Women casting votes, for the first time in the United States, in a national election. Wyoming Territory. Wyoming was the first state to grant women the full franchise. Are Wyoming's women a political demographic today? Well, in some sense they must be, but it doesn't seem to really reflect itself in the polls in a discernible fashion.
Indeed, as I ponder putting it up (or not) it occurs to me that its way, way to easy to be misunderstood on so many levels. For one thing, even mentioning demographic information opens a person up to charge of bias. Simply noting a demographic trend isn't bias, but some folks sure see it that way. This post certainly isn't intended to do that at all.
Anyhow, I abandoned the thread, but then the primary election occurred, and along with it was the surprising late campaign surge of megabucks outsider Foster Friess, who ended up taking a selection of Wyoming counties. And that sort of raises this issue once again. Even at that, tracking the declining days of World War One (which will see declining posts here afterwards, as the multiple daily posts will go away at that time, even if the blog doesn't), also put this on the shelf. And the election grew really quiet.
But it's heating up a little now. At least I'm getting flyers in the mail once again.
All this makes reading this a bit awkward, as some of it was written prior to the primary and it's now out of context. I'll try to note that where it occurs.
So I start once again with the original title of this thread, which is a question.
Dare we speak of demographics and Wyoming politics?
We don't.
But perhaps we should.
Or maybe its best we shouldn't, as its almost certain to be misunderstood. And frankly, its rather difficult to write cogently about.
Much to my regret, we're entering the political season already and have, at this time, at least four serious candidates. . . well two serious candidates and Rex Ramell plus Taylor Haynes, contending for the Governorship. I wish they'd all have waited, but it seems the rush is on. (Note, written prior to the primary)
And in that rush what we have so far is one conventional candidate, the Democratic candidate Mary Throne, and three candidates tacking for the extreme right. One of those candidates, gadfly Idahoan veterinarian Rex Rammell is taking shots at another one for not being extreme enough, branding himself "Wyoming's Trump", by which he means Idaho's rejected Trump, presumably (go home Rex, you're annoying). Only one Republican is in the middle, and he's largely in the middle by comparison. He's otherwise be regarded as conservative, or at least he would have been up until recent years. (Note, written prior to the primary).
But this brings up an interesting topic, given the initial extremism in the GOP camp (again, note that this was written prior to the primary).
Wyoming has some interesting political demographics. . . but we pretend it doesn't. We only hint at some of them. . . and we ignore others even if they exist. We do this partially because our demographic situation does not match that of the larger country, and in part barbecue its easier to ignore them than discuss them.
But perhaps it should acknowledge that it does. Maybe we should take a look at them.
And, in my revised version of this, perhaps there's some evidence that demographics are now playing a role in the election in a way that they didn't previously. It would figure, after all, that they would, in a year which has been to date, pretty extreme.
And, in my revised version of this, perhaps there's some evidence that demographics are now playing a role in the election in a way that they didn't previously. It would figure, after all, that they would, in a year which has been to date, pretty extreme.
The Demographic Stage
To start off with this, there's some interesting facts we have to acknowledge. Indeed, savvy outsiders acknowledge them even if Wyomingites don't. I've heard, for example, pretty good demographic analysis coming from airline passenger seats as people fly into town. . . but not by people who are really from here.
No place is free from its own history. Part of that history is the culture of the people who came into the state at some point, no matter when that might be.
And that might explain, right now, why part of the extreme right of the GOP is fighting about has more to do with the Wyoming of 1857-58 and the Wyoming of 1889 to 1893 than it does with contemporary Wyoming, even if we don't recognize it. And the failure to grasp that might explain why the GOP keeps falling on its face in this area.
Okay, so what do I mean by all of this?
The Dakota Territory in 1861, which included most of Wyoming, as had Nebraska Territory, and Idaho Territory. This map reveals more about contemporary Wyoming that we might otherwise suspect. Wikipedia Creative Commons
Well let's start off with who the people are who are here. Only about half of Wyoming's population, at any one time, is made up of people who were born here. But not all people who have come in are the same by any means. Of the people who moved here, quite a few of them are made up of sort of a regional population exchange. That is, about 50% of Wyomingites are natives. 50% are not. But of the 50% who are not, a fairly high percentage of them are from North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, and Montana (I don't run into people from Idaho very often, but my guess is that on the western edge of the state you do). Basically, that means that while a lot of Wyomingites aren't from Wyoming, they are from what had been part of one big territory in the 1860s, or neighboring territories, so they're actually in large part from an actual geographic region.
That matters as while we are so acclimated to conceiving of our states as natural regions, they aren't in someways, while they are in others. If we take the Rocky Mountain and Northern Plains region as a natural region, which it is geographically, culturally and historically, you get a different picture. People born in Nebraska or North Dakota, for example, might not be Wyomingites in the "born here" sense, but we're all Northern Plainers. Recently I've been working a lot in Colorado and have found, interestingly enough, that people who were born in Denver and grew up there, including professional people, sometimes go to great lengths to inform a person that they are natives, and not imports. Indeed, we're all from a region that was once part of the same political entity to a large degree.
That matters as while we are so acclimated to conceiving of our states as natural regions, they aren't in someways, while they are in others. If we take the Rocky Mountain and Northern Plains region as a natural region, which it is geographically, culturally and historically, you get a different picture. People born in Nebraska or North Dakota, for example, might not be Wyomingites in the "born here" sense, but we're all Northern Plainers. Recently I've been working a lot in Colorado and have found, interestingly enough, that people who were born in Denver and grew up there, including professional people, sometimes go to great lengths to inform a person that they are natives, and not imports. Indeed, we're all from a region that was once part of the same political entity to a large degree.
Denver's Coors Stadium, September 28, 2018. A lot of Wyomingites follow Denver sports fanatically, and a lot of Coloradans come up to Wyoming for recreation. Makes sense. It's all part of the same greater region.
