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

 

And so we're off and running for the General Election, which in Wyoming's case means the election is pretty much over for the statewide races.  Sure, the contest officially carries on, but chances are that the Republican nominees will take everything.

Still, this year, there's a chance, here and there. . . 

So, our early predictions.*

Governor:

Republican.  Eric Barlow

Barlow is a rancher, veterinarian, and long time legislature.  

He's won this race and the General Election in this case is a mere formality.

Democrat.  Kenneth Casner

75 year old making his third pointless bid for the Governor's office. He won't win, everyone knows he won't win, and he shouldn't be running.

Casner's appearance says something, however, about the state of the Democratic Party in Wyoming, and it's the opposite of what's happening in much of the rest of the country.  In much of the country Democratic voters are rising up and tossing out geezer candidates, but in Wyoming the Democratic ranks are so depleted the Democrats are falling back on them, which is not a good sign.

Casner would have done his party a favor if he hadn't run.

Constitution Party:  Rebecca Bextel.

The Constitution Party is a gadfly far right political party which was once the home of people who now populate the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.  Indeed, it's their proper home, which shows in the one candidate of theirs which we know to exist, Rebecca Bextel.

The central figure in CheckGate, Bextel is flat out delusional and is running as she feared that Brent Bien would lose and there would not be any candidates running for the true interpretation of the Double Secret Constitution known only to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.  Bextel appears to seriously believe that Barlow could only win if vast hoards of Democrats, which don't exist in Wyoming crossed over to vote for Barlow and that in the general election the great mass of MAGA/WFC true believers will carry the day.

With the WFC having received a titanic dope slap in the primary, a rational person in her position would drop out. But then, running as a Constitution Party candidate shows demonstrated irrationality.

Endorsement:  Barlow by far.

Secretary of State

Republican:  Robert Short.

Short is an excellent choice and will take the office.

Democrat:  Bryan McCarthy.

McCarty actually has an impressive business background and has worked as an auditor.  He should be given credit for running, although he probably should have run for State Auditor.

He's going to lose and it's not even going to be close.

Endorsement:  Robert Short.

State Auditor

Republican Kristi Racines won an uncontested Republican primary race and no Democrats ran.

State Treasurer

Curt Meier won his bid to run again in the primary for the Republicans and no Democrats ran.

Senator

Republican:  Harriet Hageman.

63 (soon to be 64) year old incumbent Congressman with a terrible record on public lands who came up due to the "hate Cheney" wave two years ago.  If she wins, she'll be 70 at the end of her first term.

Democrat:  James  Byrd.

72 year old former legislator, geophysicist, and businessman.  Really impressive overall, but he is in his 70s.

This race features two candidates who are pushing what we regard age limits.   Hageman is a nightmare of a candidate however.

Byrd actually stands a chance in this race, but it's a real uphill battle.

Endorsement:  We won't vote for Hageman, which leaves Byrd the only realistic choice, and by and large he's a good one, but we aren't doing an endorsement yet.

House of Representatives

Republican:  Chuck Gray

Gray is a carpetbagger about whom Wyomingites know utterly nothing, other than he's an adoring sycophant of Donald Trump, he sent Wyoming's voter rolls to the Federal Government illegally, he has a nasty public personality, and he's a Californian who went to Wharton.   About him personally, we know  utterly nothing.

Having received only 25% of the primary vote, his election to the House can't be assured.

Democrat:  Lisa Kinney

About the worst candidate the Democrats could have chosen for this position, 75 year old Kinney can't win the office and is a remnant of an earlier era in more ways than one.  Her being the nominee is a sign of the absolutely pathetic state of the Wyoming Democratic Party.

Libertarian:  Shaun Johnson

Like the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party has become so obscure their state's organization doesn't even list their candidates. This is the only one we know to exist.

Johnson is a lawyer presently in Thermopolis.  I don't think he stands a chance, but I'll note that former Wyoming legislator Tim Stubson, who once ran for Congress, has endorsed him, which shows the depth to which a lot of Republicans despise Chuck Gray.

Write In:  Kevin Christensen?

A building movement to mount a write in campaign for Christensen, who ran in the GOP primary, exists.  He came up late in the primary election and got 21,632 to Chuck's 31,222.  While that's about 9,000 more votes, both Balow and Gilat, both seen as early possibilities for defeating Chuck, received over 10,000 votes.  Even gadfly Reid Rasner received a little over 10,000 votes.

If we had Alaska's system, Christensen, along with Friess and Balow, would be on the election in the Fall.  If we had the system in which the top two vote getters were on the ballot, Gray and Friess would be.  Given all of this, there's a really strong indicator that many of those who voted for a candidate other than Gray would vote for Christensen.

Overall, therefore, this race remains in a state of flux while its seen if enough momentum can build up to create a write in campaign for Christensen against a well funded Chuck.  

