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

From Greed, 1925.

We're making a fortune. So if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump Dividend. Congratulations.

Donald Trump at the GOP Midterm Convention.

A person would have to be stupid on stilts to believe that promise, and a similar one has been extended before.

Seriously, what kind of a dumbass believes anything Trump promises at this point?

The fact that the GOP is having a "Midterm" convention is itself an example of outright desperation and hubris on the part of Trump.  Trump loves Trump and you must love Trump, so he's reminding you of Trump Love so that you love him and vote for the GOP candidates to show your mindless cult like love.

The fact of the matter is that everything associated with Trump is going badly and his approval ranking is sinking like a rock.  In Wyoming it's down to 54% and the impact of the tariffs on Canada haven't even hit yet, much.  The war hasn't ended, inflation is about to ramp back up, and Trump's own weirdness is now too weird for anyone to ignore. The result is that Democrats, who were slated to take back the House, now appear likely to take back the Senate as well.  Even in Wyoming there's some hint that the Senate may be in play and it's clear that a large number of people really aren't keen on Chuck Gray, who has been pretty quiet since the primary.

Indeed, I've seen a little lashing out at John Barrasso, who isn't running for anything.  Now days we mostly see Dr. John looking at Donald Trump as if he, Barrasso, is suffering from a severe case of constipation.  He may be, as he's kept his true views on everything, none of which we know, bottled up inside of himself for so long.  Anyhow, if people are mad at Barrasso, who seems to have forgotten which state he's from, it doesn't bode well for Hageman and Gray, although they are both clearly the favorites.

This does bring us to some questions that should be asked in the next two months, however.  Those being:

1.  Do you support the undeclared war against Iran, and if yes, how do you justify no declaration of war existing?

2.  On data centers, a big deal here in Wyoming, are you against them like seemingly the majority of Wyomingites are, or for them, like Donald Trump is?

3.  What is your position on public lands?

4. For people who go outside, there are clearly environmental matters to be concerned about. Do you have any concerns, and if no, just don't tell us "it's a big fib", as that's just telling us that you'll lie for votes.  What is your justification?

5.  Epstein files. Why aren't they being released.

6.  What is your real plan for balancing the budget and addressing the debt and show us that it works.

7.  Do you support ending the trade war with Canada?

A note, prior endorsements on running candidates are below in a separate thread as an Appendix, which is also linked in below..  I'm doing that in this edition so as to not clog up the first part of it too much.

September 11, 2026

Two events occured yesterday which should; 1) cause a sane nation to invoke the 25th Amendment and 2) cause every Republican running for office to have to answer where they stand or never be voted on again.

The first.

Trump sworn his acolytes in so that they will be able to be called up as Long Knives to attack the upcoming Republican defeat in November.

It's not the pledge to go out and vote.  Frankly, most MAGA isn't paying any attention this anyway.  

It's the pledge to cheat.

Things Trump says cannot any longer be dismissed.  People who think that one liner means nothing are ignoring recent history.  He intends to steal the election.  If he pulls that off, if he's still living and semi coherent, he intends to serve a third term.

The second was a truly bizarre video based on the Paul Harvey "God made farmers" video of years ago with a "God gave us Trump" theme.

This latches on to the extreme Evangelical leg of the MAGA stool.  It would make most Christians of any branch absolutely cringe, and to claim a Divine mission like this may be very well blasphemous.

The questions that should be asked, and of any Republican candidate?

1.  Will you support the results of the November election no matter what they are.  If there's any hedging at all, tell the person they don't have your support for anything whatsoever.

2. Do you believe that Trump has a Divine mission?  Any answer than an unqualified no should disqualify the candidate.

I can guarantee you that almost any GOP candidate, particularly if they don't know your view going into the question, will waffle and not give a straight answer.

Carrying on a bit, the religiosity of this midterm Republican convention is really something else.  Protestant ministers showed up to speak at it and Tim Scott sounded like an Evangelist.  At some point Protestants who are members of these communities really have to ask their pastors how they can reconcile their faith with a man who so clearly ignores Christianity. 

Closer to home, Harriet Hageman is ignoring calls for a debate with James Byrd and Byrd is calling her out on it.  His post from Facebook:

James Byrd for United States Senate

IF YOU WON'T FIGHT FOR WYOMING ON A DEBATE STAGE, WHO ARE YOU FIGHTING FOR?

Harriet Hageman won't stand on a stage. She won't return calls. She won't even respond. And now her silence is about to cancel the one chance Wyoming voters had to see both Senate candidates side by side.

You don't get to represent this state if you won't show up and defend what you believe in front of it. Silence isn't leadership. It's a candidate deciding Wyoming doesn't deserve a real conversation at all.

Tell Wyoming PBS: don't let her refusal to stand for what she believes in decide this for the rest of us.

Stand and fight.

That really is a chicken move by Hageman, but it seems to me she's taken that approach in the past as well.

In the past it struck me as arrogance.  She stopped debating as a wave of the hand type of move, although Grey Bull pulled down 25% of the vote in 2022 and Cameron 23% in 2024.  Here, it strikes me as fear.  Gray Bull was a good debater and still drew 25% in a year that heavily favored Hageman.  Now, with four years in, Hageman has an extremely exposed record.  She poked Wyoming voters in the eye on public lands and basically called them dumb.  In the category of dumb, her family's homestead burned to the ground but she still is a climate change denier.  She was endorsed by Trump and has yet to explain how Wyoming farmer and ranchers should view South American beef.  It's unfortunate that she lost to Mead, who was such a better candidate.

