A self-described socialist Democrat seeking one of Wyoming’s U.S. Senate seats said she believes Wyoming residents who supported the campaign of President Donald Trump are now not sure what to think of what is happening in Washington.
Yana Ludwig, a Laramie resident running for the seat to be vacated with the retirement of U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, compared her positions on many issues to those espoused by Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, particularly in the areas of providing Medicare coverage for all American citizens and stopping climate change.
Ludwig told the Cowboy State Daily that her positions do not necessarily put her at odds with Wyoming’s generally politically conservative residents.
“I think there’s a lot of people who don’t quite know what to do with what’s happening in Washington right now,” she said. “My feeling is we have a lot of working class people in this state who thought they were going to get a really good deal out of Donald Trump and are not getting a good deal out of it. I think they’re just not sure what to do.”
Among Ludwig’s campaign issues is what she said was inequity in the salaries paid the heads of American companies and their employees. One survey she cited showed that CEO compensation in the 1950s was 20 times that of the average employee, a number that increased to 360 by 2018.
“In what universe is that fair?” She said. “I am strongly in favor of moving our economy toward worker ownership. Worker-owned cooperatives are more successful in general and they’re much more democratized.”
Ludwig is also opposed to the construction of a wall along America’s southern border to stop the influx of immigrants.
“I’m very curious why we’re all about building a wall on the southern border where brown people are coming in and not on our northern border where white people are coming in,” she said. “So I think racism has a lot to do with why the border wall has gotten the traction it has gotten.”
In the area of gun control, Ludwig said she is reluctant to pursue any action without first addressing the root causes of violence in society.
Ludwig, who said she will not take any campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, also said she believes Wyoming’s public lands should be protected from mineral development.
