic dope slap, or better yet send him crying in his knee pants back to Los Angeles, is necessary.

As for the Hageman/Byrd contest, Byrd would make a really good Senator.  If the Democrats take the Senate, we couldn't be better represented.  He has the same, I assume, pro choice problem, but my guess is that isn't deep with Byrd, but I base that on nothing other than instinct.  He would be a real voice for Wyoming and we're going to need one, should the Democrats take the Senate, and leave John Barrasso wandering around the halls of Congress giving deep stares at John Thune, or whomever.

Do I think the Democrats can take these races?  Frankly, no.  But if they do well, that sends a message to at least Hageman, who probably would moderate her positions.  Gray, if elected, will face a challenger in 2028 and be sent packing.

So here I voted a straight Democratic ticket.

The local races

I haven't said much about these.

My City of Casper ward race featured a guy with a business background facing a young women with fishing tackle on her face.  I'm not voting for fishing tackle.

The county commission race featured one incumbent, Dallas Laird, one former commissioner who was later assessor, who was not great in either role, Matt Keating, one former Casper mayor, Ray Pacheco, one Evansville former mayor, Candace Machado, and somebody else.

I had to vote for three.

I voted for Keating, Pacheco, and Machado. Two Republicans and one Democrat.

On this race, I frankly voted against Laird, who is as old as dirt.  He's been in local politics since Sitting Bull was in grammar school and it was time for him to go.  Besides, he came into office promising to do something about the county selling the hospital to Banner health, which was by then impossible to do anything about, and he didn't do anything about it. He never could have, once something is sold, it's sold. As a lawyer, he knew that, or should have known that.

I'm not keen on that sort of misrepresentation.

Pacheco I have reservations about, but he tries to please people in the best way, so I'm okay with him.

Machado is a gadfly, but down at the county, which is sort of a geezer reservoir in transition, I figure that might be a good thing.

Governor Gordon wrote an op ed opposing the property tax initiative.

(OPINION) Why passing Prop. 1 would have a devastating impact on Wyoming

As noted, I voted against this initiative which would have the impact of mostly benefitting people with really high dollar residences.

This entire cutting property tax movement strongly resembles something that was done in California some decades ago and really hurt it.  It's notable that it's strong in the Freedom Caucus camp, which is heavily populated by carpetbaggers.  They don't have the same connections to their communities that real Wyomingites do. A prime mover in the initiative was failed Gubernatorial candidate Brent Bien whom, as we've noted, spent most of his adult life sucking on the Federal Government's tit which means he didn't have to worry about local services and education like the rest of us did and do.  The element of Solidarity seems to be completely lacking in the populist far right

And that, frankly, is not a very Wyomingite or Western way of looking at things.

cont:

FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION: Why Passing Prop. 1 Would Have A Devastating Impact On Wyoming Byline: Governor Mark Gordon Word Count: 799 On December 10, 1869 our first Territorial Legislature approved, “An act to provide a territorial and county revenue.”  In doing this Wyoming modelled the Framer’s ideal of local control, of decisions and responsibilities kept at the local level where citizens can have a direct impact on how those decisions are shaped and financed.  Wyoming voters are faced with the proposition on this November’s ballot to reduce the property tax in our state by 50%.  This initiative, called Proposition One is the first step in what could be a further call to completely dismantle a system of taxation Wyoming has relied upon since before statehood. The reduction by 50% would have an immediate and devastating effect on the services most Wyoming citizens rely upon in their communities. Property taxes are not always ideal. But they do provide a direct mechanism for citizens - not politicians - to decide on and pay for the services they desire and benefit from.  Wyoming saw rapid increases in residential valuations and those increases have been hard to bear for some.  Accordingly, the legislature, with my support over the past few sessions, enacted meaningful property tax relief while preserving citizens’ rights to determine what and how best to fund the services they see as essential.   Nevertheless, property tax as a mechanism for building and maintaining our communities is not improper. It is the cost that has become burdensome. Tax reform is fundamentally different from destroying a tax base or relying on the legislature to fund essential services. Some things are universal - safe neighborhoods depend on services such as firefighting, emergency responses, good schools, and maintained roads.  All of these are essential to Wyoming’s long term strength and vitality.  They make our communities places where families can stay, businesses can grow, and the next generation can build a future they can call home. Local control is a conservative principle - it means that decisions about community needs should rest as close as possible to those people who live there, who pay the taxes there, and who can hold their local elected officials accountable.  How responsible do we find Congress these days? Our communities need both the authority and the financial ability to meet those needs. Every property owner having “skin in the game” helps to assure the citizenry pays attention and demands accountability at the local - very most responsive - level.  In my time in office, in successive budgets, I have seen the legislature continuously reduce its commitment to towns and counties, to make them fight harder for Cheyenne’s attention.  Property tax does not go to the state - it stays at the local level. Reducing and/or eliminating an essential obligation’s funding does not eliminate it, and remarkably this ill conceived Proposition lacks any plan to cover those costs other than counting on the fickleness of future legislatures.  Wyoming families deserve affordable taxes and a disciplined government, and during my terms as your governor you have gotten both. We cut government, streamlined regulations, provided tax relief, and ensured a healthy and strong state. We did not cut the legs out from under communities and counties.  They also deserve ambulances when they call, firefighters when their homes are threatened, safe roads to work and school. They expect meaningful taxpayer relief that maintains strong communities.  "The Wyoming people have already benefited from powerful property tax relief like the 25% homeowner exemption or the 50% long-term homeowners exemption among other relief measures." Cutting just to cut is not a responsible way forward for Wyoming. Wyoming can, has, and will continue to help reduce tax bills to homeowners, but smaller local revenue does not make essential services less expensive.  Fuel, emergency equipment, road repairs, and the people who protect our communities still cost money.  All but our most wealthy local governments are feeling the same pain we are in paying for fuel, the same decisions on what we can afford.  For the past half century, Wyoming has worked to protect her communities from the booms and busts of a commodity economy. It has been good work and we have all benefitted from those who laid solid groundwork.  If the only answer for the loss of locally derived revenues that fund essential services like educating our children, should Proposition One pass, is for the state to “backfill” local communities from limited funds depending on favorable markets, we must also prepare ourselves for hard times ahead and remind ourselves, dependency on state government in Cheyenne weakens our local communities opportunity  to set their own destiny.   Protecting the essentials means protecting Wyoming’s capacity to govern itself.  We must never walk away from that fundamental, conservative principle. If you care about the essential services in your communities, join Jennie and I in voting No on Proposition One.  For more information: Amy Edmonds, Communications Director, amy.edmonds@wyo.gov