It's pretty questionable how she'd do in a debate against Byrd.  Byrd would likely best her, and what's more, he knows that.  So he's making her chicken move an issue.

Hageman ought to be held to account for hiding.

AN OPEN LETTER TO WYOMING PBS

August 11, 2026

To the Leadership of Wyoming PBS,

On August 10, our campaign was notified that Wyoming PBS would not be holding a primary debate for U.S. Senate, because our opponent declined the invitation to participate. A similar notice was given to Lisa Kinney, one of the Democratic candidates for Wyoming's U.S. House seat, whose opponent also declined. As a result, neither of Wyoming's federal Democratic primary races will be represented in a debate on Wyoming PBS this cycle.

I want the public to know directly: I did not refuse this invitation. I remain ready and willing to speak to Wyoming voters in this format, and if Wyoming PBS were to offer me the opportunity, I would be there.

We understand the position Wyoming PBS is in. Federal equal-time provisions limit what a broadcaster can do when only one candidate is willing to appear, so PBS can't simply offer a solo forum in place of a debate, and balancing that against the responsibility to keep voters informed is a hard job. We don't take issue with that constraint itself.

But we do take issue with the precedent this sets.

If one candidate declining is all it takes to cancel a debate outright, then any candidate who wants to dodge scrutiny now has a guaranteed way to do it. That's not a neutral policy. It rewards avoidance and punishes the candidate who actually showed up. It hands one side the power to decide, unilaterally, whether Wyoming voters get to see a debate at all. That is not how this is supposed to work.

When journalism requires the participation of good faith actors, rather than holding all individuals to account regardless of whether they participate, it will ultimately fail at its own goal of accountability. It is always easier to hide than to be held to account.

We've also noticed a related pattern: nominees who clear a primary and then simply skip general election debates too. Put these trends together, and debate participation stops being something candidates owe their constituents. It becomes optional for anyone who calculates they have more to lose than gain by showing up. That should worry Wyoming PBS as much as it worries us.

We are asking Wyoming PBS to make a public commitment that the U.S. House and Senate debates ahead of the Nov. 3, 2026 general election will occur, period. That commitment should hold true regardless of the participation of our opponents.

If a candidate refuses to show up, hold the debate anyway and leave their podium empty. Stations across the country already do this when a candidate declines. It lets voters still hear from the candidates who did show up, and it makes the absent candidate's choice visible instead of erasing the event altogether. Voters deserve to hear from all candidates in each race. Short of that, they deserve to see plainly which candidates showed up to answer for their records and which ones didn't. No candidate should get to use their own absence as a weapon to keep another candidate off the stage.

We'd also push Wyoming PBS to rethink its approach for future primary cycles. One candidate's refusal shouldn't be enough to cancel a debate outright, and that shouldn't hinge on how many candidates happen to be on a given party's ballot. A party fielding one or two contested candidates deserves the same debate access as a party fielding a dozen. Anything less penalizes voters for the size of their party's field, not for anything they did.

We appreciate the work Wyoming PBS does for this state, and we expect a response.

Sincerely,

James Byrd

Byrd for Wyoming See less

 

September 12, 2026

Opponents Blast Hageman, Gray For Skipping PBS Debates Ahead Of General Election

It turns out that neither Gray nor Hageman are willing to debate.

I'd have much less faith in Kinney being able to really do well in a debate against Gray, although she was a practicing lawyer and has been a legislator.  Additionally, Gray's default setting when he gets stressed is asshole.

Both Hageman and Gray's campaigns are defending their position to be chickens.  So are their diehard supporters.  But it isn't a good look.

September 16, 2026

Rod Miller: Proposition 1 And Rolling The Dice For Lives

Rod Miller voices his opinion about Proposition 1.

What the text of Prop 1 states is:

(xliii) A portion of property used as a primary residence as a homeowner’s exemption. The following shall apply to the homeowner's exemption:

(A) For property used as a primary residence, fifty percent (50%) of the assessed value of the primary property is exempt from property taxation as a homeowner's exemption. Not more than one (1) homeowner’s exemption shall apply to the same property in any year and no owner shall claim more than one (1) homeowner’s exemption in any year including property that is improved by a residence that houses more than one (1) family. To claim a homeowner’s exemption the person shall have been a resident of this state for not less than one (1) year prior to claiming an exemption under this paragraph and shall have resided in the applicable primary residence for at least six (6) months of the immediately preceding tax year. To claim a homeowner’s exemption, the owner of the property shall submit a sworn claim to the county assessor not later than the fourth Monday in May on forms provided by the department of revenue demonstrating that the person is the owner of the property, and that the property is the person's primary residence. False claims are punishable as provided by W.S. 6-5-303.

Basically this proposition was a Wyoming Freedom Caucus "I just moved here with lots of money from California, bought a McMansion or a 40 acre dirt farm, drove up everyone's property taxes, and I don't like it".  The proposition would gut local communities income like a fish, which most of these people don't care about as they truly hate the government and don't care about educating children, for instance, as they prefer ignorance.

We're voting no on Prop 1.

Indeed, this is the one thing we've actually answered a poll on. The poll was clearly supposed to be in favor prop 1 and the pollster, pretty clearly calling from some place in the South, didn't really know how to react to my answers to the questions.

Speaking of speaking, where's Harriet and Chuck on doing a debate?

Speaking of those two, there are questions as we proceed along that they should be made to answer.

