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Robyn Belinskey traveled to Bedminster, N.J., in 2021 in hopes of getting a meeting with former President Donald Trump and earning his endorsement in her run for U.S. Congress.
Belinskey never got that meeting or Trump’s endorsement after six days of trying, but she didn’t let that dissuade her from running.
It’s no surprise, as her entire campaign has been self-driven and self-funded from its beginning.
“If I can prove a point why not?” she asked rhetorically.
Belinskey, a Republican and Sheridan resident, has no major campaign donors and still had not filed any campaign finance information as of the first quarter filing deadline of March 31.
She is running her campaign on the appeal of being “the relatable candidate” running for everyday people in Wyoming.
“The reason I’m running is so we have a voice in Wyoming,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I’m not happy with Liz Cheney being our representative and I’m …definitely not happy with Harriet Hageman, her friend, being it either.”
Belinskey finds herself competing in a race where out-of-state interests have had a sizable impact and $12.8 million has been raised by primarily two candidates.
As an owner of a small housekeeping and property management business who was once homeless, Belinskey is about as blue collar as it gets and ironically said she plans to “clean house” when she gets to Washington, D.C.
“People are buying their seats instead of actually doing their jobs,” she said. “I don’t have millions of dollars. I’m trying to get it done with my car.
“Not everyone that is well dressed or well educated is the best person for the job,” she continued.
Belinskey doesn’t have a massive war chest to lean on, so her primary focus is connecting with Wyoming residents as she travels the state in her 1999 Buick Park Avenue sedan, painted across its body with an American flag and flying bald eagle.
“It’s a good conversation piece, it’s my traveling billboard,” she said.
Although she describes herself as “not an attorney and definitely not a politician,” she does have a paralegal degree and experience working in the state Legislature.
Belinskey started her campaign in early 2021, around the time many county GOP parties in Wyoming were censuring Cheney for speaking out against Trump.
She said just because a politician may have deep family roots in the state, it does not mean he or she is reliable.
Belinskey is pro-life and is also against euthanasia of the elderly and sick, finding these type of decisions best left up to God.
She also supports private property owners when it comes to the issue of corner crossing, the practice of crossing over corners of private property to gain access to public property.
“People have their maps on their phones,” she said. “There’s no reason someone should be crossing over and doing all sorts of hokey stuff.”
A lawsuit filed against four Missouri hunters for allegedly violating airspace above private land in Carbon County is currently working its way through federal court. The hunters used a ladder-like device to cross over private land owned by Iron Bar Ranch without touching the land itself.
She also disapproves of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s recent purchase in Natrona and Carbon counties of more than 35,000 acres of private land.
“We shouldn’t allow the federal government to dictate how we use our land,” she said.
Stopping human trafficking is a passion for Belinskey and she said she is collaborating with Project Veritas, an organization that performs political activism and undercover investigative journalism, to quantify the level of the problem in Wyoming.
She said she has been talking with as many Wyoming people as she can, including Democrats, to identify issues that are most pertinent to residents.
One of the key issues she has identified is President Joe Biden’s hostile stance toward Wyoming’s energy industry. She said the recent war in Ukraine has made it abundantly clear how important it is for America to avoid foreign oil dependence.
“We don’t need to be dependent on another country for our resources,” she said.
To grow Wyoming’s economy, Belinskey wants to make the state a more friendly place to start a small business by providing incentives for people who set up shop here.
Belinskey also wants to bring film companies back to Wyoming, an industry that frequented the state more often in the 1980s and 1990s. Recently, Wyoming lost out to Montana to host shooting of the hit TV series “Yellowstone,” along with other major productions such as “Joe Pickett” and “1883” because the state lacks a film incentive program.
“There should be no reason why our films that are supposed to be taking place here are being filmed in New Mexico,” Belinskey said.
After Hageman received Trump’s endorsement, Belinskey, like a few of the other Republican candidates, received requests that she drop out of the race. Although she still is a Trump fan and even invited him to come golf in Sheridan, she refuses to be a “sheep and a lemming.”
“I’m in this to make a difference,” she said. “Sometimes you have to make a stand and you’re not going to do that sitting. Liz Cheney has nothing to do with the people in Wyoming. The government has invested millions of dollars on a sham investigation orchestrated by the Democrats.”
Belinskey considers those still awaiting trial on charges related to their alleged actions at the Jan. 6 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol to be political prisoners and said politicians should be more concerned with Biden’s actions against the energy industry.
Belinskey said she decided to launch her first campaign with a U.S. House race rather than a legislative office or county commission seat because it came down to a matter of going big or going home.
“I wanted to represent Wyoming,” she said. “Since we the people weren’t being represented, (it) was a call to action.”
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