Not even the members of the farther right Wyoming Freedom Caucus expected to dominate Tuesday’s Republican primary the way it did.
Barring an unlikely Democratic surge and/or storm of Independent candidates in the general election, the Freedom Caucus is likely to have a comfortable majority in the Wyoming House for the upcoming session.
With that in mind, House Majority Floor Leader Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, could have a relatively easy path in getting elected Speaker of the House, a campaign Neiman confirmed to Cowboy State Daily on Friday he intends to pursue.
“I’m going to offer my time and services,” he said.
If elected Speaker, Neiman, now the No. 2 member of the House, would become the second legislator from northeast Wyoming to fill one of the top leadership roles in the Legislature after Senate President Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, who’s coming to the end of his tenure.
But he, Driskill and current Speaker Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, have very different backgrounds and political allegiances.
Neiman would become one of the least experienced legislators to rise to the No. 1 position in the House after only taking office in 2021. Driskill and Sommers have more traditional levels of experience, first elected in 2010 and 2012 respectively.
“It’s unheard of to have someone that inexperienced in that job,” former House Speaker Tom Lubnau told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
New Tide
The most critical part of the job, Lubnau said, will be committee chair appointments and choosing members for the House Appropriations Committee, the panel in charge of creating the biennial and supplemental budgets.
This committee also promises to look very different as four sitting members of the committee, which now has no Freedom Caucus members, lost their reelection bids. A fifth member on the Senate side has also departed.
Casper resident Dan Sabrosky, who supported the Freedom Caucus candidates, said he was “shocked” by some of their wins Tuesday. He acknowledged there may be a learning curve with so many new people in leadership roles.
“The conservatives are going to have to learn to legislate and how to legislate responsibly,” Sabrosky said.
During Cowboy State Daily’s Tuesday night election coverage, Lubnau said most of the physical duties of the speaker job relate to “keeping the lights on and the carpets vacuumed,” along with managing personalities.
More technical, he said, is managing the flow of bills to prevent people from legislating through the budget.
“I’m concerned about the lack of experience, because you can make some pretty big mistakes in that job,” he said.
But he also believes the system of checks and balances built into the Legislature will alleviate at least some of these concerns.
What It Could Look Like
In total, Freedom Caucus-endorsed candidates and candidates expressing similar political views knocked off nine House legislators politically aligned with the more moderate Republican Wyoming Caucus.
The group also was successful filling the seats of outgoing representatives more aligned with or members of the Wyoming Caucus.
Neiman said his phone was “ringing off the hook” on election night.
If none of the Freedom Caucus candidates lose their general election bids, the group will enjoy a swing of roughly a dozen seats. This would result in about 40 of the 62 House members boasting no more than two years of experience entering the 2025 session.
“There will be a stunning amount of information for people to learn,” said Rep. David Northrup, R-Powell, a veteran lawmaker who lost his primary.
The Freedom Caucus’ growth has gained momentum since the 2020 election, going from eight or nine members to 14-15 after that election, then to 26 in 2022. After this November, it could have as many as 37 or 38 House members.
Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, the second longest serving member in the Legislature, said he’s never seen such a large shift to the right after one election cycle.
It’s A Message
Neiman believes this growth is a direct result of Wyoming residents being unhappy with the status quo.
As an example, he mentioned the call for a special session that was rejected this spring to override Gov. Mark Gordon’s vetoes on bills that passed by a large majority in the Legislature.
“The people, they’re ready for change,” Neiman said. “If people still can’t see that, they’re voting that.”
He also said there will be serious consideration given to bills next year that would not have seen the light of day before.
“Some legislators are so thrilled with now being able to bring legislation they knew wouldn’t have a chance or even bothered bringing before,” Neiman said. “They just can’t believe it.”
During this year’s session, the Senate was more conservative than the House. Although the Senate stayed about the same after the primary Tuesday, the House is now considerably more conservative than the upper chamber if the primary elections results hold through to the general.
Although members of the Freedom Caucus have argued that the state is spending about 30% more than it should, there have been few specific arguments made about where cuts should be made.
The biggest commitment it’s made for the upcoming session is making more significant property tax cuts.