Not that we're all exactly the same, that's not true of any demographic.
But that does mean that we share an awful lot.
And one of the things we share is that we're not New Yorkers, Texans or Californians.*
Now that may sound rather peevish, but its true. And that's why politicians that claim to be from "the West" can come into this region and say something downright offensive. Indeed, that's why, particularly from natives, somebody like Foster Friess coming in and claiming to have grown up on a ranch is guaranteed to offend us. And that' also why imports to the region, although we'll often elect them to office, very often have no real grasp on the local culture and views at all. They're not from here and they learn, instead, what they think Westerners want, which is probably more often than not what Texans want. We're not Texans. And we're not Midwesterners or Southerners either.
And, as we'll see, issues that are important to rural Southerners or people from San Antonio, or whatever, aren't necessarily important to us.
Port Arthur Texas' public library. That's not our library and we're not in Port Arthur. Some politicians last go around seemed not to realize that.
Okay, so who are we then?
Well, taking a look again at Wyoming in general, Wyoming has basically been settled by about eight groups, or at least has eight demographic groups, it seems to me; those being: 1) Native Americans, 2) Homesteaders and Agriculturalist (who are divided strongly into two groups, ranchers and farmers, which are not the same), 2) Blue Collar Workers, 4) Entrepreneurs, 5) Mormon migrants, 6) Catholic migrants, 7) Government Employees and 8) Transients.
Those Eight Groups
Already I can see people's hackles going up.
Now, starting off with all of this, I'll note that even in these categories not everyone share the same view by any means. But I think these categories are pretty supportable. Others would omit some, others would add some.
Okay, let's break this down a bit more. After all, what do you mean by these categories, you may ask?
One thing we can and should note, is that these groups are mixed. That is, even if they are distinct groups, a person can be in more than one of them and almost everyone in the two religious categories I've noted is. That is, you can be a Catholic blue collar worker, or a Mormon rancher. A lot of blue collar workers here are transients and have no intention of staying whatsoever. All that's pretty obvious, but it does complicate this story.
So let's take a look at these groups a bit closer.
Native Americans
One thing we can and should note, is that these groups are mixed. That is, even if they are distinct groups, a person can be in more than one of them and almost everyone in the two religious categories I've noted is. That is, you can be a Catholic blue collar worker, or a Mormon rancher. A lot of blue collar workers here are transients and have no intention of staying whatsoever. All that's pretty obvious, but it does complicate this story.
So let's take a look at these groups a bit closer.
Native Americans
Well, the first one is pretty self evident. Wyoming was occupied first by Native Americans. Simple enough. The State, acknowledging this, notes on one of its websites:
Now, when people speak of contemporary Indians in Wyoming, they usually stop at the Shoshone and Arapaho, but a person really can't and be accurate. The Crow Reservation in Montanan borders Wyoming and members of the Crow tribe continue to have an influence in Wyoming today. Southeastern Montana includes a Cheyenne reservation that is not without cultural influence in Wyoming and the major Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota has a major regional cultural influence. So Native Americans, as a cultural and demographic influencer, are more significant than some might suppose.
As a rule, the Democratic Party is strong among native peoples and perhaps for good reason. One of the byproducts of the Reservation System was economic devastation and, therefore, whatever the original concepts may have been, and there were an entire string of them, the Federal Government has had an ongoing role on the Reservations that remains a necessary one. The state has had very little role or has even been hostile to the Tribes from time to time. This means that, generally Native Americans in Wyoming form one of the rare Democratic demographics in the state, but one that's significant enough that locally, in Fremont County, it matters. Indeed, as we'll see, Fremont County used to be solidly Democratic due to another reason, but the Reservation was part of that. The residents of the Reservation are concentrated enough that they usually reliably return a Democratic to Cheyenne from the Reservation and in a lot of elections can throw a significant number of votes towards Democratic candidates. In a year like the current one, I'd guess that going into the general election Mary Throne and Gary Trauner are guaranteed to take a significant number of votes from the Reservation. And the demographic on the Reservation is not small.
And in the just held GOP primary, Mark Gordon came in first handily, with Friess behind him. Hageman came in third, and Galeotos rounded out the bottom. Pretty predictable results for that primary.
Like a lot of demographic features of Wyoming's election map, this is pretty much ignored. But it's a real factor. It will play out in the general election. My guess is that Throne will do well in Fremont County, but that she won't take the county. Likewise, I'd suspect the same for Trauner. The county will send a Democrat to the legislature.
The Gub'ment
European Americans started coming in, in numbers that had to be acknowledge, in the 1840s. The first presence was really military and transients, but even early on there were some agricultural interests showing up by the 1840s. That brings us the second group noted, Homesteaders and Agriculturalist as well as the last one, Government Employees.
There is evidence of more than 12,000 years of prehistoric occupation in Wyoming. Among these groups were Clovis, 12,000 years ago, Folsom, 10,000 years ago, and Eden Valley, 8,000 years ago. The latter were the big game hunters of the Early period. Following these, and remaining until about 500 A.D., were many groups with a mixed hunting and gathering economy. These were followed by the predecessors of the historic Indians.Of those tribes, two, the Shoshone and Arapaho retain a major presence in Wyoming and share the Wind River Reservation. The reservation is unique in that it was the only Western reservation in which the original occupants, the Shoshone, asked for it to be created, rather than having it imposed on them. The Arapaho's presence is also unique in that they asked to come on to it, albeit on a temporary basis that later became permanent.