Endorsement:  Kevin Christensen.  I'm early in doing this, and I note that some disaffected Republicans are saying they'll vote for Kinney. But Kinney is at best a lesser of two evils.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Republican:  Steve Harshman

Harsham is a long time Wyoming educator from Natrona County who was in the legislature for many years.  He's an excellent choice for this office.and he will win it.

Democrat:  Ana Cordova.

Cordova won the contested Democratic primary.  She's a Wyoming native and extremely well educated.  She only returned to the state recently, however, and really has no chance in this race.

Endorsement:  Harshman.

Other races:

We'll no doubt comment on some as time goes by, but will hold off for the most part right now.

Some early comments:

A tour of the 48 key House races

In the Northeast, Midwest and West, it’s almost all upside for Democrats. But redistricting will hand Republicans some seats in the South.

Some voters on the Wind River Reservation say transportation to the polls is an issue

Cont:

Well, as of this morning, I've seen the first disaffected far right local candidate express support for a Bien write in campaign, based on the delusion that there's a lot of Bien support out there (there isn't, he came in third).

The same person, I note, tried to run for County Commissioner and fell far short of the necessary numbers to get on the ballot, so I doubt that they have much influence.

Anyhow, what's surprising is that this person expressed disdain for Bextel and even more disdain for Harriet Hageman, stating that Hageman is just a reliable flunky for Trump.  The outrage seems to be inspired by Hageman supporting Degenfelder as Trump did.  The Wyoming GOP in fact endorsed Bien, Gray and Hageman, with Hageman showing independence from Trump late in the race, but endorsing Degenfelder.

It's hard for these people to accept that people just don't want to elect far right person like Bien. They don't.  But imaging that they do is some sort of salve.

Having said all of that, there's definitely a movement amongst the ignorant far right to write Bien in. They're infighting right now with the Bextel supporters.  Both groups are throwing around Wyoming's "sore loser" law as if they know what it means, but they don't .There's nothing whatsoever that keeps a voter from writing in any name. What the law prohibits is a candidate who has already lost a primary to then run as the nominee of another party.

Anyhow, it's interesting in that far right fanatics are already indicating that they're supporting a defeated Bien, and not Bextel, in the Governor's race, with some screaming for Bextel support.  Neither of those candidates is going to win that race, but we are seeing the casting about for alternatives going on.

All that serves as a reminder that the Common Sense Republicans still have a lot of work to do, as they need to take back the party organization.  The Sturmabteilung is still in control of the party and is reeling.  It needs to be tossed out.

August 25, 2026

The WFC radicals just can't get it through their skulls that people don't like them.

Governor's Race: Write-In Effort For Brent Bien Emerges, But He's Not Behind It

Bien, at least, is more realistic about what a write in campaign against Barlow would mean, which would just be an embarrassment to him.

This entire story is a fart in a windstorm.  No serious number of people are going to write Bien in, or vote for Bextel. This race is over.  It is interesting, however.

The state GOP is controlled by WFC members and endorsed Bien, Hageman, and Gray.  Trump endorsed Gray, Hageman and Degenfelder.  Ultimately, Hageman followed Trump, thumbed her nose at the state GOP, and also endorsed Degenfelder.  For that reason, the WFC, including its members on committees, revolted against Hageman, but to no effect.  Now they're miffed at Trump as well, seemingly not realizing that without their dear leader, they are nothing whatsoever but a bunch of extreme right wing nuts.

A more interesting event would be a Christensen write in campaign against Gray, which would have a real chance of success.

Cont:

Rod Miller: Checkgate Becky And The Wyoming Governor’s Office

Footnotes

*We steadfastly refuse to adopt the moronic "red=Republican" standard used only in the U.S. Red=Political Left, Blue=Political Right.

That's the way it is everywhere.

Prior edition:

The 2026 Election, 20th Edition. The 2026 Wyoming Primary Results.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Ana Cordova, Chuck Gray, Eric Barlow, Harriet Hageman, James Byrd, Karlee Provenza, Libertarian, Lisa Kinney, Republican Party, Robert Short, Steve Harshman, Wyoming, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Tuesday, July 2, 1946. They were Nazis, but maybe they didn't know what they were doing?

The Luce–Celler Act of 1946 was signed into law giving all Philippines citizens living in the United States the right to become naturalized U.S. citizens.

Lucius Clay

Deputy Military Governor of the American Zone of Occupation in Germany Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay pardoned all Nazis under 27 years old, except for those accused of war crimes, and restored one million men to German citizenship.

His act was based on the presumption that men of that age had largely not appreciated what they were doing.

The great postwar accomodation of the Nazis in West Germany had begun.

The News discussed the first OPA free day.