October 14, 2026

Frank Eathorne, who was the head of the State's GOP when it turned full Freedom Caucus, and who was such a MAGA that he went to DC with Bob Ide to be there on the day of the insurrection rally (he missed the insurrection himself, as did Ide), has endorsed Dixiecrat Alabama Becky Bextel.  

What hypocrisy.

Eathorne was part of the group that brought in the absolute loyalty to the GOP era, which meant absolute loyalty to the Dixiecrats.  The voters tossed out the Confederates in the last election, but there's still a lot of them in county committees, and they've been sulking ever since.  Going into into the election Meine Ehre heißt Treue was their motto, but since then they've wandered around mostly pouting.  Some have endorsed Alabama Becky.  

Eathorne owed an apology to Joanna True.  She won't be getting one, of course.

As we've noted before, there's a good side to this.  Becky, Frank, Allemand, Sanchez-Williams, Bear, Bien and their ilk are not Republicans and they are not Conservatives, a least not of the normal type. They're Populist Dixiecrats with more in common with the pre 1970s South than anything in Wyoming.  A couple of them are in fact bonafide Southerners and show strongly Southern beliefs.  Some are Wyomingites showing a pretty strong streak of narrow-minded ignorance.  They deserve their own party, and the Constitution Party, which believes in a double secret Constitution only they know about, is their natural home. The more than de facto migrate over to it, the better.

An example of Republicans moving over to the Constitution Party is given by an old friend of mine. We don't discuss politics.  He's a really nice guy who moved in here from Kansas in the 80s and has fallen off the WFC deep end.  He was, or is, a figure in his county's organization and it was clear heading into the race he was beginning to get upset by how things were going.  One thing that upset him was that Hageman, endorsed by Trump, knew where her bread was buttered and didn't endorse the official GOP sanctioned Brent Bien, who ended up going down in flames.  That caused him to abandon Hageman.

Now, doing the same thing that Hageman did that upset him so much, he's backing Constitution Party Tamara Trujillo for Secretary of State.  This is all the more remarkable as Robert Short, a really good candidate, is from the same county.

Trujillo is so unknown that she'll be lucky if she recognizes her own name on the ballot.  But what's interesting here is that a diehard MAGA member of the GOP is going for a Constitution Party candidate who will lose so badly that nobody will ever remember her name.  The WFC Dixiecrats are actually moving over to the Constitution Party.  If they muster 10% of the vote, which isn't a wholly good thing, they'll probably bolt en masse before they come crawling back in 2028 as defeated lap dogs.

Trujillo is originally from Cheyenne, and indeed reading her biography, she's from the district in Cheyenne that's heavily Hispanic.  Her biography is pretty minimal, but it's clear that she married somebody who was in the Navy and seems to have had a 17 year career in that service.  She notes that she was a registered Democrat.  Without it really being clear, it seems she's a Catholic, and she certainly would have been originally.  Her position statements and issues are so bland they literally could apply to a person running from any party whatsoever.  I can understand what brought her over to the GOP from the Democratic Party, but what drew her to the Constitution Party is a complete mystery.