On the crest of Medicine Mountain, 40 miles east of Lovell, Wyoming, is located the Medicine Wheel which has 28 spokes and a circumference of 245 feet. This was an ancient shrine built of stone by the hands of some forgotten tribe. A Crow chief has been reputed as saying, "It was built before the light came by people who had no iron." This prehistoric relic still remains one of Wyoming's unsolved puzzles.Southwest of Lusk, covering an area of 400 square miles, are the remains of prehistoric stone quarries known as the "Spanish Diggings." Here is mute evidence of strenuous labor performed by many prehistoric groups at different times. Quartzite, jasper and agate were mined. Artifacts of this Wyoming material have been found as far away as the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys.The historic Indians in Wyoming were nomadic tribes known as the Plains Indians. They were the Arapaho, Arikara, Bannock, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Nez Perce, Sheep Eater, Sioux, Shoshone and Ute tribes.* Of all of these tribes, the Cheyenne and Sioux were the last of the Indians to be controlled and placed on reservations.
Now, when people speak of contemporary Indians in Wyoming, they usually stop at the Shoshone and Arapaho, but a person really can't and be accurate. The Crow Reservation in Montanan borders Wyoming and members of the Crow tribe continue to have an influence in Wyoming today. Southeastern Montana includes a Cheyenne reservation that is not without cultural influence in Wyoming and the major Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota has a major regional cultural influence. So Native Americans, as a cultural and demographic influencer, are more significant than some might suppose.
As a rule, the Democratic Party is strong among native peoples and perhaps for good reason. One of the byproducts of the Reservation System was economic devastation and, therefore, whatever the original concepts may have been, and there were an entire string of them, the Federal Government has had an ongoing role on the Reservations that remains a necessary one. The state has had very little role or has even been hostile to the Tribes from time to time. This means that, generally Native Americans in Wyoming form one of the rare Democratic demographics in the state, but one that's significant enough that locally, in Fremont County, it matters. Indeed, as we'll see, Fremont County used to be solidly Democratic due to another reason, but the Reservation was part of that. The residents of the Reservation are concentrated enough that they usually reliably return a Democratic to Cheyenne from the Reservation and in a lot of elections can throw a significant number of votes towards Democratic candidates. In a year like the current one, I'd guess that going into the general election Mary Throne and Gary Trauner are guaranteed to take a significant number of votes from the Reservation. And the demographic on the Reservation is not small.
And in the just held GOP primary, Mark Gordon came in first handily, with Friess behind him. Hageman came in third, and Galeotos rounded out the bottom. Pretty predictable results for that primary.
Like a lot of demographic features of Wyoming's election map, this is pretty much ignored. But it's a real factor. It will play out in the general election. My guess is that Throne will do well in Fremont County, but that she won't take the county. Likewise, I'd suspect the same for Trauner. The county will send a Democrat to the legislature.
The Gub'ment
European Americans started coming in, in numbers that had to be acknowledge, in the 1840s. The first presence was really military and transients, but even early on there were some agricultural interests showing up by the 1840s. That brings us the second group noted, Homesteaders and Agriculturalist as well as the last one, Government Employees.
Let's start with the last, that being the one that's so commonly picked on.
Well, actually let's not. Let's start with a group we fondly recall, but which we didn't list above.
Well, actually let's not. Let's start with a group we fondly recall, but which we didn't list above.
The very first Europeans, culturally, in Wyoming were trappers and the first of them were really Quebecois, culturally.
French fur trapper and his Native American wife. The French view of natives was considerably different than English Americans and they intermarried fairly readily. In spite of the criticism they've taken in recent years, this was also true of the Spanish. In both instances it likely reflects the influence of the Catholic Church which regarded the native inhabitants as equal in every fashion to Europeans. In both the heavily French regions and the heavily Spanish regions this intermarriage gave rise to a new culture of people. In the case of Wyoming, however, this early European influence, while leaving a rich historic legacy, didn't leave much of a population and is recalled today principally in geographic names.
The next groups were trappers out of the United States, although they were often French in culture, and agents of the United States. Indeed, the first significant governmental presence in Wyoming was military, although its not often recalled hat way. The Corps of Discovery, i.e., the expedition of Lewis and Clark, was a military mission.
In our romantic concept of the state, we rarely think to acknowledge that Wyoming, like most of the Western states, but perhaps more than many of them, had heavy Federal influence in it as soon as it interested more European Americans than just fur trappers. The first exploration was by the Army. The first really significant settlements of any type were built by trappers, to be sure, as outposts and stores, but as soon as the Oregon Trail became well traveled in the 1840s, the Army started to move right in and in fact took over some of those establishments by purchase, something that continued on for a good twenty years or more. Ft. Laramie had been Ft. William at first, until the Army bought it in the 1840s and greatly expanded it. In Natrona County, Platte Bridge Station and Richard's Bridge had been civilian posts prior to being military ones.
This isn't a history of the settlement of Wyoming, so I'll more or less stop there but to note that Governmental employees have been a really common feature of Wyoming demographics since the 1840s. Soldiers, Airmen, even Sailors, and employees of various agencies have been with us all along. I have one neighbor who works for the Federal government right now and one cousin, in my neighborhood, who does. I basically did at one time when I was employed, off and on, as a full time National Guardsmen.
And of course the government isn't just made up of the Federal Government, but the state and local governments as well.
Something that Wyomingites don't seem to generally realize is that Wyoming has one of the highest ratios of government worker to private citizen in the United States. It's much higher than any of our neighboring states. We have a lot of government workers for the size of our state. And not matter what we might like to think about that, that's not going to go away and a lot of it is necessary.
Indeed, a lot of it is so necessary that one of the things that people who oppose the transfer of public lands to the state point out is that if that occurred it would practically bankrupt the state as so many additional task would be added to the existing ones.
Does this have an impact in elections? I think it does, but very subtly as a rule. While conservative politicians in Wyoming like to decry the government, during actual elections people tend to turn a blind eye to a lot of it. Most politicians won't come out for actively whacking education, for example, even though every teacher is a government employee. While the Tea Party elements in the state will claim that the State should take over the Federal lands, nobody is going to claim that the State should take over highway funding. Oh no they are not. Truth be known, Wyoming has a love hate relationship with the government essentially viewing it the way that university students do their parents. . .they want freedom. . . but they want the bucks as well and are quick to come home if things go wrong.