Local governments and schools derive a significant amount of their funding for this source, so Speaker Pro Tempore Clark Stith, R-Rock Springs, and Northrup said it’s fair to assume that law enforcement agencies and schools will probably take a hit.
But Neiman said fears that the Freedom Caucus will devastate Wyoming with spending cuts are completely unfounded.
“We’ve got to be thoughtful and considerate with how we do it,” Neiman said. “I don’t want to obliterate the state. I just want to make it sustainable.”
Negative Campaigning?
Throughout the state, Legislature candidates were elected who favor an absolutist approach to Second Amendment rights, banning abortion and preventing certain foreign entities from owning land in Wyoming.
Anything less was commonly billed as total opposition to these stances.
Stith said he saw this firsthand and that he didn’t effectively counter negative mailers made about him, mostly because he didn’t have the money to do so.
Students For Life Action, a pro-life abortion group, went after Stith for voting against an earlier version of an abortion ban when it had no exceptions for rape or incest, that he voted in support of when those exceptions were added in.
Wyoming Gun Owners went after him for supporting an amendment to a Second Amendment self-protection bill that he co-sponsored to make people criminally liable for shooting innocent bystanders. That amendment didn’t pass.
“They’re less interested in solving actual problems than fear-mongering,” Stith said.
Northrup agreed and said he wasn't able to counteract the negative and false information spread about him in mailers with the advertising he placed in newspapers and radio.
“I never believed negative campaigning would work in Wyoming,” he said. “After election night, it’s clear that negative campaigning works. It will set a new precedent for elections moving forward instead of good, honest campaigning.”
The Method Of The Message
Choosing these mediums over mailers, Northrup said, was a mistake as fewer people are using these forms of media.
Northrup mentioned one mailer that claimed he did nothing to bring property tax cuts, even though he voted for multiple bills doing exactly that and had more bills planned for 2025. Another said he voted against a bill prohibiting gun free zones when he voted in support of that said bill.
“It was a pack of lies,” Northrup said.
Rep. Cyrus Western, R-Big Horn, mentioned how this year’s election had the lowest turnout since 2016.
“If you see people bickering with each other and slinging mud, it doesn’t make you want to engage,” he said. “There are very few people who are drawn to the drama.”
Western believes negative campaigning is effective and credited the Freedom Caucus for bringing this type of approach to Wyoming.
But Sabrosky believes there were negative messages from all sides. Sabrosky said the “insider establishment” misread the political landscape and failed to understand how upset the voters are about issues like property taxes and “woke” issues.
Thanks to people becoming more politically engaged due to the rise of former President Donald Trump and COVID-19, Sabrosky said people are now changing their voting habits.
And if they aren’t themselves, it’s likely one of their friends or family members is, which can have just as impressionable an effect.
Sabrosky also said he couldn’t pin down many “establishment” lawmakers on why they voted the way they did on bills.
“I truly believe it was voting records what got people into trouble,” he said.
Neiman and Sabrosky said some of the attacks against Freedom Caucus candidates landed too, mentioning the takedown of conservative firebrand Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper, who lost her election.
A Cowboy State Daily analysis of the major political action committees supporting each caucus found that groups supporting the Wyoming Caucus spent more money.
Can’t Knock The Hustle
Neiman believes the biggest factor in candidates having success Tuesday was still good old-fashioned hard work.
“Shoeleather carried the day,” he said.
Northrup admitted that his primary opponent Paul Hoeft probably knocked on more doors than he did. A farmer, Northrup had to manage his fields this summer, which took away most of his time for door knocking.
Neiman and Sabrosky also said they saw a clear difference for many of the candidates who outworked their opponents along the campaign trail, and Neiman said he saw incumbents who appeared to think they had the election in the bag before losing.
Sabrosky mentioned how while traveling Highway 30 in southwest Wyoming, he saw many more campaign signs for Sommers’ opponent Laura Taliaferro Pearson than the speaker.
“That tells me if put an equal amount of effort in as her he would’ve won,” Sabrosky said.
Western agreed that the amount of effort a candidate puts into a campaign is a major factor.
“If you work the hardest, uncover every stone, I always believe you will still win,” Western said.
But he also said there were some candidates whose messaging and efforts didn’t appear to resonate with their desired audiences, failing to reflect the strong effort they put into their campaigns.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