Alabama Becky has an op ed in the Oil City News in favor of Prop 1. 

Prop 1 would gut local governments like a fish.  She doesn't believe that but instead believes that "spending priorities" will make it all okay.

People who say that about local governments are naive or ignorant.  Wyoming's local governments are stretched to the financial limit right now.  The Tribune ran an article on it asking the following question:

Prop. 1 could slash Wyoming fire budgets. What happens when help can’t get there in time?

I'll make a prediction here on what the answer to this is if Prop 1 passes.

As long as the property destroyed and the residences burned up belong to regular people, or people living in trailers, etc., the WFC will be happy.  If schools get slashed, they don't believe in education anyway.  Education causes people to realize that things like Global Warming are real, which can't be true as they don't want it to be.  Fire that burn up trailers are burning up the homes of peasantry whom they don't hang out with even though they depend on their support.

But as soon as one Carpetbagger McMansion is destroyed. . .that'll matter.  They'll demand something be done, and that something will probably be a large increase in sales taxes, or an income tax.

And we'll regret passing Prop 1.

And, on tonight:

I've already voted, of course.

The most notable thing about these debates is that there won't be a Senatorial one as Hageman won't show up.  

What a brave lass.

Chuck Gray won't show up either.

Rebecca Bextel, who apparently will be there, should be asked if Chuck's failure to show up means that not only does not have big balls one of her favorite topics, but perhaps no balls at all.

Back to Gray, somebody I know who is on the periphery of the Gray campaign, and somebody I know who thinks they're a conservative Republican while actually being a fairly ignorant MAGA Dixiecrat, have been posting cartoons from the "Rino Rocket". They have the same general theme, Republicans are smart, Democrats are evil, etc.  They seem to have the same panicky "oh crap, we're going to lose" feel to them, which makes me wonder if Republican circles feel that they stand a chance of going down in Wyoming.

One, by the Gray acolyte, shows MAGA/WFC in the way it sees itself.  A cartoon busy women who is overflowing her shirt but who has a cross handing down into her cleavage warns that its cheaper to vote Republican than to move when the Democrats take over.

The person who posted that has been in the region his entire life.  Our migrant problem here is the Dixiecrats moving in.  It'd be cheaper to go back to the real GOP and protect the state, which they claim they want to do, than to bring in Nathan Bedford Bextel Forest and Confederate things up.  But the image is interesting.  As I've noted before the Daisy Duke image of female Republican came in with Carpetbagger Foster Friess.  A cartoon, however, warning you not to vote for Democrats sporting an image of Christianity between overflowing cartoon tits is sending a rather peculiar message.

Branching out to a local sheriff's race, probably for the first time, incumbent Sheriff, Democrat Aaron Appelhans faces a challenge from carpetbagging Daron L. Wyatt, a retired  Anaheim California police officer. Wyatt and his wife, Misty, permanently moved to Albany County around 2019 after buying property there some time earlier.

An interesting thing about this race is that Sheriff Appelhans is the first African American sheriff elected into office in Wyoming.  His race wasn't an issue in his first campaign at all.  He seems well liked, and he came into office at a time that Albany County was having some controversial law enforcement issues.

Wyatt's campaign, whether he means for it to or not, really seems to have the "I'm from ________, which I hated, and I'm here to tell you how to run things.

It's nice that Wyatt wants to continue his law enforcement career.  He should move back to Orange County and run for sheriff there.

In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Collom is lampooning Cindy Hyde-Smith's suggestion that if beef is too high, you can choose another protein.

October 14, 2026

I haven't watched it, so I have no comments, yet.

It sounds like Alabama Becky was into name calling.

At Wyoming Gov. Debate, Bextel Bashes Barlow Almost The Whole Time

Nor have I watched this one, and I very well might not.

cont:

Some initial debate comments.

Kenneth Casner looks absolutely ancient. Way older than his campaign photo.  He sounds ancient too, and looks like a very elderly man in his daily loungy clothes.

Casner keeps babbling about the "money situation".  He doesn't seem to grasp what he's talking about.

Becky has learned how to pose.  

Becky's understanding of municipal budgets is dim and, additionally, shows that she lives in wealthy Teton County.  Like a lot of WFC members, she oddly wants central control over municipal expenditures.

Bextel's accent is thick.  She can't pronounce the word "Wyoming". It come across as "Wyooomin"

Bextel hates the Wyoming Business Council.  She seems to have a beef with the University of Wyoming and specifically referenced wiping out "German studies", which UW doesn't have.  Did she mean the German department?  The German study abroad program?  

A lot of the specific things she claimed about Barlow were false, based on subsequent reporting.

Bextel, of course, is a graduate of the University of Alabama.

Barlow basically ignored Bextel's taunts and answered the questions.

Casner doesn't understand how judges are appointed.  Bextel said the nominees are chosen by "deep state swamp creature lawyers".

