If Sheridan state House candidate Gail Symons hadn’t gone to the voter’s house, the woman said she would have almost certainly taken the political mailer blasting Symons as supporting higher taxes and San Francisco’s voting policy at face value and voted against her.
The mailer claims Symons is “another Liz Cheney,” referencing the former congresswoman who was voted out of office in 2022. Another previous mailer called her a “Liz Cheney carbon copy.”
The mailers were sent out by the campaign arm of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, the Wyoming Freedom political action committee.
The most recent one also claims Symons doesn’t support property tax relief and wants to “import San Francisco” ranked choice voting to Wyoming.
Symons explained to the woman her views and that the mailer is “100% lies.”
After talking for about 15 minutes, Symons said the woman admitted she found the mailers “odd” as they didn’t align with Symons’ campaign messaging, and told her she would tell her friends.
“I will always put Wyoming first,” Symons said.
In a Sunday Facebook post, Symons said the Freedom Caucus has doubled down on its “lies and deception” during an already nasty campaign season.
But what she found even more significant about the interaction with the voter in Sheridan was how significantly the woman was impacted by the single mailer.
“If I hadn’t just randomly stopped there … I would have not known that,” Symons said.
Kari Drost, chairman of the Freedom PAC, did not immediately respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment.
Campaign mailers have become an issue themselves leading up to the Aug. 20 primary for being negative and misleading, as well as just for the sheer volume of them that have been sent.
Fact Check
Symons did support Cheney’s 2022 campaign, but said the Freedom Caucus bringing that up two years after the fact as pointless fear mongering.
“Why do people even care about her anymore?” Symons questioned. “She’s not an elected official, she has no influence on Wyoming. Why do people even care?”
Symons said she plans to vote for former President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.
“Biden has bad energy policy that harms Wyoming and the Green New Deal that (Vice President Kamala) Harris backs is even worse, so I will not vote for them,” Symons said.
The Freedom Caucus has called out a number of other legislators and candidates that were part of Cheney’s 2022 leadership team.
The Freedom PAC claims Symons’ support for ranked choice voting was reported in a March 12, 2024, Cowboy State Daily story. Cowboy State Daily did not publish a story on or near that day referencing ranked choice voting.
Symons said she does support ranked choice voting as a way to increase voter participation and competition, but only supports it for instances where there are multiple candidates running for a single position.
“We have a hard time in Wyoming just getting two,” she said.
Symons also mentioned how the Sheridan County GOP used a form of ranked choice voting to elect county commissioner candidates when a vacancy opened up there last year.
“If the Republican Party is so against ranked choice voting, then why did they use a variant of ranked choice voting to select nominees to fill a commissioners vacancy?” Symons questioned.
The Freedom PAC also referenced a post Symons made on X (formerly Twitter) on Nov. 12, 2023, it said shows she won’t fight for providing homeowners property tax relief.
The post the Freedom Caucus references was a comment Symons made where she expressed a lack of sympathy for giving tax relief to millionaires and billionaires.
Symons said she’s also had people steal her campaign signs.
“What we have is a pattern there that is basically a lack of integrity, of a desperation for power and control that violates every value that we have as Republicans, as Christians and people from Wyoming,” she said. “If you steal the sign, I feel sorry for you, and I would like people to know I would rather have their vote than have a sign in their front yard.”
‘Watershed Moment’
Symons is taking on Sheridan resident Tom Kelly in the Republican primary.
Both candidates are fairly well known on a state level as Symons frequently testifies at the Legislature, and Kelly ran for superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022 and for a short period of time hosted a conservative radio show.
Although Symons likes Kelly and finds him to be intelligent, she’s disappointed he didn’t publicly speak out against the mailers attacking against her.
Kelly said he doesn’t view that as his role even though he’s not a fan of the negative campaign mailers, either.
“I don’t like to slam anyone,” he said. “I’d rather people vote for me and my qualifications.”
Symons believes the mailers particularly impact impressionable single-issue voters and “read into their fears.”
“So, they listen to it,” Symons said.
Kelly told Cowboy State Daily he paid no attention to the mailer sent out against Symons, throwing it out like the rest of the negative political mail he’s received.
“All of these mailers twisted the facts to make someone look as bad as possible,” he said. “Negative mailers lower and other garbage lower the political discourse.”
But he also believes the mailers represent a legal form of free expression and is concerned by a lawsuit filed by two Rock Springs legislators against the mailers.
“I’m not going to tell them to shut up, that’s their right to free speech,” he said of the mailers.
‘Watershed Moment’
Kelly has an interesting relationship with the Freedom Caucus, which has endorsed his campaign.
Although the Libertarian-leaning candidate agrees with the group on most policy issues, he doesn’t always love its approach and is a bit more Libertarian than most of its members.
Symons believes her race will determine the soul of Wyoming and what kind of political negativity it will accept.
“It’s a watershed moment about what Wyoming wants their political and campaign environment to be,” she said. “Are we going to accept the negativity, the deception, the lies? Or, are we going to reject it?”
If it goes the negative route, she believes it will stop well-qualified candidates from running in the future and encourage people with low integrity.
Kelly has a more introspective outlook on it. He moved to Wyoming in 2019 and recognizes that is a concern some voters have about him.
“I would appreciate the fact the people of Wyoming accepted me for the man I am and not where I was born,” he said.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