Of note, the Pappy O'Daniel was the Senator from Texas, for which he'd previously been Governor.  Hh also hosted a radio show.  He'd become Senator O'Daniel in the controversial 1941 special election following the death of Morris Sheppard by defeating defeated Lyndon Johnson by 1,311 votes.  He as a Southern, anti Roosevelt, Democrat.  He ran again for governor in 1956 and 1958 during which he claimed Brown v. Board of Education was part of a Communist conspiracy. He finished third in the Democratic primaries both times. After his 1958 loss he accepted the nomination of the Constitution Party, but did not appear on the general election ballot due to the state's "sore loser" law.  That nomination is somewhat interesting in context in that far right wing wackadoodle Rebecca Bextel, who is from the well funded Teton County carpetbagger wing of the GOP, is running on their ticket this year due to moronic thesis that cross over Democrats are going to get Barlow nominated for the GOP Governor slot and then she can come in and save the day by all the real Republicans voting for her in the general, something that shows a real deficit in mathematical understanding.

Orson Wells released The Stranger, his first film noir.

Last edition:

Monday, July 1, 1946 Crossroads Able.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Bikini Atoll, boats and ships, Economics, Office of Price Administration, Operation Crossroads, Pacific, Post War United States (and Canada), Sex, U.S. Navy, United States Air Force Academy, Weapons

The 2026 Election, 11th Edition. The only good voting Indian is a disenfranchised voting Indian edition.

 

By https://www.facebook.com/eshoshonetribe/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61356655

Friends & Brothers, listen: Where you now are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Your game is destroyed and many of your people will not work and till the Earth. Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours for ever. For the improvements in the country where you now live, and for all the stock which you cannot take with you, your father will pay you a fair price.

Andrew Jackson, part of a letter to the Creek, 1829.  That sure didn't come true.

Chuck Gray, auditioning for the role of adoring political paramour to Donald Trump, his beloved and dearest, and thick in the throws of turning Wyoming's voter registration roles over to his dearest illegally, is now seeking to have the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision of Louisiana v. Callais applied.  In so doing, he's sent a demand to the Fremont County Commissioners to redistrict their county commissioner boundaries to wipe out a district that was designed to provide a commissioner from the Wind River Reservation, and he's written the Governor about the legislative districts, stating; "“I believe House District 33’s boundaries need to be examined to ensure compliance with Callais” .

Let's look first at what Callais actually says which few pundits have to date.  It's a long decision, so we'll only post part of it, but that part is where the Court made its decision:

So what that tells us is:

1.  A district must have a basis in more than race.

2.  The jerrymandering by race cannot have a demonstrable impact in favor of a political party.

3.  The totality of the circumstances must be considered.

Chuck, who loves Trump more than Trump loves Trump, has made a name for himself by being a divisive asshole and this will be no exception. The over monied little man who has never really worked likes to scream and howl, but this may prove to be a mistake in his bid for the House.  A large percentage of Wyomingites do not like him for variety of legitimate reasons, and he's been taking flak from the right from gadfly Reid Rasner, to which he's flop around like a fish on a deck trying to react to, and not very effectively.  Gray probably sees this action to terminate Native American districts on the Reservation as serving his far right nut case masters' cause of bringing back the Confederacy, but he's not a lawyer and disrupting Wyoming districts, ironically in one of the most conservative regions of the state, may not go well and is not likely to be appreciated.

There's a fair chance it might not succeeds as well.

Fremont County has a voting district for the county commission that causes it to have one commissioners who is drawn from the Wind River Reservation.  That was in fact the intent of the boundary.  And it has one House District that is also from the Reservation.  The legislator who is from that districts, HD33, is Ivan Posey, who is enrolled in the Eastern Shoshone Tribe but also also has Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho ancestors.

Gray, of course, is a carpetbagging white rich unmarried white boy, but this fits right into the current MAGA effort that's disenfranchising minorities in a country that's on the verge of becoming a majority minority nation.  While they aren't willing to say it, MAGA basically hopes that they can reverse this demographic trend.

They can't, and they'll pay for it soon.

Here, Gray, who isn't a Wyomingite in the first place, likely doesn't grasp that the Wind River Reservation isn't solely an ethnic boundary, but the home to two sovereigns.  So there's a racial and sovereign divide here.  I suspect that these boundaries will hold up.

They already voted Democratic, they sure will in the future.  Gray's ordering the Fremont County Commission and Governor Gordon around may not sit well with the voters, and frankly they're likely to tell him to pound sand, in which case he'll sue, and try to disrupt the general election.  That won't work.

Gray needs to be sent packing.  He needs to find a real job for the first time in his life.  Let's hope he's offered one out on Wind River.