I gave up on the debate at about that point.

Footnotes:

1.  As always, I'm going with the conventional color conventions. Blue is conservative, red left of center.  This is how it is the world over.

Orange, well I used that for a distributist sort of view.  It's the color of Christian Democracy.

Last edition.

The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

Labels: 1860 Election, 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Catholic, Christianity, Chuck Gray, Conservatism, Cornell Rape, Eric Barlow, Harriet Hageman, James Byrd, Kenneth Casner, Kristallnacht, Lisa Kinney, Populism, Rebecca Bextel, religion

Additional Labels:

The 2026 Election, 25th Edition. The casting the vote edition. More Labels.

 

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

Herbert Stein.

September 23, 2026

Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.

Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden.  Stein's Law has arrived.

GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump.  A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot.  She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat.  The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.

Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt.  From her Facebook.

Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices. 

That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs. 

While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.

I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.

She otherwise demanded that the war against Iran be stopped.

Hinson had voted against the War Powers Resolution every time it's been voted on in the House, and did so just a week prior, so she's voted to keep the war rolling.  Now she wants it over.  Fuel prices are the reason why.

Closer to home, there are all of a sudden all sorts of die-hard right wingers who are criticizing Trump.  Whether that translates over to opposing Trump lover Chuck Gray and Trump supported Harriet Hageman is another thing, but there's definitely stirring in the ranks.

Indeed, Cowboy State Daily carpetbagging columnist Dave Simpson went into a "boo hoo' fit about the whole thing, wondering if the imaginary Sweet Home Alabama Wyoming he believes to have existed has gone "wobbly".

Dave Simpson: Do 70 Percent Of Us Still Like Trump?

Go home Dave.  You drank too much WFC Kool aide.

Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:

Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure

And it's been noted that Wyomingites are voting their interests:

Wyoming chooses public lands at the ballot box

Beyond that, the revolt is getting large enough that as early as it is, we're now seeing the non Trump GOP start to reemerge from the bunkers for the 2028 races, with Chris Christie having basically indicated that he's running.

Elections are not over, until their over, but it is clear that the GOP, and for that matter Trump, have no idea on how to hold on to the Senate, let alone the House.  Doubling down on all the old tired lines (the Red Chinese are coming to have babies, date your daughters, steal your lunch) isn't working.  The MAGA base was always the demographic that was most vulnerable to an economic downturn and now it's suffering.  Agriculture, a Republican base, can't deal with the high fuel and fertilizer prices.  Trucking can't deal with the high prices either.  Regular people don't like the high prices at the grocery store and nobody likes the high fuel prices in the West.

This can't and won't be fixed by the election. The war against Iran won't be over and fuel prices will be high unless a ban on exports tanks the price of diesel, which it likely won't.

It took a lot, but people seem to be waking up to being lied to.  Moreover, as that happens, Trump gets weirder and weirder by the day.

One place that appears now almost inevitable to go to the Democrats is Texas, where Texas Democratic Senate James Talarico has seen a 28-point swing in vote share against Ken Paxton.  

Cont:

Fresh from getting its head handed to it in the primary, where its endorsements didn't pan out for the most part, the Dixiecrat controlled central committee of the Wyoming Republican Party has endorsed the property tax cut bill that would gut local governments like fish.

Wyoming Republicans just took a side on a property tax vote that could reshape local revenues

Basically, the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus hates the Gubbement and figures that stuff like education and the like can be handled by Ella Mae back at home.

September 24, 2026

Barrasso Endorses Cody Republican For State House, Libertarian Opponent OK With It

September 25, 2026

Dixiecrats are moving over to their rightful home:

Hot Springs County Chair Switches From Republican To Constitution Party

Rod Miller wrote an op ed on this and I've been meaning to post on it, so I'll just comment here.  Bextel moving over to the Constitution Party, delusional though she is, is a good thing if it causes other Dixiecrats of the WFC to follow her, and they should.  Here, a prominent Hot Springs politician has done just that.  

The Constitution Party, which believes in a double secret constitution written in crayon and visible only through secret decoder glasses may pull over 10% in the election, which would make it a good place for people from the WFC to pack up their gray kepis and go and be "real".  As is actually they, not traditional Wyoming Republicans, who are the aberration, they'd be doing themselves a favor, they'd have more voice in the CP, but the Republican Party and the State one as well.  It'd allow the GOP to shake off the chains of the Confederacy which the WFC is attempting to bind it with.

In this environment, it might be noted, it's amazing that the Democrats can't get more traction than they are, but they aren't.  Byrd still stands a good chance, but he's about the only one outside of the very few Democrats holding seats in the legislature.

September 29, 2026

From here on out in the election we're going to see Bat Shit Crazy on full display nearly every day.

Apparently not realizing that the election is a referendum on Donald Trump, a couple weeks ago Trump urged votes to imagine he's on the ballot.