Harriet, now that her home county is on fire again, should be forced to answer if she's willing to basically burn everything down to support the lie that climate warming isn't real.  We all know it's real. She no doubt knows it's real.  Why the fib?

Both should be made to answer if they support the illegal war against Iran and why?

And what about those diesel prices, eh?

On other matters, there's some rumors going around that Bill Allemand, the far right wing Freedom Caucus candidate who barely survived a primary challenge, may bail out of office.  Apparently he may run through the election, according to one version of it, and then bail out some time after that.  Without the Freedom Caucus crew in Cheyenne there's nobody to tell him what to do, and it would appear, generally, he needs somebody to tell him what to do and he knows that.  He's not going to have any friends any longer in Cheyenne either.

If he bails out now, he probably throws that race to the Libertarian running in the district, although there is a Democrat running as well.  He likely won't do that now and I'm not exactly sure what happens if he does.  The logical thing would be that the other GOP candidate from the primary would replace him through a party process.  If he drops out after the fall election, and if he wins it, the party would pick three names and send them to the County Commissioners who would pick the new legislator.

That, in fact, is how Chuck Gray first took office.

September 17, 2026

The propeller hat Dixiecrats in the GOP are at war with their own party.  Unfortunately for that party, they are also in control of a lot of county, and the state, committees.

Hence some of those organizations basically backing the losing campaign of carpetbagger Rebecca Bextel.

Sheridan County GOP Posts, Then Removes, Statement Backing Bextel Over Barlow

Tom Lubnau: The Wyoming GOP Aims A Gun At Its Own Foot

The party is really hypocritical.  This past year it endorsed candidates in the primary for the first time and basically told GOP voters who they had to vote for.  It endorsed Hageman, Gray, and Bien.   Bien came in third in the Governor's race and they've been pouting ever since.

Barlow, who won the Governor's race, swamped his opponents, taking 45% of the vote, but sad Dixiecrats note that 45% is not 50%, and therefore, they argue, he's not the legitimate candidate.  That logic is pretty flawed as he certainly is under Wyoming's law, and his only real rival in the campaign was Trump endorsed Degenfelder, who took 30%.  Dixiecrat darling Bien took 24% and sad Confederates note that if you add Degenfelder and Bien together, that's more than 50%.

It is, but it assumes that Degenfelder voters would have voted for Bien if she hadn't been running. The opposite is probably true.  The 1/3 bottom of the bell curve probably would have voted for Trump knighted Degenfelder if Bien hadn't been running, but Degenfelder voters in large part would likely have gone for Barlow if Bien hadn't thrown his gray kepi into the ring.  If anyone had an argument here, therefore, it would be Degenfelder.

Neither Bien or Degenfelder, who hope to dig out of their holes rather than convert them into political graves have said anything about the results being illegitimate but upset WFC members have a bit, for Bien.  They tried to get a write in campaign going for him and at least locally one badly defeated WFC  member still is.  Others, including some committee members, are backing Bextel, who will lose massively in November.

The Constitution Party itself, which support a strict reading of a double secret constitution only they know about, is open enough itself to admit that it's hoping that Bextel can pull down 10% of the vote so that it can be a "major" party.  Under Wyoming's law on primaries, which I believe to be unconstitutional, that would make the party the very model of a modern major party.

That result might occur and it might actually be a good thing, although anyone voting for Bextel, as noted, fits into the bottom end of the bell curve.  What it would do, however, is give propeller hat wearing Dixiecrats a place to actually go, and they should go there. They are not Republicans.

Lubnau notes that upset Dixiecrats in GOP committees positions oddly don't make the same argument about Freedom Caucus darling Chuck Gray, who only pulled down 25% of the vote.  While Barlow isn't threatened by Bextel, Gray actually may be by Libertarian Johnson and Democrat Kinney.  I wouldn't have given Kinney any chance at all, but Gray's refusing to debate her is actually elevating her status.

On Sheridan County, while some on its GOP committee may be crying in their Bomber Mountain Amber Ale, the results were the same as they were statewide.  Barlow swamped his competition and while Bien did come in second there, he only barely beat out Degenfelder.  Again, those Degenfelder votes would have most likely gone to Barlow.  And Gray only barely beat out Biteman and Christensen there.

One final thing to note. Teton County, where Bextel has hung her kepi, and Sheridan County, are the homes to a lot of rich carpetbaggers.  These people tend to vote their own economic interests, and not paying taxes and telling the peasants to go **** *** are in that category.  Like the rank and file in Confederate Gray in the 1860s, a lot of that rank and file (which here includes a lot of carpetbaggers) tend to be dim enough to follow the dictates of their oligarchic masters.  We're seeing that, and frankly just a lot of real bottom of the bell curve ignorance, at work on these topics.

On other topics, Postmaster General David Steiner wants to quit his job, according to insiders.

He should as he's serving a madman.

The Post Office has been in the news recently as Trump keeps ordering it to impose impossible regulations on mail in voting, which Trump himself uses, as part of Trump's effort to interfere with and steal the November election. The Supreme Court won't let him so he's having a major tantrum.

cont:

Holy smokes. . Rebecca Bextel has released a campaign video.  Buckhorn Bar t-shirt aside (after a certain age, no matter how doe eyed you may be, you can't pull that off), she sounds like the biggest Alabama hick ever.  Her accent is so thick it's really impressive.  Trying to use the tag line "you don't have to be smart to be governor", she unintentionally sounds to native Westerners as Southern hick, which is admittedly a stereotype, given that's how Westerners tend to view Southerners.  Southerners probably are unaware of that.  

