President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Harriet Hageman for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, hours after she announced her bid for the upper chamber.
Her political critics raised a chorus as well to say her armor has a chink: disputed maneuvers regarding federally held public lands.
Hageman, a Republican, is now in her second term as Wyoming’s lone delegate to the U.S. House. A Senate win would give Hageman about 4.4 times the influence she has now, and a steadier term of six years rather than two.
This marks Trump’s third endorsement of Hageman for a congressional office, after he backed her in 2022 and 2024.
Hageman declared her Senate run after Wyoming’s junior U.S. senator, Cynthia Lummis, announced Friday that she won’t seek reelection in 2026.
‘A Coronation, Not An Election’
Many have cast Hageman as unbeatable in the deep red Western state.
Conversely, the Albany County Democratic Party in September cast Hageman’s controversial stance on federal public lands as a weak spot in the popular delegate's record.
That theme surfaced again Tuesday from the Wyoming Democratic Party, and from the winning attorney on a case cementing the legality of corner-crossing to access public lands across multiple Western states.
“I think (this) is a coronation, not an election,” said Ryan Semerad, the corner-crossing attorney and owner at Casper-based firm Semerad and Fuller. “I think that every single power broker and power-that-be in the state just handed her a Senate seat because Trump handed her a House seat, and they have absolutely no interest in letting the people make this decision.”
Semerad pointed to the succession of endorsements state leaders issued for Hageman after her declaration.
He said he asks the people of Wyoming to make Hageman earn their votes, and to not defer their choices to national power players like the Freedom Caucus movement or the “MAGA” movement.
“And in the process of earning (the votes) she should be forced to answer tough questions about her record on public lands,” he added.
In early May, Hageman backed a bill amendment that, had it succeeded, would have allowed a collection of counties in Utah and Nevada to sell a collective 500,000 acres of federal land.
It would also have mandated oil, gas and coal leasing. At the time, Hageman touted it as a boon to the extraction industry, while the land sale provision also sought the formation of affordable housing projects.
Hageman in October 2024 filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a Utah lawsuit that, had it succeeded, could have resulted in more than 200 million acres of federal lands being turned over to Western states.
Gov. Mark Gordon and 26 members of the Wyoming Legislature also filed briefs to that end.
Semerad derided Utah’s choice to file directly with the high court as bypassing both the federal district court and “the electoral process” — with what he cast as a lavish use of Utah public money.
This spring U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, advanced a now-failed bill provision to mandate the sale of 2 million to 3 million acres of public lands in the next five years.
Hageman never voted on that proposal to sell federal lands, which was a Senate creation.
She did call the massive outcry against it overblown. She also pointed to inconsistencies in advocacy groups’ mapping estimates of which lands could change hands.
And in a June 20 guest column for Cowboy State Daily, Hageman emphasized the provision’s carveouts protecting national parks and other landmarks, and the comparable small proportion – less than 0.75% - of agency-managed lands implicated.
“These are not pristine forests or expanses of untouched wilderness we’re talking about,” she wrote. “These are often checkerboard parcels or isolated holdings that are inefficient for the federal government to manage and are obstructing community growth.”
Semerad retorted Tuesday: “She can be as measured as she wants in her public statements. I don’t care about words, I care about actions. And her actions say an awful lot.”
Hageman did not respond by publication to a request for a response to Semerad’s critique.
‘Very Good Job’
While Hageman’s Senate run is not literally a coronation, many regard it as a politically safe bet.
The open seat “is a seat set for Harriet Hageman — if she wants it," said longtime Wyoming politico Liz Brimmer on Friday when Lummis announced her departure.
State House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, echoed that Tuesday.
“Anyone running against her must have some money they need to get rid of,” said Neiman. “There’s a lot of wiser places you could spend money more wisely than running against Harriet Hageman for Senate.”
To Neiman, that’s a sign that Hageman has “done a very good job,” he said.
Hageman told Cowboy State Daily this week that if she lands the Senate seat, she wants to combat the vestiges of “Biden’s war on coal,” and policies against fossil fuels, bad water policy and cases of environmental over-prosecution.