The Republican problem is that voters are doing just that.

If people think back to the 2024 Presidential Election, most voters were never very keen on Trump. The most commonly expressed opinion going into the election was that voters disliked both candidates.  The Democrats screwed themselves by running Biden, which was simply insane.  Republican voters in the primary were in part MAGA true believes, but that misses the point that a lot of Republicans have left the party.  When Biden dropped out, way too late, the Democrats did the typical Democratic thing and killed themselves by nominating a Kamala Harris, about the most irritating candidate they could have found.

2024 is in the rear view mirror of course, but what's been missed in the Trumpian Reign of Terror is that most people went into 2025 disliking Donald Trump and it's gone downhill from there, something made worse by the fact that this administration is made up of the cynical advantageous and those with some agenda, often a deluded one.

With that mix, Trump has had a free hand in acting like a mad king, and he's made the most of it.  People with an agenda, moreover, are fully exercising their one and only chance to try to pull it off.  

Trump's pretty clearly aware of this, in spite of his addled state.  It explains the constant effort to build monuments to himself.  In spite of what some in the far right Evangelical camp believe, there's pretty good reason to doubt Trump's belief in an afterlife.  He certainly hasn't lived like he believes in one.  So he's trying to make sure we remember him as a great man in terms of architecture and conquest.

It's all going to fail.

Trump doesn't seem to be able to grasp that people do not love him.  He's a narcissist who is profoundly in love with himself.  The worst, therefore, nightmare of his life is unfolding.  A lot of motivated people who range from horrified to absolute contempt are going to boot the GOP out of the House, and now it looks like the Senate, and for the very reasons that Trump has urged us to do.  They're voting on him, as the GOP has become a sycophantic personality cult.  

People don't love him.

From now until the election Trump will pull out all the stops to try to keep the result he fears from happening. Anything he can legally get away with he will try.   It'll be a long month until the election.

On not loving Trump, it's a shame Wyomingites don't have a better option to contest Chuck Gray.

Gray has made a career out of loving Trump more than Trump loves Trump. That's about all he has going for him.  We're about to send somebody completely unqualified to do anything for the State to Congress.  Would that somebody other than Johnson and Kinney were running. Neither stand a chance, and they don't really deserve to. 

If none of the above were an option in that race, that'd be the one that would win.

Speaking of Gray, Gray has been showing up at UW football games recently and having pictures taken with students.

It's pathetic.

September 30, 2026

Wyoming Secretary of State and GOP candidate for Congress Chuck Gray emerged from hiding from debate requests, while he's not going to UW football games to be photographed with students, to congratulate the Supreme Court for temporarily upholding 

October 1, 2026

The backers of a data center in Natrona County invited Republican candidates for the County Commission to tour the site and omitted the Democratic candidates.

The GOP candidates are Lisa Jamieson (Democrat), Matt Keating (Republican), Ray Pacheco (Republican), Candace Machado (Democrat) and Dallas Laird (Republican).

We haven't addressed this race much yet, but Laird is a 1,000,000 years old and needs to go.  Keating was a somewhat controversial commissioner and then a somewhat controversial assessor.  He's been battling cancer.  Pacheco is a City of Casper councilman.  Machado was a controversial mayor of Evansville.

October 4, 2026

The Gillette News Record ran an article about a Campbell County event of the meet the candidate type in Gillette for Bextel.  It was held at The Railyard, which is a restaurant in Gillette.  It's a fair sized restaurant but not huge.  Apparently about 20 people went, which shows how little interest Bextel's campaign is drawing.

Her campaign does receive media attention as she's able to run it and it's so unusual.  I hesitate to post on her regularly as it makes her look like a bigger deal than she really is.  It is interesting however.

For one thing, Bextel keeps stating the "I didn't want to do this but had to" type of line. Nobody has to run for anything. What that really means is that the Dixiecrat is suddenly awake to the fact that Wyoming isn't 1960s Alabama and is terrified of what that means.

Also, Bextel continues to use some crude language.  I guess that's no shock in this day and age but at least to some it sort of edges her towards Southern White Trash, which isn't a good look for anyone. 

Those in attendance asked why Hageman and Gray (Gray stayed at her house, apparently, while campaigning) haven't come to her support.

As if.

Politics is a backstabbing game and there's no way that Hageman and Gray are going to buck the GOP for anyone.

Some local politicians showed up, which risks their being associated with her.  I don't blame them for showing up, but the press coverage might be a deterrent to that occurring in the future.

October 5, 2026

More on the Gillette News Record article.

Bextel claims that Harriet Hageman went after Barlow in a major way in a discussion with her personally, claiming that she said he was "pure evil".  Bextel is clearly a bit baffled why Gray and Hageman don't come to her aid in her race.

She also has a theme, or maybe a sort of obsession, with "weak men", which she claims include the current Governor, Barlow, and some other male Republicans.  It's odd.