By Elders of the Arapaho Nation [2] - This W3C-unspecified vector image was created with Inkscape . based on photo and description here, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1031311

We will note here that the GOP race in Wyoming is turning batshit crazy with panicked Freedom Caucusers concerned that the South might not rise again while one notable one is actually attacking Donald Trump.  Hardcore WFC members are supporting Still Sucking On the Government Tit Bien.  While I may be imagining it, Bien seems to draw support from the less educated and poorer sections of the Wyoming population which demonstrates something peculiar, but I don't know what.  The more likely you are to economically and personally be hurt by Bien's world outlook of no social services and hardly pull yourself up by your bootstraps, while he sucks on the government tit, the more likely you are to support him.  

It's dumb.

Yesterday, of course, we have the oddity of Rebecca Bextel announcing a completely delusional and panicky run for the Governor's office on the Constitution Party ticket.  In a more sane political structure, all of the state's Cornfederates would be in that party.  Poor Bextel thinks she's a conservative, and has this on her website:

Like many of you, I know Megan Degenfelder or Brent Bien would make an excellent Governor! I sincerely hope one of them beats out Eric Barlow for the Republican nomination, but unfortunately, history is not on the side of us conservatives.

Well, that's just deluded, but it's typical of the Cornfederates who aren't conservatives or even Republicans, but think they are.  She's going to lose big and hopefully the WFC does in general, so they can go back to Sweet Home Alabama (where Bextel is actually from) and leave the West alone.

Go home Becky. . . the Southland is calling you.

cont:

And it looks like state legislators are beginning to see the pitchforks. . .South Carolina dropped its effort, Louisiana refused the map Trump wanted them to adopt., Mississippi decided to wait until 2027.

May 15, 2026

Bill Allemand, a complete and total no go on our list, is running for reelection to House District 58.  His DUI trial has not yet occurred.  He  faced opposition from Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer as well as  Democrat.

J. R. Riggins is running for reelection in House District 59.  He faces opposition from the batshit carpetbagger far right.

Art Washut is running for reelection to House District 36.

May 16, 2026

Chuck Gray is being treated as sort of an irritating toddler, which he deserves.

Fremont County pols skeptical of push to reexamine electoral boundaries

Democrat  Kenneth R. Casner has announced his run for Governor.  He's 75 years old which puts him in the category of candidates who are too darned old to hold, yet alone run for, office.

May 17, 2026

Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution.  And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.

Bill Cassidy after losing his bid to be reelected as a Senator from Louisiana.

May 19, 2026

Controversial former mayor of Evansville, Wyoming has announced she's running for Natrona County Commissioner.

May 20, 2026

The remaining influence of a demented octogenarian narcissist on the dwindling number of Republicans proved strong last night as Thomas Massie fell to a Trump paramour in Kentucky. Massie fell into Trump's ire principally as he wouldn't give up on the administration releasing the Epstein files.

A couple of lesson are applicable here, one being that the Epstein files must definitely contain something that Trump fears more than death itself, that his unhinged rage in his demented state is getting worse, and that the declining pool of Republican voters will be more and more hardcore members of MAGA.  Everyone else has left.  This will cause the GOP to race ever deeper into fascism and its remaining conservatives to increasingly leave the party intellectually, if not in fact.

Trump's replacing adoring sycophant is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, increasing the military fascistic nature of the current GOP.

It's a tragedy for the nation in the short term.  In the long term, continued picks of fascistic toady's increases the chances of the MAGA being utterly destroyed in the Fall.

It'll also prove to be a tragedy for non MAGA views of Israel.  Piles of pro Israeli PAC money were spent in the race against Massie.  Public views are really changing towards Israel and to see groups that back Israel dedicating such an effort to get rid of an American Congressman doesn't help.  For people like myself, who have had a nuanced view on Israel for decades, it's now really impossible not to see the current Israeli government and the current American government in a highly negative light.  That's one thing, but anti semitism is really rising in the US and by now Muslim Americans have likely realized that supporting Trump in the last election was a massive mistake.

Massie won voters under 45 years of age by 30 points. . . that says something, and not something that the GOP will like in the future.  People hate it when you inject ageism into something, but there is a real "get off my lawn" element to current politics.

Locally, the Shoshone and Arapahoe tribes are clearly not going GOP this fall:

Tribal governments denounce Gray for ‘direct attack on Native voting

And as that what we started with, we'll conclude with that one.

And so we are rapidly finalizing the political landscape.  If you are black, Hispanic, Native American, Catholic, or Muslim, the GOP has no place for you.  If you would have voted for Strom Thurmond, it's your party.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 10th Edition. The Setting the stage for a Pyrrhic Victory edition.Labels: 2026 Election, Abortion, Bill Allemand, Chuck Gray, Corner Crossing, Harriet Hageman, Jillian Balow, Jimmy Skovgard, Protect Wyoming, Reid Rasner, Republican Party, Samuel Mead, The Law of Unintended Consequences

 

Scott Clem: Pride, Principle, And Who's Really Pulling The Strings