The year 2024 may go down as the year Wyoming sold its soul. Getting our soul back is going to take all of us.
Last legislative election wasn’t just another hard-fought cycle. It marked a turning point.
Dark money flooded Wyoming, and it worked. The result was a Legislature that looks and behaves very differently than past iterations that sought to safeguard Wyoming’s future.
A couple examples out of many tell the story.
A political action committee called Make Liberty Win poured $405,000 into Wyoming legislative races. It claimed to be a “no-compromise conservative force,” operating—at least on paper—without coordination with individual campaigns.
According to OpenSecrets, not a single dollar of that money came from Wyoming.
Make Liberty Win blanketed communities with text messages, phone calls, glossy mailers, and door-to-door canvassers. Many of those canvassers were college students shipped in from out-of-state, tasked with pushing talking points that locals often knew were wrong.
In some cases, the messaging wasn’t just distorted—it was false.
In a Laramie primary, mailers promoting candidate Keith Kennedy featured a photograph of a completely different Keith Kennedy—a man who lives in Virginia and was not running for office. The mailers listed incorrect early-voting dates and falsely described Kennedy as the incumbent.
They also declared him the “only 100% pro-gun candidate,” a claim that baffled his opponent, Sen. Gary Crum, R- Laramie, who is a lifelong hunter, concealed-carry holder, and member of the local rifle range.
Similar mailers appeared across the state.
The results were unmistakable. Candidates backed by Make Liberty Win overwhelmingly aligned themselves with the Freedom Caucus once elected. There is nearly a direct correlation between the Make Liberty Win-endorsed candidates and those elected legislators who vote in alignment with the Freedom Caucus.
Candidates supported by Make Liberty Win included Reps. Bill Allemand, Marlene Brady, Gary Brown, Joel Guggenmos, Jeremy Haroldson, Scott Heiner, Paul Hoeft, Steve Johnson, Ben Hornok, Ann Lucas, Darin McCann, Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, Scott Smith, Tomi Strock, Tom Kelly, Tony Locke, Jayme Lien, Bob Wharff, Jeanette Ward; and Sen. Laura Pearson.
They also included candidates Tina Clifford, Terry Ellison, Robert Hendry, George Dunlap, Tom Olmstead, Bryce Reece, Kathy Russell, and Tami Young.
Meanwhile, incumbents targeted by opposition mailers were swept aside, with only a handful surviving the onslaught.
The tactic worked. And it raises the obvious question: who paid for it?
Of the $9.49 million donated to Make Liberty Win nationwide, $8.875 million—93 percent—came from a single source: Young Americans for Liberty.
YAL is a 501(c)(4), legally permitted to raise unlimited money without disclosing its donors. Who wrote those checks remains a mystery.
What is known is that YAL’s leadership has deep ties to national political networks and megadonors far removed from Wyoming’s kitchen-table politics.
Several Wyoming legislators and statewide officials were listed as members of YAL’s “Hazlitt Coalition.”
Those members are Senate President Bo Biteman, Sen. Bob Ide, Allemand, Rep. Ocean Andrew, Rep. John Bear, Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, Rep. Ben Hornok, Tony Locke, House Speaker Chip Neiman, Rep. Ken Pendergraft, former Rep. Sarah Penn, Rep. Daniel Singh, and former Reps Scott Smith and Jeanette Ward.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray was also a member.
The webpage advertising membership has now been taken down. Is it possible these candidates will be beneficiaries of MLW’s dirty tricks in 2026?
That proximity naturally invites another question: what, exactly, is being asked in return?
Rumors swirl of morning text messages instructing Freedom Caucus members how to vote.
Whether true or not, it’s fair to wonder whether the same unseen donors who funded the campaigns are now shaping the legislative agenda – an agenda that often seems designed to break Wyoming rather than build it.
Make Liberty Win wasn’t the only player.
The Freedom Caucus also transformed Wyoming elections through its own PAC. WYFreedom PAC’s donors are listed on the Wyoming campaign finance website.
Gone were the days of candidates raising money from neighbors and running on local issues.
Instead, Freedom PAC funds were pooled, polling firms were hired, and professional consultants out of Las Vegas produced statewide, poll-tested mailers aimed at destroying opponents.
Some of those mailers are now the subject of a defamation lawsuit for falsely claiming candidates voted to remove Donald Trump from the ballot—a vote that never happened.
This was new to Wyoming. Big money. National narratives. Manufactured outrage. Local voices drowned out.
Politics here stopped being local. And with that shift, the Freedom Caucus captured control of the House.
We should expect more of the same next election: darker money, dirtier campaigns, and anonymous donors targeting anyone who won’t fall in line.
Wyoming sold itself to dark money in 2024. If voters buy the deception again, we shouldn’t be surprised when the state we love collapses—with great flourish—under the weight of someone else’s agenda.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 to 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