Bextel has always been a curious figure, to the extent we know anything about her, but her naivete on why Hageman and Gray (she mused she wondered what they have on Hageman), is amusing. Gray and Hageman are on a glide path to higher office, in spite of not being very good choices, and they don't want to ruin it by supporting Bextel who is a crash and dive to political oblivion.

And once again we see the South sort of rearing up in the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus.  Bextel crudely claimed she had bigger "balls" than Barlow and interprets them not being in Nathan Bedford Forrest's Partisan Rangers as their being weak males.  There's a certain sort of peculiar early 20th Century literary quality to this.

Becky, the Southern Damsel, coming to rescue us all. . . 

Go home Becky.

October 6, 2026

Just looking at net chatter, the boo hoo Dixiecrats who think they are conservatives are appearing to break for Bextel in surprising numbers.  She won't win, but it'll be interesting to see if the Constitution Party is able to ride her back into 10% of the vote and be qualified as a "major party".  

That wouldn't be a bad thing if it drug the Allemands, Bears, etc., over to that party, where they really belong.

I'm guessing they won't make the 10%.

As was seen in the last election, the Dixiecrat WFC is noisy as well as deluded, but it doesn't enjoy much support from real Wyomingites.

Another question is whether the Democrats are able to make 10% themselves.

They should, as one of the GOP candidates, Chuck Gray, is held widely in contempt.  The problem is that the Democrat opposing him is Lisa Kinney.  

Gail Symons wrote an op-ed on this topic for the Cowboy State Daily.

Gail Symons: It's Almost Anyone-But-Chuck November, Choose Wisely

I'm seeing a lot of moderate Republicans declare support for Kinney, and some for Johnson, but both candidates are really unattractive options.  Kinney is singularly uninspiring and comes from the ancient Democrat demographic that caused the Democrats to slip into oblivion here.  If the candidate came from the Mike Sullivan wing of the party, Chuck would be doomed.  In spite of GOP support for her, Kinney is really hard to get enthusiastic about.

So is Johnson for that matter, and the Libertarians in general.

A debate would be really helpful but Chuck is hiding and won't debate.

For people like me this is really a problem.  I'd like to see Gray loose so badly that he moves to Russia and takes a job as the toilet bowl cleaner in the Kremlin, but both of the other two candidates are really lacking.  The Libertarian Party in general is always subject to a caution flag, although in Wyoming Libertarians are often moderate Republicans looking for someplace else to go following the Dixiecrat seizure of the party.

This one will be interesting to see how many people just can't vote for the other two non GOP candidates and therefore simply don't vote.  My guess is that there will be a lot.  My guess also is that Kinney will take a larger percentage of the vote than Democrats normally do on this race, which is usually about 25%.  I could see her getting at least up to 30%, maybe 35%.  I don't expect Johnson to do as well, but he might be able to draw 10%.

Overall, it's not impossible to imagine Kinney and Johnson together pull down over 50% of the vote, but probably not much more than that.  Still, if that happens, Gray will be a Congressman with the minority of the vote.

Of course, this year, who knows.  It's not completely impossible that Wyoming might elect a Democrat, although by the slimmest of margins, to the House for the first time in years.  If it did, it would have a member of what's going to be the majority party in the House, and it would really give the Freedom Caucus the middle finger salute.

It'll also be interesting to see how many votes Byrd draws.  Lummis' opponent in 2026, Merav Ben-David, drew 27% of the vote in an election in which former Congressman Lummis was going to win no matter what.  Hageman has a lot more fanatic supporters than Lummis ever did, but she also has a lot more people who detest her as well.  Byrd is a much stronger candidate than Ben-David, and Hageman has been hiding from debating him.  Hageman showed up at a town hall somewhere recently and gave her usual poor performance.  She's not good at handling negative questions at all, which is surprising given that she was a practicing attorney.  Byrd might outright slaughter her in a debate.

Hageman also is taking flak from the disaffected Dixiecrats of the Freedom Caucus.  Bextel complained in a town hall in Gillette about Hageman not endorsing her.  Hageman endorsed Degenfelder in the Governor's race which upset the Dixiecrats as they, and the GOP they control, had endorsed Bien.  Of course Trump endorsed Degenfelder, it was the point of her entire campaing, and Hageman sure wasn't going to buck Donald on that.  Still, some disaffected WFC types are now mad at Hageman a bit.   

I suspect they'll get over it, but a tiny percentage will write in Bien or just refuse to vote.  One WFC person I know fairly well has outright declared they will not support Hageman, and another gadfly local WFC member has indicated that they're writing in Bien.  

Byrd is definitely going to do better than Ben-David.  I'm guessing that Byrd will draw at least 35% of the vote.  That's not enough, of course, to get elected, but I'd also guess that Bien will still draw about 5% of the vote.  That'd still leave Hageman with 60%, and that's likely, but it's not completely impossible that she draws under 50%. 