Bextel has lived in Wyoming for 20 years, which  means that she's hardly lived here any time at all.  And she lives in Teton County, which Deep Wyoming regards as California.

Anyhow, in terms of actual intelligence, Barlow is a veterinarian, one of the most difficult degrees to obtain.  Bextel has a degree from the University of Alabama, although I don't know in what.

Becky also tried to sound tough in a recent Chamber of Commerce appearance by claiming she had "bigger balls" than her opponent.

Pretty insightful, really.  She had to demean her status as a woman in order to have merit in her own eyes.

The Dixiecrats.  Just go home.

September 18, 2026

Harriet Hageman wrote a guest column in the Cowboy State Daily regarding birth right citizenship.

Guest Column: Birth Tourism Is Diluting American Citizenship. Here’s What Trump Should Do

Hageman won't debate her opponents and probably for good reason.  She's arrogantly supported a bill that would have set public lands up to be privatized and essentially called Wyomingites' opposing it stupid.  She claimed to be a "Constitutional Conservative" but has done nothing about Trump running roughshod over the Constitution, including waging an illegal war that's driving up prices for everyone in the state.  She has nothing to campaign on and American's short attention span doesn't allow for a "I'm not Liz Cheney" as a platform.  With Trump down to a 54% approval rating in Wyoming, "I love Trump" is starting not to sell so well either.  So she's taking a page out of the Desperate GOP Playbook, that being hordes of foreigners are coming here to have babies, or in this particular case, hordes of Chinese are coming to have babies.

Well, in reality, for the first time in fifty years the US had negative migration last year. That is, more people are leaving the US than entering it.  The US has been teetering on the edge of rapid decline for years, but Trump has floored the accelerator on that, with the help of Republicans in Congress, and the country looks like a joke.  China, the nation which Harriet maintains is trying to plant vast hordes of babies into our country, is the clearly up and coming nation.

The truth of the matter is that this problem, if there was one, has pretty much jumped the shark.  While I'm really skeptical of it being a crisis, right wing demographers right now are arguing the opposite problem, that being that the US population is actually starting to decline, that decline accelerated by the country having become unwelcoming to foreigners.  The solution is supposed to be for (white) Americans to get busy, so to speak.

That interestingly cuts in an opposite direction for a person like Hageman, and it really stands in contrast to Cheney.  Cheney, now 60 years of age, is a Gen Xer and the mother of five children.  Hageman (age 63) is technically a Baby Boomer (perhaps more accurately a Gen. Jonser) with no children whatsoever.  Both are lawyers, but Hageman looks a lot more like a feminist in every fashion.  Indeed, as I slightly knew here, and knew her friends better, I was quite surprised early on when she emerged as a Conservative.

I'm well aware, of course, that these sorts of questions aren't even supposed to be raised in polite society, but we no longer live in a polite society and people like Hageman are part of the reason why we do not. So the questions are fair game.

Anyhow, Hageman may have some accomplishments but I don't know what they are, and whatever they are, they to not appear to be large enough to justify voting for her.  Mostly she's been a Trump loyalist right up until recently, and an opponent of public lands.  She's complicit in the failures of the Trump Administration by doing nothing, or actively supporting them, and she's detrimental to the interest of Wyoming.

Time, therefore, to drag out the Hordes Of Chinese Babies Have Landed on Our Shores line.

September 19, 2026

Why does this not surprise me?

Rebecca Bextel Says Legal Battle With Wyoming Game And Fish Is Political

Wealthy carpetbagger acts like a wealthy carpetbagger in Lincoln County.

Rebecca Bextel Says Legal Battle With Wyoming Game And Fish Is Political

Go back to Alabama where you belong, Becky.

September 21, 2026

Outrageous.

Harriet Hageman goes after Conservation Easements.

Wyoming sportsmen, and frankly everybody, cannot support the candidacy of Harriet Hageman.  She's in the public lands hater category.

She just introduced this bill.

119th CONGRESS 1st Session

H. R. 2773

To provide that the Secretary of the Interior may not enter into certain conservation easements with a term of more than 30 years, and for other purposes.

---

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

April 9, 2025

Ms. Hageman (for herself and Ms. Fedorchak) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources

---

A BILL

To provide that the Secretary of the Interior may not enter into certain conservation easements with a term of more than 30 years, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Landowner Easement Rights Act”.

SEC. 2. Limitation on conservation easement terms.

After the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary may not enter into a conservation easement with a term of more than 30 years.

SEC. 3. Renegotiation of conservation easements.

At the request of an owner of land that is subject to an eligible conservation easement, the Secretary shall—

(1) not later the 6 months after the Secretary receives the request from the landowner, provide to the landowner—

(A) a detailed map of the easement; and

(B) notice of the current fair market value of the easement as determined by the Secretary; and

(2) renegotiate the terms of the eligible conservation easement, including—

(A) a term not longer than 30 years; and

(B) payment by the Secretary to the landowner in an amount equal to the fair market value of the easement, as determined by the Secretary under paragraph (1)(B), minus the amount paid by the Secretary for the eligible conservation easement being renegotiated (adjusted for inflation); or

(3) allow the landowner to buy back the eligible conservation easement or a portion of the eligible conservation easement at fair market value, as determined by the Secretary.

SEC. 4. Notice to landowners.