One of the many priorities Hageman hopes to pursue going forward is the passage of “Connor’s Law,” which would enact into law an agency rule President Donald Trump revived this year, requiring commercial vehicle drivers to be proficient in reading and speaking the English language.
Wyoming Democrats
The Wyoming Democratic Party denounced Hageman in a Tuesday email statement to Cowboy State Daily.
“It is bold of Harriet Hageman, who has repeatedly betrayed her constituents by voting to sell off public lands, gut Wyoming’s already fragile rural healthcare system, and sided with billionaire donors over working families, to once again ask for their trust to represent them,” said Wyoming Democratic Party spokeswoman Mandy Weaver on behalf of the party.
The statement asserts that Hageman during her town hall tour “made clear … that she has no interest in actually listening to the people she represents — just parroting the D.C. party line, no matter how much damage it does back home.”
“Wyoming deserves better than another politician more focused on catering to billionaires than actually standing up for the people who sent her to Washington,” the statement adds.
Weaver wrote that the Democratic Party is “anticipating some candidate announcements soon.”
The Wyoming Democratic Party is in tough financial straits and remains the clear political underdog of the state with 31,508 registered voters as of this month, or 11.6% of the total.
The Wyoming Republican Party, by contrast, has 210,406 voters, or 77.2%, according to data from the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office.
If the Democrats achieved an edge statewide this year, however, it was in advocacy of keeping public lands public — as sportsmen, hunters, and environmental advocates alike protested Lee’s proposal.
Hundreds of Wyomingites across the political spectrum in June galvanized behind the leadership of state Rep. Karlee Provenza, a Laramie Democrat, to oppose the measure. Provenza also raised the public lands dispute in a Tuesday social media post about Hageman's Senate bid.
The Arc
Hageman’s career-defining electoral victory came in the 2022 primary election when she tallied 113,079 votes to three-term incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney’s 49,339 in the Republican contest.
That was after Cheney helped to lead an investigation into Trump’s involvement with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and called for his impeachment.
Hageman continued her victory arc in 2024, defeating primary election runner-up Steve Helling with more than four times his vote total.
Because Wyoming has an overwhelming Republican voter majority, the primary election, not the general, carries the highest stakes for statewide office contenders.
All five elected officials in the state’s executive branch are Republicans, as are its three congressional delegates. The state Legislature holds a Republican supermajority in both chambers.
Most local partisan boards are GOP-led as well.
The Trump Endorsement
Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” hit his social media platform Truth Social at 11:46 a.m. Tuesday, nearly five hours after Hageman’s announcement.
“I know Harriet well, and she is a TOTAL WINNER!” he says in the post. “Harriet has ALWAYS delivered for Wyoming, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate.”
He wrote that she’ll fight tirelessly to grow the nation’s economy, cut taxes and regulations, promote domestic products, advance American energy dominance, champion farmers and ranchers, keep the border secure, “Stop Migrant Crime,” support veterans and “defend our always under siege Second Amendment.”
Trump’s own approach to the Second Amendment is complicated.
In his first term he banned bump stocks after a mass shooting, with a rule the U.S. Supreme Court later deemed unlawful.
In his second term, he’s defending the National Firearms Act in court. But he’s also suing the Virgin Islands for not honoring citizens’ right to carry firearms.
‘Honored’
Hageman in a Tuesday statement said she’s “honored and grateful to have the full and enthusiastic support of president Trump, and I thank him for everything that he continues to do to restore this country to greatness.”
“I have been proud to stand with him as we promote and implement the America First agenda,” she continued. "He is, as he likes to say, my favorite president, and I look forward to helping him from the Senate as we unleash our domestic energy supplies, enforce our immigration laws, and protect our national security.”
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott also endorsed Hageman on Tuesday, calling her a "battle-tested conservative, a trusted Trump ally, and the fighter that Wyoming has come to rely on."
Scott voiced optimism about a Hageman win.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