Having said all of that, in the recent primary the Wyoming Education Association, a teachers union, unseated a Republican legislator in the primary. Clearly, voters don't hate the government as much as Tea Partiers like to imagine they do.
In the GOP primary, moreover, its notable that Gordon took 40% of the vote in the state's capitol, beating out, in that county, second place finisher Hageman prettily handily. Hageman's votes were probably part and parcel of the almost the same thing, but in the form of anti government votes and native daughter votes as her law practice is headquartered there. Gordon's easy win in Laramie County where people generally don't hate the government, and where the Federal government has some really significant facilities, is probably no accident.
Agriculture
And of course the government isn't just made up of the Federal Government, but the state and local governments as well.
Something that Wyomingites don't seem to generally realize is that Wyoming has one of the highest ratios of government worker to private citizen in the United States. It's much higher than any of our neighboring states. We have a lot of government workers for the size of our state. And not matter what we might like to think about that, that's not going to go away and a lot of it is necessary.
Indeed, a lot of it is so necessary that one of the things that people who oppose the transfer of public lands to the state point out is that if that occurred it would practically bankrupt the state as so many additional task would be added to the existing ones.
Does this have an impact in elections? I think it does, but very subtly as a rule. While conservative politicians in Wyoming like to decry the government, during actual elections people tend to turn a blind eye to a lot of it. Most politicians won't come out for actively whacking education, for example, even though every teacher is a government employee. While the Tea Party elements in the state will claim that the State should take over the Federal lands, nobody is going to claim that the State should take over highway funding. Oh no they are not. Truth be known, Wyoming has a love hate relationship with the government essentially viewing it the way that university students do their parents. . .they want freedom. . . but they want the bucks as well and are quick to come home if things go wrong.
Having said all of that, in the recent primary the Wyoming Education Association, a teachers union, unseated a Republican legislator in the primary. Clearly, voters don't hate the government as much as Tea Partiers like to imagine they do.
In the GOP primary, moreover, its notable that Gordon took 40% of the vote in the state's capitol, beating out, in that county, second place finisher Hageman prettily handily. Hageman's votes were probably part and parcel of the almost the same thing, but in the form of anti government votes and native daughter votes as her law practice is headquartered there. Gordon's easy win in Laramie County where people generally don't hate the government, and where the Federal government has some really significant facilities, is probably no accident.
Agriculture
This, oddly enough, takes us to the agricultural group (which I'm also part of).
Farming showed up in Wyoming before ranching did, due to an historical oddity. Masons came up from New Mexico to work on the cement structures at Ft. Laramie and stayed on. They were New Mexican natives and farmers by trade, as well as masons, and after they were done working on the form they settled the nearby area known as Mexican Hills and went into what we'd now call "truck farming". Cattle ranching appeared about two decades later. Farming and ranching have had a strong influence ever since and was the dominant economic and political force, in various and sometimes internally conflicting manners, from organized territorial days at least up until World War One, at which time petroleum, also always present, became the dominant economic force.
I'll break the history of this down just a bit more in a moment, but we can note here that even early on ranching was split between smaller homesteaders and larger interests, with some of those larger interests being funded from outside the state. That gets us into the third and fourth groups. As ranching rose, it employed a fair number of men who did not own anything but were simply servants of their employers. And we saw people who came in to exploit a business opportunity but were otherwise not necessarily drawn by the land. When oil started to become a factor in the 1890s, and as mining came in as well, these two groups all increased. Like labor and capital everywhere, their interests are not always aligned.
Getting back to Agriculture, however, the interests of farmers and ranchers are not the same and that has always been the case. And that had a big impact on the recent election.
People tend to think of agriculture as one block, and at one time it actually was. And when it was, it tended to have a pretty strong anti government bias.
In the case of ranching, this dates back all the way to the 19th Century to some extent, but it really became focused with the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1932. That Taylor Grazing Act actually saved the ranchers from desperate Depression era homesteaders, but they resented it as it took away the public lands from any future acquisition. Ironically, it saved the public lands for real ranchers from desperate homesteaders who were carving it up so quickly at the time, and wrecking it, that one Wyoming Supreme Court decision of the era actually failed to render an opinion on an land issue as it was impossible to tell the ownership of the land in a timely fashion.
Be that as it may, the act was resented enormously by ranchers in the West who really basically felt that they owned the public land and a better course of action would have been for the Federal government just to give it to them. This was really unrealistic and indeed had the Act not passed, many ranches would have been outright destroyed by desperate homesteaders of the period. Certainly many were much reduced in size. The irony of this is that ranchers of that period, indeed, the real ranchers of today, were very much the descendants of late 19th Century homesteaders themselves and mostly not of the "large ranchers" of the mid 19th Century.
Indeed, one of the real peculiarities of all of this is that the entire story basically repeats itself to a large degree. Wyoming ranching really got started in the 1870s and by the late 1870s it was part of a boom in Western ranching that saw a lot of big money and foreign money interests come into the state. That ultimately lead to a very pronounced conflict as small start ups, often cowboys from the larger ranches, took advantage of the Homestead Act to file claims on small units and start small ranches. That lead to the Johnson County War of the 1890s, which the large ranchers were on the downside of, and ultimately the smaller ranchers prevailed. For a variety of reasons, however, over the next fifty years the homesteads tended to consolidate leaving Wyoming with quite large ranches which are usually made up of numerous smaller former homesteads.
Anyhow, recently the ranches have been under tremendous economic pressure in terms of land prices and it's been clear that ranchers, if they are real ranchers, can't afford to expand very easily. This has made it difficult for younger ranchers to stay in the business. What that has also done, but it hadn't been noticed much, is to covert the younger ranching demographic into pro public lands folks.