The Secretary shall notify the owner of the land subject to that conservation easement of the owner’s right to submit a request under section 3—

(1) not later than 3 months before the conservation easement becomes an eligible conservation easement described in section 5(2)(A); and

(2) not later than 1 year before the conservation easement becomes an eligible conservation easement described in section 5(2)(B).

SEC. 5. Definitions.

In this Act:

(1) CONSERVATION EASEMENT.—The term “conservation easement”—

(A) means a voluntary, legal agreement between a landowner and the Secretary that limits use of the land in order to protect its conservation values; and

(B) does not include agreements—

(i) with Indian Tribes; or for

(ii) related to utilities.

(2) ELIGIBLE CONSERVATION EASEMENT.—The term “eligible conservation easement” means a conservation easement that—

(A) has been in effect for longer than 30 years; or

(B) was put into effect before 1977 without the creation of an official corresponding map.

(3) SECRETARY.—The term “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Interior.

This just guts conservation easements that the Federal Government participates in.  It make the easement no easement at all.

Why on earth did people vote for Hageman in the primary?

With this outrage, we will close out this edition.

Prior related recent threads:

Something is going on, and I'm not the only one sensing it.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Adam Kinzinger, Canada, Donald Trump, Evangelical, Food, Immigration, inflation, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, The Trump Trade War with Canada, Trump Trade Wars, United States

Appendices:

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

Last edition:

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

Labels: Bill Allemand, Constitution Party, Democratic Party, Economics, Industry, Joe Porambo, Karlee Provenza, Keenan Morgan, Libertarian, Ogden Driskill, Republican Party, Rod Miller, Tamara Trujillo, Wyoming (Natrona County)2026 Election, Ana Cordova, Brent Bien, Bryan McCarty, Chuck Gray, Eric Barlow, Harriet Hageman, James Byrd, Kenneth Casner, Kevin Christensen, Rebecca Bextel, Robert Short, Shaun Johnson, Steve Harshman, Wyoming

Additional Labels

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

The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part two.

 

August 2, 2026

I wasn't going to do this, but the last thread just became too darned long and was creating havoc in the blog accordingly.

So, here we have our 18th edition for this season.  We'll abstain on predicting this one will run all the way until the primary, but the primary is only a little over two weeks away.

Here we note a very interesting item:

Joan Barron: Is A GOP Sea Change On The Way?

Phil Roberts, the legally trained University of Wyoming professor predicts that Harriet Hageman will lose.  That amounts to a prediction, without him saying so, that Sam Mead will win.

I sure hope he's right.

Hageman has been characterized by being nasty in public, while in the background she behaves more like a conventional Congressman.  Be that as it may, up until just a week ago or so she was a diehard Trump fan and in the category of enemies of public lands. When concerned Wyomingites wrote to her about their concerns on public land she basically called the stupid.

She needs to go.

A prediction if she does.  Wyoming "ranch girl" or no, she'll never come back. She owned a house in D.C. before she was even elected.

The author here notes that he voted last week.  And, we voted for:

Governor:  Barlow.

Senate:  Mead

House of Representatives:  Christensen.

Secretary of State:  Short.

Superintendent of Public Instruction: Harshman

On people needing to go, Chuck Gray needs to depart politics, and preferably the state, as well.  Based on early rumors, that might well happen, but if it does, it looks like it may be Steve Friess who gains the state's seat in Congress.  Friess is seemingly really cutting into Gray's numbers.  

At the same time, it's pretty clear that Kevin Christensen is also rising.  Christensen is gaining the support of moderate Republicans and those concerned about public lands. Early on it was assumed these votes would go to Balow but Balow has really disappointed in this race to date, including making statements that would cut towards Trump when, as Barron has noted in her article, people even in Wyoming may be moving in the opposite direction.  I expected Balow to lead this race early on and hoped for her to replace Gray, but now I'm in the camp that has gone to Christensen.

August 4, 2026

A variety of odds and ends.

First, the real Republicans placed an add with Real Republican candidates in the CST:

I don't know much about some of these candidates, but do about others, or their opponents.  

Elissa Campbell is a one term incumbent who is being challenged by Pete Fox, a far right wing candidate who claims not be aligned with the Freedom Caucus but whom everyone pretty much is sure he is.  Julie Jarvis is also a one term incumbent who is being challenged by Jeanette Ward, a Chicago carpetbagger who is one of the original, and most extreme, WFC members who held the same seat for one term.

Engbretson is seeking to unseat extreme WFC landlord Bob Ide.  Ide obtained this seat several years ago by somehow unseating Drew Perkins.  Ide has been a disaster in terms of his extreme views.

Rob Hendry is a long time Wyoming local politician who lost his seat and is now seeking to take Lien's.  Hendry was a Natrona County Commissioner for several years before losing his seat.  Lien defeated long time legislator Tom Walters to obtain her seat in the last election, which was one in which the WFC did relatively well.

The CST also ran a copy of the ballot.

In other election news, Reid Rasner, who has released a flood of gadfly video shorts, hit on the Gabe Saint story.

This story was actually broken two years ago by The Laramie Reporter, who deserves credit for bringing it to light.

A rising figure within Wyoming’s far right engages regularly with white supremacist and antisemitic content

Somehow Rasner must have stumbled onto the story, but it's been out there all along and really should have been news as the underlying story is reprehensible  Whether Saint holds racist views or not I don't know, but he was flirting with websites that raise the question.  Some of the sites, moreover, are Francoist, which says a lot about the views the young man flirts with.

