U.S. Sen. John Barrasso is well on his way to reelection to a fourth term in Congress against his Republican primary opponents Reid Rasner and John Holtz, according to a new poll.
The poll released by Morning Consult this week shows that for the fifth quarter in a row, Barrasso is America’s most popular U.S. senator with a 71% approval rating.
“Here at home, John Barrasso will continue to work for every vote,” said Gale Geringer, Barrasso’s campaign manager.
While the Morning Consult poll heavily favors Barrasso, Rasner claims the race is much closer.
In-house polling data provided by the Rasner campaign to Cowboy State Daily shows Rasner within its 3.88% margin of error with Barrasso in the race, implying that Barrasso is leading anywhere from 8% to a statistical dead heat.
The Advanced Targeting Research text poll was paid for by the Rasner campaign, which would not provide Cowboy State Daily with the complete polling results. Nor would the campaign provide the exact language of what those polled were asked.
The text message poll solicited opinions from 639 Wyoming registered Republican voters in June, a Rasner spokesperson said. The data was limited to voters who have formed an opinion of the candidates and are prepared to vote.
Suspect Poll
Dustin Olson, a managing partner with polling firm American Pulse, told Cowboy State Daily there are a number of flaws with the text poll.
First, he said any poll that relies solely on text messaging is suspect as there is no other mechanism of response to use as a control.
Another problem with text message polls, he said, is that sometimes they miss an entire carrier of respondents, such as a survey that missed all Verizon or AT&T customer’s phones.
“While text-to-web methodology is an important supplement to multimodal surveys that use live telephone interviews as the primary mode, it is highly unusual and suspect to conduct an entire poll based just on texting,” Olson said.
He also said relying on solely registered Republican voters is questionable and much less preferable to polling of likely voters.
Olson said he sees no indication that Barrasso’s seat is at risk.
“It’s not believable at all this will be a close race,” he said.
He said it’s important to cast a skeptical eye on almost any poll, as there are many low-quality ones being conducted.
Barrasso has never had a competitive election in the Republican primary or general since he was first appointed as a U.S. senator in 2007.
“This is the closest anyone has come to beating John Barrasso and we’re right there,” Rasner claimed.
A national election tracker, however, disputes Rasner's claim. Decision Desk HQ says: "Our model currently predicts that John Barrasso has a >99% chance of winning Wyoming."
Many Other Considerations
The results of Rasner’s polling data also run contrary to a handful of other factors.
According to Federal Election Commission data, since starting his campaign, Rasner has raised $31,026. In addition, he loaned his campaign $432,000 of his own money.
He has spent $460,717, including $111,549 he paid Texas-based Guidepost Strategic Partners for various advertisements and campaign consulting. He also paid $3,740 to conservative talk show host David Iverson for campaign consulting last December.
Despite billing himself as a financial investor, a story published by Defector on Wednesday revealed that Rasner makes at least a substantial portion of his income by peddling new and secondhand goods on Ebay, making about $70,000 in 2023, according to a recently submitted financial disclosure form.
Some of the items Rasner is selling now include a Mountain Dew wall clock, a She-Hulk eyeshadow palette, an untested hand crank telephone from the 1940s and a Nazi trinket described as, “Original from WW2 Reich finance admin.”
He has a 99.5% positive seller feedback rating from 5,100 items sold.
Even without selling items on Ebay, Barrasso’s war chest dwarfs Rasner’s.
Since the start of 2023, he has received $5.06 million in contributions and spent $2.07 million.
Rasner has also failed to receive any big-name endorsements while drawing criticism for some accusing him of misrepresenting their alleged support for him.
Who Is Rasner?
Rasner has been traveling the state extensively since starting his campaign in August 2023, attending what he estimates at more than 160 events.
He has been running on a theme that Barrasso is part of the status quo establishment that makes Congress corrupt and dysfunctional for reasons such as his consistent votes in support of omnibus spending packages. One of Rasner’s main goals if elected would be to enact term limits.
He also believes Barrasso is weak on border security, mentioning how the senator voted against a Trump immigration package in 2018.
Rasner is against foreign ownership of any energy or agricultural resources in Wyoming. He wants all foreign entities to divest from Wyoming projects, which would impact three of the four trona mines in Sweetwater County and the TerraPower nuclear plant being built in Kemmerer.
“Any kind of foreign ownership I will oppose,” he said.
The Campaign
Earlier this month, Barrasso declined to participate in a Wyoming PBS debate with Rasner. Rasner believes Wyoming is waking up to Barrasso based on his conversations with constituents.
“He’s stonewalling, he’s stonewalling the people of Wyoming,” Rasner said. “He can run but he can’t hide, Aug. 20 is coming quick.
“He’s not even campaigning. He doesn’t care about Wyoming.”
Barrasso hasn’t been running a formal campaign in Wyoming per say, but he has been making regular appearances throughout the state.
Rasner caught heat from leading Wyoming Republicans this spring when he posted photos on social media that many believed falsely implied that they had endorsed him.
Most notable was U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, who sent Rasner a cease-and-desist letter so that he would take photos down that he took with her.
Rasner told Cowboy State Daily he hasn’t changed any of his policies when it comes to social media postings but has repaired his relationship with Hageman, mentioning how they both spoke at a recent event together.
“We support Harriet, it’s water under the bridge,” he said. “I will work very great with Harriet and we support each other, I think.”
Hageman has officially endorsed Barrasso’s campaign.
What About Trump?
After originally bridging his campaign around support for former President Donald Trump, Rasner has been more muted on the topic of late, although he still supports his run for president.
This is likely because Trump’s relationship with Barrasso has become much more cozy over the past year than it was at one time when he called Barrasso a "flunky" of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump and McConnell have had an icy relationship for years.
Barrasso endorsed Trump’s campaign for president, and the former president similarly endorsed both Barrasso’s campaign for the No. 2 leadership role in the Senate and his campaign.
Barrasso also invited Trump to the Capitol on his birthday and sat in the former president’s family box during the Republican National Convention last week.
Rasner said none of this means much to him, mentioning how Trump doesn’t get to vote in Wyoming.
“John has sold us out at every level for 20 years and he might be first in line at the RNC, but he’s definitely last in Wyoming and he’s putting Wyoming last,” Rasner said.
Rasner believes Barrasso is trying to carve out a cabinet position in the Trump White House should he win the presidential election.
“Wyoming is an afterthought. He’s angling for a cabinet position,” Rasner said. “Wyoming is coming last again, and John puts himself first again. It’s about power, money and control.”
This stems from a New York Times story Barrasso was interviewed for earlier this month, where he said “the Republican Conference right now from top to bottom is currently an all-star team” and that, “I think it would be natural for President Trump to tap into all of this talent.”
“If the president of the United States and duty calls, any senator would have to consider it,” he said.
Barrasso never explicitly said he would be interested in such a role for the story.
But if this theoretical scenario were to play out, it could create a fascinating appointment campaign for Barrasso’s replacement should he win another term.
Under state law, the Wyoming Republican Party would nominate three candidates for Gov. Mark Gordon to select from. The appointee would then remain in office until the next election year and would have to run to fill out the rest of the term.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