October 7, 2026

Donald Trump, who loves Donald Trump, endorsed Carpetbagger Chuck Gray, one of the founders of the Dixiecrats in Wyoming, who has campaigned on loving Trump even more than Trump loves Trump.  Hid did so on his Twitter like platform, Raging Delusional Lies Social, stating:

The fact that Gray is a "true friend of MAGA" is the very reason that Chuck ought to be sent to be a toilet bowl scrubber in the Kremlin.  The question is who to vote for.

Former Gov. Mike Sullivan says that person should be Lisa Kinney.

Former Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan Endorses Lisa Kinney For U.S. House

Sullivan's endorsement shows how dim people have become in Wyoming, not because of the endorsement, but because the carpetbagging migrants fail to realize that Wyoming has had Democratic Governors fairly frequently until just recently.  Sullivan is a Democrat and always has been, but one of the social commentary Twitter Twits came in to accuse him of being just that, having presumed that Sullivan must be a Republican.

Sullivan was gracious to Gray, he's a gracious man, noting something that I didn't know, that he's worked for Wyoming Right To Life.  And he provided more information on Kinney than I had known.

Sullivan was a great Governor, but frankly I really doubt his endorsement will make a difference in the election.  I also doubt Donny's will.  People who are weak or lazy enough to pay attention to his endorsement were already going to vote for Chuck.

Early voting started yesterday in Ohio with people lining up before dark vote.  According to polls, Democrats turned out in larger numbers than Republicans, but Republican voters may very well not be voting for Republican candidates.

Early voting has started here in Wyoming as well.  With the races set, the major endorsements made for the most part (I'm sure more are to come), we'll close out this edition.

We'll probably also go down to the Courthouse this week and vote.

Appendix

The 2026 Election, 22nd Edition. The Stupid on Stilts Edition. Appendix 1.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 22nd Edition. The Stupid on Stilts Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Alabama, Bill Allemand, Carpetbaggers, Chuck Gray, Dixiecrats, Donald Trump, Harriet Hageman, inflation, James Byrd, Questions for politicians, Rebecca Bextel, Taxes, Tom Lubnau, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Additional labels:

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition, more labels.

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition, more labels.

 

Freedom Caucus member.

The 2026 Election, 21st Edition. The Contest in the General Election. Additional labels.

 

Why won't Harriet Hageman debate?

Wyoming doesn't need a coward. Wyoming needs a leader, Wyoming needs a voice, Wyoming needs people who are able to stand up to anybody and anyone.

Lynette Gray Bull.

The candidates for Wyoming's lone seat to the Congress, less Harriet Hageman, debated last night.

October 14, 2022

A debate of candidates for the U.S. House, save for Harriet Hageman, occurred last night.

Hageman was castigated by the other candidates for her failure to appear, which is either rude, arrogant, or cowardly.  At least one candidate called her actions cowardly.

Hageman needs to be heard from on her failure to debate, and not with the excuse that she has other more effective means of communicating with Wyomingites. So far, more or less, her campaign has been limited to the fact that she supports now subpoenaed Donald J. Trump no matter what, whereas Liz Cheney has the courage of her convictions.  Other than having united herself to Trump no matter what, there's nothing really known to distinguish her from Cheney, but the voters really haven't heard much from her otherwise in a widespread way.  Public forum's she's attended to date have been principally populated with Hageman Fans/Cheney Haters, so that does not suffice.

How do we answer the question posed in the title of this post?

Well, the short answer is because Harriet Hageman has said "no" to a debate, but that obviously doesn't suffice.

Lawyers, which Hageman is, generally are regarded as liking to debate, or at least being comfortable with it.  Indeed, a common unthinking reply to "why should I become a lawyer" or "why did you become a lawyer" is 1) well I like to debate, and to get paid for debating, or the related 2) well I like to argue, and to get paid for arguing. . .   In truth, lots of lawyers like to do neither, but Hageman has boosted herself in her campaign by portraying herself as a wild vigilante jurist gunning down the horrible agents of Federal repression.

Harriet Hageman stopping agents of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service.

Truth be known, as a native Wyomingite, a lot of the big evil enemies she cites as having been taken on by her in her role as Litigator of the Golden West are agencies I like.  I have a hard time hating, for example, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service.  And the two times I've encountered her in a legal setting since 1990 didn't involve the Federal Government at all, although one did involve the super wealthy, who happened to be her client.  But I digress.

My point is, here, that abstaining from debating requires some sort of reason, and the reasons are few.

Before we look at those reason, we should consider something.

Hageman hasn't campaigned on any issues at all.

Her campaign was based solely on attacking Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Donald Trump and then going on to be his opponent in Congress.  Cheney stood on principles and on that, Hageman used the opportunity to advance herself, and successfully, so far.