So does the fact that he recovered from being canned and brought Charlie Kirk to the University of Wyoming.  I've never been able to make up my mind about Kirk and of course Kirk's assassination means the final variant of Kirk is unknown to the world. But Kirk had entered the public sphere as an adherent of the Seven Mountains movement which has a distinct weltanschauung that most Americans would not share.  It's safe to assume, accordingly, that Saint is some sort of Christian Nationalist.

The fact that Saint survived being fired and went on to be Gray's campaign manager, while being a law student, says plenty about his drive, but it also says a lot about how a tiny independent news outlet really can't break a story nationwide.  If the story had been broken by WyoFile or the CST, Saint would be done for, and he should be, or at least he should be on a long hiatus.

The fact that Saint ended up as Gray's campaign manager says something about Gray.  Either he isn't paying attention to things at all, or he doesn't mind the association Saint has with movements that he's dabbled at looking at.  Or he's satisfied that Saint doesn't really hold such views.

I'll note that I've heard Saint talk in an informal occasion where his guard was really down on one occasion.  Given that, my impression is really unfair, but he came across as an arrogant asshole.  On that occasion he was dissing the professors of the University of Wyoming as being wholly liberal and seemed to literally despise the education he was receiving.  At the same time, however, I'll note that he was under the impression, inaccurately, of being the only one in the group, a rural crowd, to have ever attended university and arrogance amongst the young is pretty common.

One of Gray's competitors is Steve Friess, whom Republican insider Susan Stubson has an article about:

(OPINION) Plenty of Jack

Stubson is correct, Friess is basically flooding the zone with money and this is a test of whether, basically, a candidate in Wyoming can buy a seat in Congress.  That well trod road is the same one that Gray managed to trod to his current position as Secretary of State, albeit barely.  

Friess flyers who up in my mailbox constantly and the last one was really telling.  It promised to pass the SAVE Act. 

Any candidate promising to pass the SAVE Act shouldn't be voted on for anything ever as its wholly anti democratic.  It also promises to "Buck mail-in voter fraud" which it claims will help prevent liberals from stealing the election.

There's no threat liberals are going to steal an election, but the MAGA GOP is trying to steal the 2026 election right now.

Freiss was the target of a black money mailer by some group styling itself the Hometown Action Network.  It's shows Friess being bucked off a horse and notes he's not local.  It doesn't come out for anyone, however. We'd have to presume it's pro Gray, who nobody has ever seen with a horse.  

Indeed, of those running for this position who are the top contenders, Gray, Friess, Christensen, Rasner, and Balow, we know by far the least about Gray.  Indeed, hardly anything at all is known about him personally.

Neither Gray nor Friess deserve a vote.

Rasner, of course, will receive very few.  His candidacy is doomed and he's sort of faded from view.  I did see one large Rasner sign the other day, but it's safe to say at this point his political career in Wyoming is over.  What he's serving to do right now is to carve votes away from Gray, and that is a public service.  The question is whether those votes carved away end up going to Friess or a better candidate.

Going back to Albany County, a former Democratic candidate for the US House is running for a seat as an Albany County Commissioner.

Ben-David promises a scientific approach in bid for Albany County Commission seat

A climate change activist and former researcher, Merav Ben-David said water security is her top priority. She is one of four Democrats competing to be one of the party’s two nominees.

August 5, 2026

This notes an interesting feature of this election, that being politicians taking more credit for something than their entitled to, or backing something that isn't controversial at all.

First the backing:

It Seems Like Everyone Is Running On Wendy Schuler’s Trans Sports Ban

This is the flipside of the false accusation:

Barlow Says Attack Ads On Sex Changes And Illegal Immigrants Aren't True

And then there's the bold position on a non issue.  Every single candidate claims to support the 2nd Amendment.  From Wyoming?  D'uh.

The campaign propaganda is therefore really not helpful.  Some PAC is pointing out that Friess is a rich carpetbagger. Well, so is Gray. So was Chapman.

Still, some things are revealing. Friess notes he'd back the SAVE Act.  That means he's in favor of reducing democracy.  Friess, Gray and Degenfelder would all propose marriage to Trump.  

People are looking beyond these.  Yesterday a really conservative Republican I know, and a thoughtful one, told me he was supporting Giralt  I'm not, I'm going for Christensen, as are two other people I personally know.  

August 6, 2026

Rep. Jayme Lien called WYDOT to complain about the placement of Rob Hendry sign.  Rob noted it with bemusement and posted a photo of a questionable Lien sign in terms of placement.

Chuck Gray was apparently his recently spastic self in a debate for the House.  He posted thereafter a peppy owning the libs post, but he's coming across as an ass, as he is one.  His interview by a Cowboy State Daily female reporter, which is on video, is really a prime example.  That alone would preclude his election in a decent society.

All indications are that Christensen is really moving up.

Bob Ide called Lisa Engebretsen's supporters "Camo Clad Leftists"

Ide runs around dressing like a cowboy, and apparently has some ranching background and some cattle, but he's landlord.  The Camo Clad Engebretsen supporters are local outdoorsmen who are awake to Ide's grab the Federal land stand.

Ide needs to leave the legislature.  Better yet, he can give up on being a landlord and head out into the sticks and punch cows full time.  He already has the clothes and everything.

This is the first time, by the way, I've seen a politician accuse sportsmen of being "leftists".  

August 7, 2026

One to close the week out on:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 7. The jackass in a tin barn edition.

