Republicans will decide in Wyoming Primary Elections Tuesday whether they should stick with long-serving U.S. Senator John Barrasso and the first-term congresswoman who ousted Liz Cheney two years ago, Harriet Hageman.
As in the Republican primaries, Democratic candidates without political experience run for the House and Senate. Unlike the GOP primaries, these two Democrats are unopposed.
Meanwhile, the primary in ultra-conservative Wyoming — the state that voted for Donald Trump by a larger margin than any other — also marks the first time that Democrats have been barred at the last minute from party registration to join the more lively Republican contest. A new law bans “crossover” registration at the polls and for three months before primary day — potentially cementing the Republican dominance that Democrats Nearly Extinct.
The Republican-dominated Legislature passed the law in 2023 after Republicans complained that Democrats were influencing Republican primary results by switching parties.
The Republican elections have been quieter than they were two years ago. Hageman took on Cheney and denied her a fourth term by a majority of more than 2 to 1.
Cheney lost Republican support in Wyoming as a critic of Trump in a race watched from far and wide. Recruited and supported by the former president to run against Cheney, Hageman went on to win the office easily.
During her first term, she served on the House of Representatives’ Natural Resources and Judiciary committees.
Steven Helling is now taking on Hageman, in part as an opponent of new nuclear power, over plans to build a sodium-cooled reactor outside Kemmerer in western Wyoming.
This is Helling’s second attempt at Wyoming’s only congressional seat. In 2022, he ran as a pro-Trump Democrat. He finished a distant third in the three-way Democratic primary.
Barrasso is seeking a third full term after securing a prominent position in the Senate.
He is chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the third-highest position among Republicans in the Senate, and a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
He has been an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden’s administration’s policies on immigration, fossil fuel development and air pollution regulations.
Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon and former state legislator from Casper, is being challenged by Reid Rasner, a Casper-area financial adviser.
Rasner is campaigning on a platform similar to Barrasso’s, but he advocates term limits. He criticizes Barrasso’s donations from defense contractors and refusal to debate him.
Scott Morrow of Laramie is the Democratic candidate for Senate and Kyle Cameron of Cheyenne is the Democratic candidate for House of Representatives.
Local races worth noting include the mayoral primary in Cheyenne, where the five candidates running against Mayor Patrick Collins include local library worker Victor Miller, who calls himself the “meat avatar” for a ChatGPT-based artificial intelligence chatbot he says he created and calls “VIC.” Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray has said that an AI candidate may not be able to legally run for office in Wyoming, but local officials have in fact allowed VIC to appear on the ballot as Miller.
The two candidates who received the most votes in the mayoral primary will compete against each other in the general election.
Polling stations across the state open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