That's hugely significant as what that means is that the old drum beat about "taking back the public lands" doesn't find a sympathetic ear with younger ranchers and its starting not to with older ones. Politicians don't seem to have noticed this much however and even those who track Wyoming politics don't seem to. But that's what I'm hearing.
Things are different for farmers however. Farmers, with rare exception, don't farm the public lands. Farmers own their own lands, and farm ground doesn't have the playground appeal to it that ranch land does. I.e., people sitting out of state with a lot of money rarely decide that they want to use their surplus cash to become "Wyoming Farmers", so they aren't a threat to real Wyoming farmers. The opposite is true for ranchers.
So ranchers have slowly come around to supporting the Federal government keeping the public lands. They know that if the state acquires them, the state will sell them. Farmers still see the Federal government, rightly or wrongly, as being in their way.
This played out in the last election to a fairly significant degree. If you look at the election map once again, you see that Gordon took all of the sagebrush, i.e., ranching counties, except for a patch in the southwest part of the state that went to Friess (more on that just below). The only exception is Campbell County, but the dominant industry there by far is the extractive one (and more on that below).
Hageman did well only in the farming belt of the state. That's it, plus Campbell County. And that makes sense. In that region they're not depending on the Federal lands for anything. Where people do, she didn't sell well at all.
Religious Demographics
The first religious group, is somewhat obvious. Mormons, members of the Latter Day Saints, first came into Wyoming as their religion migrated to the Salt Lake Valley. But even in the migration period they simply did not just pass through. During the thick of the migration they established posts of various kinds here an there to aid in their co-religious trek. After the Salt Lake Valley was well established, moreover, they spread out into some neighboring regions, those being New Mexico (and even northern Mexico) and nearby Idaho at first, but back into Wyoming prior to World War One.
Catholics I've already addressed a bit, but Catholicism, as already noted, has had a presence in the state dating back to the 1700s. The presence became permanent in the 1840s with Indian conversions and the migration of Mexican, New Mexican and Irish migrants into the state. By the late 1800s this also started to include Italian and Slavic migrants to mining regions, who were interestingly joined by Welsh migrants who worked in the same industries. Irish immigrants became well represented in ranching both as ranchers and as ranch hands, with Irish cowboys, along with Mexican cowboys, being common enough types to have been reduced in later films to stock characters. Less well known is that in the sheep industry the Irish dominated for a time as ranchers, and Irish sheepherders and Mexican sheepherders were so common as to nearly define the occupation.
Neither Catholics nor Mormons were, however, ever a majority in Wyoming overall. Distinctly different from each other in settlement, Catholics were a minority everywhere they went. Mormons, however, often formed a local majority where they settled and they still are in many of those locations. Up until well into the 20th Century the "main line" Christian Protestant denominations were very influential in most localities with the Episcopal Church being the most socially predominant in many locations. Strong anti Catholic bias was a major factor in much of Wyoming until the mid 20th Century which both mean that Catholic influence was somewhat arrested socially due to that and was certainly hindered economically, a factor that was increased by the fact that the Masons were a major institution at the time and Catholics are self precluded from joining the Masons and were always looked down upon in social circles in any event. While Mormon settlement habits meant that they tended to often be a local majority where they settled somewhat abated the impact of prejudice they felt on a daily basis, it certainly cannot be claimed that bias did not exist in regards to them as well. The point here is, however, that while Catholics and Mormons today form statistically and demographically significant minorities, for hte most part the larger Protestant bodies that once existed have declined significantly and no longer occupy the economic and demographic positions they once did.
So what's this have to do with anything?
Well, quite a lot.
Now, most Wyomingites, we must note, are not Mormons and they are not Indians. Indians make up about 2.5% of the Wyoming population. Not much. People with Indian heritage, however, make up about 5% of Wyoming's population, so all together we're looking at about 7.5% of the population. Still not much.
11.6% of Wyomingites are Mormon's, which would seem to be a fairly small percentage of the population but isn't in context. The second largest are the Catholics, who are at 11.4%, or in other words they're statistically identical.** Wyoming is, and always has been, an American anomaly, probably due to the highly transient nature of its population, in that only 41% of Wyomingites closely identify with a religion, and that's not a change that came about over time but one that has always been there. Most Wyomingites are Christian in some fashion and of those who identify with a denomination the majority are various Protestant denominations but no other faith of any kind represents even up to 10% of the population. The Episcopal Church, which used to be a national and regional powerhouse, has declined down to 1.3%, and that does reflect a nationwide trend. Therefore, while a majority of Wyomingites are Protestant generally, of people who really identify with a single faith, the Mormon Church is the largest single faith followed very closely by the Catholic Church, both of which are growing although not for the same reason. The Catholic Church likely actually has a higher percentage, probably fairly significantly higher, when illegal aliens are included.
Okay, so how does this play out.
In the last election, really for the first time by my recollection, we saw candidates attempt to emphasize their religious faith. But those doing that were not Mormons or Catholics, but it seemed like they were Evangelical Protestants. At least that was the case with Freiss. Hageman hinted at a Christian faith but never identified it. Geleotos noted features of his platform which were suggested to be based in his faith, but he never made that faith, Greek Orthodox, apparent (and indeed a lot of people wound't have really known what that was if he had). That means that those who were pitching towards a strong Christian base were basically pitching in the wrong place.
Indeed, just prior to the election being held I saw a "Christians For Freiss" car in my neighborhood with Colorado plates. What's that do? Probably not much.
But, having said that, there is an interesting trend going on here that suggests that religious affiliation is playing a bit of a role for perhaps the first time. . . or at least for the first time since the issue of Prohibition was in play.***
If we look back at the map, we see that Freiss did well in counties that have a large Mormon demographic. It's hard not to notice actually. Why?