We weren't really ready to start a new one of these, but Chuck Gray has been in such rare form recently as it starts to look like he's going to lose in ten days and his dreams of a carpetbagging political career be crushed, that it mandates it.

Gray, as Secretary of State, sits on a variety of state boards and has been using that position to attempt to advance his campaign for higher office, any higher office, all along.  Generally in the global warming is a fib camp, he at one time was okay with development projects of all types but now is anti "woke wind".  Lots of people don't like the viewscape and land use aspect of wind and solar farms, and he's hoping to tap into that dislike, but he's such a disagreeable pissant he can't seem to say it that way.  Nor can he explain his prior positions.

The real gem in this is that he almost voted to preclude use of an access road to a power substation that provides power to farmers on the basis that it might receive electrical power from solar farms or wind farms or provide power to data centers.

When the State treasurer noted that this meant, he changed his vote, but had to blame the whole thing on somebody else.

Gordon: Gray Sounds Like 'Jackass In A Tin Barn' For Blaming Data Center Vote On Gov

Gray Changes Mind On Power Station Access After Spat With Curt Meier

Data centers are now big in the news around here, and for good reason.  Gray is opposing them as he figures it's good politics.  Put a gigantic strip mine in over the same area, and he'd be all for it.  It's difficult to tell from one moment to the next if Republican candidates this year are members of the Flat Earth Society or Greenpeace.

Gray is particularly disgusting.  He's consistently rude and nasty.  It's difficult to understand why anyone would vote for him, unless they're really duped.

On Chuck, columnist Tom Lubnau came out with a column belatedly endorsing Steve Friess.  The column is a good one.

I like Lubnau but there's no way on earth I'm voting for Steve Friess.  Friess is higher grade of carpetbagger Trump suck up than Chuck Gray, who is simply vile, but they're cut essentially from the same cloth.  Friess, granted, isn't a jackass, but that's the main difference between the two of them.

Lubnau admits he had another favorite but started to be swayed by the big mass endorsement of Friess last week by a collection of Republican figures.  He'd earlier criticized Friess campaign which he criticized as "anyone but Chuck", and there is some of that view going around.  Quite frankly, I can say that anyone would be better than Gray.  But that means he abandoned a better candidate at least in part because he through Friess is the second in line contender.

We're not so sure of that.  It appears that Christensen has been coming up like crazy.  He's the only Republican whose views actually alight with most of the state's voters and the only one who has a background common to Wyomingites.  

He might be able to pull it off.

August 8, 2026

Trump backed U.S. Rep Andy Ogles, Tennessee, went down in defeat to Charlie Hatcher, the Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture from 2018-2025.

Trump backed Navy Veteran Amir Hassan lost his primary bid Michigan's 8th Congressional District to Thomas Smith, who had actually earlier dropped out of the race.

Hmm. . . .

News reports have shown that Friess, Rasner and Gray have spent massive amounts in their bid for the House.  Friess has now spent more than Rasner, who has spent a huge amount.

Frankly, the expenditures here justify not voting for any of these people in no small part because, in relative terms, very little of the money comes from inside of Wyoming and quite a bit of it is self funding.  A person who would spend $1M or more in family money for an office that pays what these do, isn't acting prudently and won't once they take office, if they do.

August 9, 2026

The Oil City News published some letters to the paper today, which in their case almost amount to small op-eds in some circumstances.

Some are really worth reading.

(LETTERS) Chuck Gray’s data handling and ‘election integrity,’ Sen. Ide’s voting record

The first letter's points are so well delivered that they're impossible to counter.  Had Joe Biden's administration asked for Wyoming's voter registration information Chuck Gray would have refused to deliver it.  Indeed, it'd be a major plank of  his current bid for office.

But as Trump asked for it, well, that's okay with him.  

The administration's efforts have been knocked down now by over twenty courts.  But as Wyoming is sitting like a bump on a log on this, there's no chance of Wyoming retrieving its confidential information or of Gray being tried.

This really should go to Court.  What a judge should do is order Chuck to retrieve the data within 24 hours of an injunction to that effect being ordered or to go to jail for contempt for every day he can't get it done.

The fact that Gray sprinted to deliver confidential information to the Federal Government is simply appalling.   And it also provide plenty of evidence of what think intellectual greul the Freedom Caucus, which Gray helped bring to Wyoming, is serving.  They really aren't interested in Freedom.

August 10, 2026

Well, we're in the last full week of campaigning.

Expect this week to feature a mailer blitz, and as candidate Barlow notes, a lot of it is going to be pure shit.

August 11, 2026

It really doesn't need saying, but a collection of utter fools around here are still focused on this complete and utter non issue.

Yes, Wyoming voters, your elections are safe and secure

As I figured it would, the flyers are as thick as flies at a picnic right now.  Yesterday one for Hageman, one for Short, and one for Friess showed up, along with a letter from Scott Smith, who is running for treasurer.  

A walker showed up as well, with a joint flyer for Hageman and Bien, the second time they've showed up. He politely left with his flyers when informed his mission was pointless.

Apparently attack flyers are being circulated in favor of Pete Fox, implicitly, by attacking Elissa Campbell.  They claim she voted in favor of abortion when in fact she voted against the clearly unconstitutional laws that have in fact been ruled unconstitutional by the Wyoming Supreme Court.  