In the process, for months she was actually very reluctant, unlike her opponents in the House race, to say that Trump won the election, which he didn't.  When pressed, she took refuge in having "questions".

Missed in that response is that it's a lawyer witness answer.  It's the classic Clintonesque "It depends on what the meaning of is, is."  It's a hair-splitting dodge.  Literally every single person on Earth can claim to have questions about the election as life is uncertain, and a person can harbor doubts about literally anything human's do, which doesn't mean they're reasonable.  A person can have questions if the sun will explode today, if you will die of a heart attack tonight, if your Welsh Corgi will suddenly remember he descends from wolves and rip your throat out, or whatever.

Bulldog editor, or perhaps as he would have preferred Irish Wolf Hound editor, of the Tribune in its glory days, Phil McCauley.  Photo linked in from his 2009 obituary.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, there isn't the Fifth Estate muscle to really run that to ground. The Tribune in the days of Phil McCauley would have harassed her on that to the point of tears, but that didn't of course occur.  She had "questions".

Well, anyhow, only at the bitter end, after being endorsed by Trump, and pressed at a Casper Politics In The Park did she relent to fully selling her soul and saying the election had been stolen.  She handily beat Cheney on that topic alone, with her enthusiastic supporters believing that she believes what they believe, thereby feeding into their beliefs for her personal advantage.

One is reminded of the classic line from A Man For All Seasons when Richard perjures himself:

Sir Thomas More: Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?

She's been really quiet since the Primary.

This assumes, of course, that she knows the truth, which frankly is my assumption.

Since that time, and after the primary election, she received a letter from forty-one Wyoming lawyers asking her to stop lying about the election being stolen.  Quixotically branded the "Wyoming 41" by the Democratic primary candidate Steve Helling, who ran as a pro Trump Democrat (his campaign made next to no sense and received next to no support), they asked her, in a private letter, to quit lying.  Her reply was practically unhinged, accusing them of being part of a nationwide plot to discredit Trumpite candidates by holding them to their oaths.  The Wyoming 41 denied that, and frankly the accusation was absurd, and in turn wrote her back, this time with 52 signators on the letter.¹   She didn't reply to that one.

And she's not replying much to anyone else in any really visible fashion.

Her current quietness may simply because she knows she's almost certain to be elected, and she just doesn't want to bother.  But if that's the case, what would it hurt. Sure, she may very well have no need to debate, but if that's the case, debating can't possibly hurt her.

Or maybe it can.

Lynette Gray Bull is a very effective speaker and preformed very well against Cheney two years ago.  At that time, she received 25% of the vote, and she'll receive more this time.  It's difficult to imagine her adding another 25% to defeat Hageman, but maybe Hageman is worried that in a debate that will bring the difference between the two into sharp focus, she might.^2 3

Since the primary, the January 6 committee has resumed and Trump is going to receive a subpoena to go to the Committee. That will appear on prime-time television, and he'll look like a strange liar.  He's going to resist going, of course.  Maybe being Trump's anointed will have just as much cache a month from now as it now does, but it's not guaranteed.  

But beyond that, maybe Hageman's real career history and the issues that raises would also come up.  She's been an enemy by her own statements of the things most Wyomingites love.  An ally only of development and use, she's unlikely to be seen as a friend of hunters, fishermen and people who just love the outdoors.  A product of southeastern Wyoming, which has generally been a hard core "it's my property stay off" portion of the state, she may well fear what that would mean.

She has the social issues of course, with Gray Bull being much to the left of her, and presumably outside the main from where most Wyomingites are, but she might also recall, given her age, a Wyoming which really wasn't very conservative on those issues.  Maybe being pro gun doesn't mean much in a state where the Democrats are also pro gun.  Maybe the remaining social issues like abortion and gender issues don't have as much cache with rank and file voters as presumed.  Maybe just raising those issues, in a public forum, on a stage in which the one candidate has children and the other doesn't, where one candidate is young, and the other isn't, and where both affect Native items in their dress, but one is indigenous, and the other isn't, creates problems she doesn't care to have come up.

And maybe she's not confident in her in own debating skills in front of an audience that isn't canned against a debater who has no choice but to debate, and who is good at it.

Anyway it's looked at, it's inexcusable.  Hageman should debate.

Footnotes:

1. The fifty-two signatures actually reflects more than 52 lawyers actually supporting the overall effort, as some of the original "Wyoming 41" didn't sign the second time as their noted public roles with various institutions was causing those institutions to receive complaints. 

2.  If Grey Bull doesn't pull in 33% this time, I'd be surprised.  That would really be only a modest increase in her toll.  Imagining 35%, or even 40%, isn't unreasonable.

3.  Hageman has given Grey Bull a gift in that Grey Bull can now accuse Hageman of being an outright coward and Hageman can do little about it.  Calling somebody out for a verbal duel can't really be adequately responded to except by engaging in a verbal duel, at which point your prior decline amounts to an admission of sorts.