Here Freiss emphasis on his faith in such an open manner may have sold well. The Latter Day Saints arose during that period of time called the Second Great Awakening and while the LDS church is highly distinct in its theology, it does share some views fairly strongly with Evangelical Christian churches that gained adherents in that period. It's hard to describe, but there's a certain emphasis on a certain type of personal morality that is emphasized in the Mormon faith and often quite common among its members. This is often noted by non Mormons and its in fact the basis of both admiration and criticism of them. This is not to say that the personal fielty and sanctity of devout members of other faiths doesn't exist, but it can be different depending upon the faith and its certainly different among the Apostolic faiths and those closely based on them.
An additional factor that may be at work here is that Mormons tend to emphasize civility in a way that others do not. It tends to be a trait of the demographic. And it's been noted taht as a demographic they react poorly to candidates that are not civil. This is not to suggest that Gordon was not civil, but Friess was certainly highly civil, always being polite and courteous to the other candidates. Hageman came across as highly uncivil.
So while those counties are in the "sagebrush belt" that otherwise went to Gordon, they went for Friess.
Before we move on from this topic, one small oddity that might be worth noting is that early on the "take the public lands" movement was fairly strong in these same counties. This seems to have completely passed in the same counties in the recent election however. Anyhow, the one candidate still running who is radically in that camp is Rex Rammell, who is a Mormon. Rammell is going to pull hardly any votes anywhere in the state this fall, and most of those who do vote for him are going to be disgruntled Hageman voters, but it's worth noting for another reason. The real hotbed of the grab the Federal lands movement has been Utah.
At least one Utah politician took a real pounding recently for holding those views, so they aren't universally popular there by any means. But they are strongest there. What exactly is the source of that isn't clear to me, but I wonder if an element of it might be historical. The Mormons, as a demographic, are sort of unique in being the only religion in the United States to come into direct conflict with the Federal government. Catholics were very heavily persecuted in the first half of the country's history and were outright persecuted in the Colonial era, but because of the diverstiy of the Catholic body of faithful, that's not really a terribly strong memory among Catholics. But the fact that the Federal government legislated against one tenant of the early Mormon faith and evne sent an armed expedition into the West to enforce Federal policies against them has not been forgotten. Given this, I wonder if there isn't a slight residual distrust of the Federal government in certain ways that might be unique to the demographic.
Anyhow, in the recent election, Freiss campaign sounded a lot like he was running for a seat from Alabama or something. It didn't sell well in most places, but did in at least one, probably for a completely surprising reason. And Friess, where he did do well, did not do well by a huge margin by any means. With a few more votes in those counties they would have gone for Gordon.
Wyomingites associate themselves with cowboys but there are a lot more blue collar workers in Wyoming that anything else, at least if we consider oilfield and other extractive industry workers blue collar. I don't mean unskilled labor. Some of this labor is unskilled but not all of it is by any means. A lot of it is pretty skilled.
Anyhow, I note this as this makes Wyoming a real exception to the rule in the United States. I hate the term "post modern", as I don't think it's possible to be "post modern", but the United States is "post industrial".
The United States in which I was born was an industrial titan. And the United States still has a lot of industry. But we aren't the globally dominating industrial entity we once were, for a vareity of reasons, including the fact that we intentionally exported industry, wisely or foolishly. But Wyoming is an exception.
All over the country there are a lot of industrial and blue collar jobs that go unfilled. Mike Roe has made this a bit of a personal campaign. But in Wyoming a lot of young people plan on going right into the oilfield (and up until recently mining) industries and remain there for their entire lives. Whether or not this is a long term viable plan at this point may be another thing, but it's certainly been a feature of life in Wyoming forever.
This means that unusually Wyoming has a large, blue collar, middle class.
It also means that this middle class is tightly tied to the industry that provides jobs to it.
This has certainly been a major feature of recent campaigns and this one was no exception. Candidates are absolutely loath to suggest that the economy and the industry is evolving, even though they are, such that the long term viability of this sector may be imperiled. Harriet Hageman absolutely denied it.
This has an impact on election and it certainly has an impact on local political beliefs. It's part of the reason the GOP is so strong here, as the GOP is seen as supporting the oil and gas and mining industries. And in common conversation nearly anyone here has experienced the blend of economc and political beliefs that informs a lot of voters on everything in their world view.
But surprisingly it didn't have the impact that people presumed it might, which says a lot for the actual deeply held views of common people. In the election, only Campbell Count and maybe Weston County seem have been influenced in this fashion, both of which featured strong polling for Hageman. Campbell County in fact went for Hageman, where she barely beat out Friess. Weston was the other way around. Gordon came in third in both counties.
That Friess did well in both counties is revealing as it might explain in part why he also pulled down enough votes to take the southwestern counties, which we've also discussed. She also came in second in Lincoln and Uinta Counties.
Transients
Wyoming has an enormous transient population, which is once again due to the oil and gas industry. I don't state this to be insulting, it's simply a fact.
Indeed, the airplane observer I noted above noted this, noting that the residents of the state practically fit into two camps, those from here and staying and those not from here and leaving. That's not completely true, but it's at least partially true.
Transients are interesting in that I think they provide part of the background noise to Wyoming elections and occasionally influence them. Indeed, the recent hard right turn in the primaries is partially due to this, in my view.
A high percentage of the transient population comes out of Oklahoma and Texas. Folks from any region bring their political views with them, and they're no exception. Oklahoma and Texas have a certain brand of conservative voter that Wyoming generally does not, but when there's a lot of Texans and Oklahomans here, some register to vote and they begin to influence politics.
Indeed, for long time or lifetime Wyoming residents some of the features of Wyoming politics of the last decade have been absolutely baffling and this may provide part of the explanation. The whole Cindy Hill saga seemed to be imported from a very rural Oklahoma school district, for example, rather than something we thought up on our own, even though that's not true.
