Wyoming state Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs has cued into party loyalty as part of his bid for reelection to a second term in office.
Kolb said a vote for his Democratic opponent, former state legislator Kenilynn Zanetti, is equivalent to a vote for presidential hopeful Vice President Kamala Harris.
“She represents the Democratic platform to the tee,” Kolb said.
Zanetti told Cowboy State Daily that’s not true, and that a vote for her is a vote for her alone. She decided to run for office again to give voters another choice on the ticket. She was last in office 24 years ago.
“I came up with my own issues I wanted to support on my own,” she said. “A vote for me is a vote for me, not anyone else.”
During a debate leading up to Tuesday’s general election, Zanetti said Kolb also argued that voting for a Democrat to represent Sweetwater County would amount to choosing not to be represented at the Legislature because of the party’s very small presence there. Zanetti countered, saying she’s always reached across the aisle to listen to constituents and work with other lawmakers.
“For someone to indicate that he thought people that didn’t agree with him didn’t matter and shouldn’t have a voice, I was just astonished,” she said.
Zanetti served in the Wyoming Legislature from 1995-2000 as a state representative for Sweetwater County. She chose not to run for a fourth term in office so that she could focus on her business at the time.
She said part of her motivation to run for office again for Senate District 12 so many years after she last was in office years later was fueled by the divisive rhetoric and Republican infighting dominating Wyoming state politics.
It’s a very different environment than she remembers from 24 years ago.
“It’s just appalling to me,” she said. “Hopefully if I’m elected, I can be a voice for moderation down there and not extremism.”
Kolb believes Zanetti was picked to run by local Democrats, upset that he became the first Republican to represent SD 12 in the history of the district when he took out former legislator Liisa Anselmi-Dalton in the 2020 election.
“I think they’d like to get the seat back,” Kolb said.
Sweetwater County used to be a Democratic stronghold in Wyoming, but those days are no more as the county lost its last Democratic state legislator in 2022. Zanetti believes differences between the two parties are overblown on every level.
“Representation might not be that strong from the Democrats, but I still believe in the two-party system,” she said.
Although Zanetti is a likely underdog in the race, she could receive a boost of down-ballot support from Sweetwater County Democrats who only vote in presidential and general elections.
But Kolb said he feels confident Sweetwater County and Wyoming will turn out to support former President Donald Trump, whose policies Kolb believes will be beneficial to Wyoming’s future.
“His policies are good for the U.S., they’re good for me,” Kolb said. “The reason I support Trump isn’t because of his personality or his comments, but because he’s good for Wyoming.”
Who’s Kolb?
Kolb is originally from the East Coast, but served two terms as a Sweetwater County commissioner before he was elected to the Legislature.
He is a supporter of Trump, a fiscal conservative and an ardent supporter of Second Amendment rights, the latter he believes protects citizens from tyranny of government and enshrines free speech.
“I’m running as a Republican candidate with Republican values,” he said.
Kolb beat Republican challenger Jeff Ramaj by about 500 votes in the Republican primary.
If reelected, Kolb would like to reduce the amount of time people can claim unemployment in Wyoming by about three to four weeks, an effort he already tried addressing through legislation in 2023.
The current maximum unemployment term in Wyoming is 26 weeks. Kolb believes that by reducing this length of time, it will motivate people to find new jobs quicker.
“It’ll put people back to work,” he said.
He also wants to cut mandatory state contributions to the state’s unemployment trust fund, which he believes is adequately funded for the future.
Zanetti, an employer, doesn’t believe this is the right approach, and said it can be difficult for people to find new employment in a rural state like Wyoming.
“I don’t think it hurts to give people as much time as they have right now,” she said. “Quit taking rights away from people, they need to expand them not diminish them.”
On property taxes, Kolb supports short-term solutions but believes long-term answers need to be scrutinized.
He also believes a vote for Trump will bring more certainty to Wyoming’s energy industry, which he considers the lifeblood of the state.
Southwest Wyoming is a critical region of the state for energy production, a role that will likely be increasing into the future with nuclear power developments in the area.
Zanetti, whose father was a coal and trona miner, considers herself a strong supporter of the industry and oil and gas.
But she also stressed that Wyoming shouldn’t ignore the fact that coal revenues have declined over time. She believes too much blame gets heaped on the federal government for this decline and that the demands of the world markets also play a big role.
Who’s Zanetti?
Zanetti is a small business owner who grew up in Reliance before graduating from Rock Springs High School. She considers herself a moderate Democrat, a fiscal conservative and worries that extreme political views will discourage some industries from moving to Wyoming.
Her biggest priority if elected into office again would be maintaining access to public lands and public education funding.
To combat declining rural health access in Wyoming, Zanetti said she would also support Medicaid expansion.
“I understand the state would have big up-front costs, but the benefits that are projected from that are about 7-1,” she said.
Zanetti is also firmly pro-choice on abortion but said she understands the pro-life position. Kolb is pro-life on abortion, and in 2023 voted to support legislation banning most forms of abortion in Wyoming.
“Even if it’s a personal decision, I just don’t think that people sitting down in Cheyenne have a right to decide the medical decisions of people,” she said. “I know of no law that dictates that a man couldn’t have medical procedures he needed.”
When it comes to energy and mining, Zanetti said she supports all forms that Wyoming has, from trona to coal to nuclear and solar.
“We are really lucky to have the trona mines and I couldn’t advocate more for them,” she said.
But she also stressed that she sees tourism playing a significant role in Wyoming’s future and believes maintaining or increasing access to public lands and protecting wildlife corridors will help grow this sector.
“My issue on public lands is really an economic issue too because of the tourism,” she said.
Tourism is already the second largest industry in Wyoming, but also a distant second behind the revenue the minerals industry provides.
“We are not going to be covered by just tourism,” Kolb said. “It will be to the demise to the state of Wyoming if we are left to rely on tourism.”
When it comes to the controversial BLM Resource Management Plan for Rock Springs, Kolb has been a fervent opponent. Zanetti considered it a compromise that left no party getting everything they wanted.
Zanetti, a gun owner, says she supports Wyoming’s current Second Amendment laws. But she also doesn’t support the use of automatic assault weapons.
“I don’t think anyone needs them,” she said. “I’m a hunter, you don’t go hunting with automatic weapons.”
On transgender issues, Zanetti said parents should have decision making over what happens to their children. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a bill banning transgender treatments for minors in Wyoming.
This fall, the University of Wyoming volleyball team forfeited a match it had scheduled against a team that has a transgender member. Zanetti said although she doesn’t support transgender women and girls playing in female sports, she hopes the decision to forfeit this game was made by the team and not influenced by public pressure.
Appealing To All Sides
Kolb won his first election by 700 votes. If registered Republican numbers hold through the election, Zanetti will have a very hard time getting elected when considering that Republicans outnumbered Democrats more than 5-1 as of Oct. 1 in Sweetwater County.
Zanetti has spent $5,232 on her general election campaign while receiving $7,100, nearly half of which came from the Sweetwater Democratic Party.
Kolb has only spent $3,116 through the general election campaign after spending $13,391 to beat Ramaj.
Both Kolb and Zanetti acknowledged that they are appealing to voters of all stripes in their general election campaigns.
Although Zanetti said she’ll work to represent every voter in her district if elected, Kolb was measured, saying he’ll listen to everyone, but Republicans and Independents most.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