On that issue, I'm as opposed to abortion as any living human being, but the WFC really shows the lack of courage of its convictions here.  It was the proto WFC folks who amended the state's constitution to protect us from the Obama death panels. . . a product of their fevered imagination.  This could all be fixed by repealing the health decisions amendment but they won't attempt it as they know that most Wyomingites aren't die hard anti abortion.  So they need to try to force their view through the courts, something they supposedly hate happening.  It didn't work and now they're attacking the courts and also using the topic to try to preserve if not expand their place in the legislature. 

This sort of cowardly behavior is really a hallmark of the current GOP. The lockstep votes in Congress really show it.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic Senatorial candidate from Michigan, showed up on Face the Nation last weekend.

Dr. El-Sayed is freaking the Democrats out nationally as he's yet another Democrat whose branded as a Democratic Socialist.  The Democrats are in fear that the primaries are going to ruin their chances of taking back Congress through the choice of "extreme" candidates.

I don't think so.

I think that the Democratic party is misreading a national shift in young voters views, but I'll deal with that in a separate thread.  Anyhow, Dr. El-Sayed, in his interview, didn't come across as a Socialist at all, but rather as . . . a Distributist.  Indeed, he nearly used the classic line of Chesterton about the problem with capitalism being too few capitalists, and he declared himself to be a capitalist, making a distinction between capitalism and corporatism, which we've often made here.  He also spoke extensively about health care for all, which frankly isn't that scary of idea for most people under 65 years of age anymore.

Soon thereafter Donald Trump posted this:

I'm really at the point where I constantly wonder how dense Donald Trump really is.  In a couple of other posts here I've called him dumb and stupid.  I don't use those terms lightly, but I really think he's a very dim man.

He's also very isolated and I fear kept that way.  This actually illustrates a good p oint I don't think he meant to.

On the left we see Trump, wearing a tuxedo, which most American men do not own, and Melanija Knavs, a Slovenian former model whose fame, had it not been for marrying Trump, would be the fading memory of her nude body in an add for something.  This was apparently taken at the last inaugural ball.  

Frankly, in any more decent age Trump's marriage to a woman who had openly engaged in what is a pornographic image would have precluded him from being President. But then also, Trump was a playboy serial polygamist and that would have precluded it as well.  Knavs is dressed in a Herve Pierre designed dress.  The price of the dress has not been publicly revealed, but Pierre's dresses start in the low $1,000s and run up to the mid $4,000s, which is not unreasonable for such things.

So, on the left, basically, we have the carefless class of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, or Trump's case, perhaps more accurately, the imperial class of pre revolutionary Russia.  There's actually nothing to admire about Trump professionally or politically at all, but he loves himself and you are supposed to love him.

On the right, we have Dr. El-Sayed and his wife Dr. Sarah Jukaku, a practicing psychiatrist, two accomplished individuals.  They met as students and have two children.  In speaking of their marriage, El-Sayed sounds like a traditionalist Catholic.

But he's Muslim, and in this photo, that's why you are supposed to hate him.

And that says a lot about the mindset of those still supporting Trump, and who assume you support Trump.  You are supposed to love a wealthy vapid playboy who is a serial polygamist and has no personal or demonstrable religious beliefs at all, and who is making the rich richer and the poor poorer, because, well, he's white and people like El-Sayed are darker.  And you are supposed to hate Elissa Campbell because the Freedom Caucus is too cowardly to try to take on a constitutional amendment they now know was the product of paranoia.  And you are supposed to support Degenfelder and Hageman as Trump endorsed them, even if that means, implicitly, supporting what we've noted above as well as a losing war in the Middle East.

And for some people, that will be enough.

FWIW, El-Sayed was actually asked about the photo and really reacted to it, saying:

He’s right. One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other but joined in the interest in making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely love each other enjoying some pancakes together who want to come together to build the kind of America where we can raise a family and that family has goes things.

You’ve got two different visions of America: Donald Trump’s vision is the one you’re living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe, when you look your kids in the eye, that they’re going to have a better future than you did?

El-Sayed is a very quick thinker and an excellent speaker. That's a really pointed reaction.  I frankly don't know what Knavs' reason for being with  Trump is, but it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for her at this point and when they're both together, it's a little creepy.  

El-Sayed went on and stated; "Sarah and I like each other.  I don’t know about the first lady and the president, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a bit of a rocky road."

That's a pretty good defense.

On a somewhat different note, following up what I've noted above, I pass a place every day which is sprouting an ever growing crop of WFC candidate signs.  All the main ones are there, Bien, Hageman, etc., but also people like Jeske.  The funny thing is, I know that the premises owner is a felon whose son is the pen for a felony.  

Their criminal problems aside, it's pathetic.  By all appearances these people aren't doing well but there they are, supporting a group of people who would screw them completely. Why?

I'm sure there's a whole boatload of speculation on that very topic, but this year, it's oddly common.  

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 17th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does.*

2026 Election, Carpetbaggers, Cynthia Lummis, Donald Trump, Enemies of Public Lands, Liz Cheney, Politics, Public Land, Republican Party, Richard Dodson, Wyoming, Wyoming Freedom Caucus, Doug Burgum, Elon Musk, Frank Chapman, J. R. Riggins, Jim Geringer, Kevin Christensen, National Conservatism, Neil Jeske, Reid Rasner, Tom Lubnau,Bo Biteman, Brent BienChuck Gray, Eric Barlow, Francoism, Harriet Hageman, James Byrd, Jillian Balow, Megan Degenfelder, Predictions, Samuel Mead, Steve Friess, Steve Harshman, Yeoman's Thirty-first law of behavior 

The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part two. More labels.