Be that as it may, the truth is that most of our transient population plans on returning home and a lot of them do. For that reason, I suspect that a lot of them don't vote and beyond that some probably vote back home where they are from. So candidates pitching to them probably draw attention, but it's misleading.
Entrepreneurs
Wyoming has always, from day one, attracted a lot of people seeking to make their fortunes here and it still does. This class makes up a demographic at any one time, including those who have made their money elsewhere and then retired here.
The views of this group of people tend not to really match those of Wyomingites from the state or elsewhere except that they generally are highly pro business. In the recent election Friess, who is a member of this class, did well in Park and Big Horn Counties, counties that feature a fair number of these voters. Dave Dodson, who was running against John Barrasso, took Teton County, the only county he took, which also features a fair number of such voters and of which he is also a member of (Trauner out of Teton County is as well).
In some elections members of this class have done highly well, in others not so much. Galeotos styled his campaign pitching in a way towards their views, but obviously didn't do well, so in this election, their impact appears to have been marginal at best.
What about ethic demographics?
Any reader of this, if there is any, must be surely wondering about ethnic demographics by this point, as that's what is normally meant by a political demographic to some degree. Oh sure, pollsters talk about the "Evangelical Vote" or the "Catholic Vote", etc., but what about the Hispanic Vote?
Well, good question, but Wyoming is sort of oddly unique in this fashion as well.
Now, to some extent we have discussed this already, in that we discussed religion in Wyoming's politics. And some of that is ethnic in a way, even if we don't tend to think of it that way, as religions can be an ethnic identifier. Indeed, in this instance that's what tends to separate, I think, the minority Catholic vote from the minority Mormon vote. The Mormon vote is more solid as a block as Mormons are more of an identifiable ethnicity, in a loose sort of way, while Catholics are quite diverse even if they tend to descend more from some nationalities than others.****
But do we have ethnic blocks here?
Well, yes we certainly have one, and I've discussed that above. The Native Americans in the state, who fit into two different ethnic groups by culture, as already noted. They are in fact a distinct ethnic group and they tend to be largely Democratic. We've discussed that group already. Are there any others?
Well, surprisingly not really. . . or not yet.
Part of this has to due with the Western culture which truly tends to act as a solvent. In much of the United States there were strongly nationally demographic regions within states and within cities which preserved long after the initial immigrants arrived. I"ve heard, as an example, a fellow who came from Rhode Island express amazement to find that in the West to say "I'm Italian", as in Italian American, meant almost nothing at all, if in fact nothing at all. People will identify with a distant national origin, but it simply doesn't mean what it does in other regions. To say, for example, "I'm Irish" doesn't mean that you are from an Irish family living in an Irish neighborhood that goes to an Irish church. It more likely means you had an Irish ancestor or a collection of them. That's about it in 2018.
The exceptions today would be, potentially, African Americans and Hispanic Americans, but even here what we'd expect to find we really don't.
African Americans are an identifiable voting demographic in much of the US but not in Wyoming. That's in part because the African American population here is small, but its also in part because the African American minority has been in the state as long as the European American minority. Given this, there's an African American minority that's an Afro-Wyomingite minority and fits into the larger scene.
Black politicians have been a feature of the state's politics since the 19th Century. Wyoming had integrated juries as early as the first decade of the century and its therefore no surprise that it'd have fairly integrated politics. A 19th Century coroner in Natrona County was a black Civil War veteran. . . something that appears to have been very little noted at any one time. Laramie County has had a couple of black legislators of the Byrd family who have been very prominent in politics.
About the only time that African Americans really made an appearance as an identifiable political block was in Cheyenne about a century ago in reaction to newspaper reporting there, which was uniformly racist. They protested their treatment, justifiably. If we extend that out a bit, the protests of the Black Fourteen at the University of Wyoming might provide another notable example. But the examples are fairly concentrated.
Indeed, as the flip side of that, the state's small African American demographic contributes to local races in an almost unnoticed fashion. The City of Casper, for example, has a black council member and its simply basically not noted. It doesn't seem noteworthy, really.
The other demographic group that we'd normally think of in this context is the Hispanic demographic, which is fairly large in the state and which has been in the state for a really long time. Indeed, the current Hispanic population is the product of probably four different periods of immigration into the state.
Hispanics are identifiable as a demographic group in a way that the state's African American population really isn't. While they've had a presence in the state since the 1840s, they have tended to live in identifiable communities and retain certain cultural features that other resident groups have not. This would seemingly make them a likely candidate to be an identifiable voting block, and maybe it very quietly is, but if it is, it's quiet.
I can't think of a single instance of a candidate attempting to aim a message towards Hispanic voters. I'm sure there are Hispanic candidates in some local offices, indeed I can think of one in Casper and I can think of others in Casper who have held office in the past, but that really flies under the radar and it's never really mentioned. I wonder if that will continue. Hispanics here are not really all of one group, given their entry into the state's demographics over time, and the most recent group has had a vested interest in staying somewhat quiet. But I'd think that likely to change.
So there you have it.
But we don't speak much on it.
And frankly, because of the state's small population, we really don't need to. It'd serve more to divide than to unite. But in an election year like this one, with a primary like we just had, it may have had an impact and politicians would have been wise to keep themselves informed on it, if they were aware of it at all.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Well, surprisingly not really. . . or not yet.
Part of this has to due with the Western culture which truly tends to act as a solvent. In much of the United States there were strongly nationally demographic regions within states and within cities which preserved long after the initial immigrants arrived. I"ve heard, as an example, a fellow who came from Rhode Island express amazement to find that in the West to say "I'm Italian", as in Italian American, meant almost nothing at all, if in fact nothing at all. People will identify with a distant national origin, but it simply doesn't mean what it does in other regions. To say, for example, "I'm Irish" doesn't mean that you are from an Irish family living in an Irish neighborhood that goes to an Irish church. It more likely means you had an Irish ancestor or a collection of them. That's about it in 2018.
The exceptions today would be, potentially, African Americans and Hispanic Americans, but even here what we'd expect to find we really don't.
African Americans are an identifiable voting demographic in much of the US but not in Wyoming. That's in part because the African American population here is small, but its also in part because the African American minority has been in the state as long as the European American minority. Given this, there's an African American minority that's an Afro-Wyomingite minority and fits into the larger scene.
Black politicians have been a feature of the state's politics since the 19th Century. Wyoming had integrated juries as early as the first decade of the century and its therefore no surprise that it'd have fairly integrated politics. A 19th Century coroner in Natrona County was a black Civil War veteran. . . something that appears to have been very little noted at any one time. Laramie County has had a couple of black legislators of the Byrd family who have been very prominent in politics.
About the only time that African Americans really made an appearance as an identifiable political block was in Cheyenne about a century ago in reaction to newspaper reporting there, which was uniformly racist. They protested their treatment, justifiably. If we extend that out a bit, the protests of the Black Fourteen at the University of Wyoming might provide another notable example. But the examples are fairly concentrated.
Indeed, as the flip side of that, the state's small African American demographic contributes to local races in an almost unnoticed fashion. The City of Casper, for example, has a black council member and its simply basically not noted. It doesn't seem noteworthy, really.
The other demographic group that we'd normally think of in this context is the Hispanic demographic, which is fairly large in the state and which has been in the state for a really long time. Indeed, the current Hispanic population is the product of probably four different periods of immigration into the state.
Hispanics are identifiable as a demographic group in a way that the state's African American population really isn't. While they've had a presence in the state since the 1840s, they have tended to live in identifiable communities and retain certain cultural features that other resident groups have not. This would seemingly make them a likely candidate to be an identifiable voting block, and maybe it very quietly is, but if it is, it's quiet.
I can't think of a single instance of a candidate attempting to aim a message towards Hispanic voters. I'm sure there are Hispanic candidates in some local offices, indeed I can think of one in Casper and I can think of others in Casper who have held office in the past, but that really flies under the radar and it's never really mentioned. I wonder if that will continue. Hispanics here are not really all of one group, given their entry into the state's demographics over time, and the most recent group has had a vested interest in staying somewhat quiet. But I'd think that likely to change.
So there you have it.
But we don't speak much on it.
And frankly, because of the state's small population, we really don't need to. It'd serve more to divide than to unite. But in an election year like this one, with a primary like we just had, it may have had an impact and politicians would have been wise to keep themselves informed on it, if they were aware of it at all.
_________________________________________________________________________________
*Indeed, these are all groups that native Wyomingites hold in deep suspicion even though they don't realize it. To say that "I'm from California" is to brand the speaker with lasting contempt in certain circles. People from Texas often get only barely more than that, and New Yorkers certainly do not. There are real reasons for all of this even though it tends to mystify the speaker.
*The state's list omits the Metis, but it shouldn't. The Metis, of course, aren't really Indians per se, but they are a very early Indian influenced group that formed its own distinct culture. A mix of Indian peoples and the French in Canada, they formed a strong agrarian culture in the prairie regions of Canada that at one time rose up in armed rebellion. During the 19th Century they ranged in hunting expeditions as far south as Wyoming and according to at least one very knowledgeable Canadian historian there's reason to believe that there some Metis in the Sioux camp at Little Big Horn when it was attacked by the 7th Cavalry in 1876.
**Historically, Catholicism is the longest represented non animist religion in the state, as it was the religion of the French fur trappers. This is something that tends to be discounted by historians in a way as the trappers were wild men and therefore the degree of their adherence to religion might be regarded as suspect, but it seems fairly clear that it was greater than might be supposed with at least some. That lack of understanding of that is something that probably comes about due to a general lack of knowledge on French fur trappers and their religion in general. Anyhow, at some point after their arrival Catholic priests did arrive in the region and its usually noted that Pierre DeSmet, a Belgian priest, was the first of them. I wonder, however, if that's correct as at least one glyph I've seen fairly clearly depicts what I think is a Catholic Mass. Some individual Indians or bands of Indians were converts to Catholicism surprisingly early.
These early Catholics can't be said to have left a huge permanent influence on the state, but later ones did in ways that are now somewhat forgotten. With the arrival of Hispanic immigrants starting in the 1840s, and then Irish ones in the 1860s, a more permanent establishment was created.
***Religion played more of a role in the repeat of prohibition and what followed than in enacting it.
Contrary to what people imagine, Wyoming was all for prohibition and indeed it was Wyoming's votes that pushed it over the top. But like the rest of the country it grew disenchanted with it quickly. When it became obvious that it would be repealed, leaders of the Mormon community and the Catholic community became significant direct forces in crafting what was to follow. That is, they were directly consulted.
The consultation was not in order to keep prohibition in place. Nobody wanted to attempt that. Rather, it was to prevent the destructive unregulated saloon trade from coming back in. Wyoming's system of liquor regulation dates to that period and was designed with that in mind.
Contrary to what people imagine, Wyoming was all for prohibition and indeed it was Wyoming's votes that pushed it over the top. But like the rest of the country it grew disenchanted with it quickly. When it became obvious that it would be repealed, leaders of the Mormon community and the Catholic community became significant direct forces in crafting what was to follow. That is, they were directly consulted.
The consultation was not in order to keep prohibition in place. Nobody wanted to attempt that. Rather, it was to prevent the destructive unregulated saloon trade from coming back in. Wyoming's system of liquor regulation dates to that period and was designed with that in mind.
****Even if that is true, however, its tended to very much wane in some ways. A person can claim to be an "Irish Catholic", for example, if they have Irish heritage and are Catholic, but chances aren't bad that they're not of 100% Irish extraction and moreover they're more likely to really be an American Catholic. The exception here, as to many other things, may be members of the Hispanic demographic in Catholic churches who are largely of immediate Mexican extraction.
