Gillette-area Wyoming state Rep. Abby Angelos is looking to jump from the state House to the Senate this election — and that means House Appropriations Chair John Bear is not.
Bear is a member and former chair of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is generally associated with efforts to cut or deny the state budget growth, and with social-conservative policymaking.
Angelos told Cowboy State Daily in a past email and a Friday phone interview that she’s not a member of the caucus, and has held perennially conservative views pre-dating the Freedom Caucus.
Angelos votes with the Freedom Caucus generally.
Both part of the House Appropriations Committee, Bear and Angelos navigated a rocky budget-planning session this year in which they tried — without help from the Senate majority and ultimately without success — to defund the Wyoming Business Council and reduce the University of Wyoming’s state budget, among other efforts.
Bear and Angelos both live within Senate District 23.
Sen. Eric Barlow holds that seat, but he’s not seeking it again since he’s running a GOP bid for governor against Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder and retired Marine Corps Col. Brent Bien.
“No. 1, I’d never run against a conservative like Abby,” Bear told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday phone call. “I’ve always been disappointed in conservatives who pack a field and split the vote.”
Wyoming’s primary election is Aug. 18, a date that is more decisive than general election day because the state remains a Republican supermajority state, though it has blue districts in Albany and Teton Counties and a swing district on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Who Runs Where
Bear said he and Angelos discussed who should run for which seat.
“And we talked about the three seats — her House seat, my House seat and the Senate seat,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we had the best opportunity to provide conservative representation for the people of Senate District 23.”
But whether Bear is going to seek reelection to his own seat this year remains a mystery. He emphasized that he hasn’t declared for it or any other office, adding, “I’m not ready to announce just yet.”
As for Angelos, Bear said she’s developed into a great legislator and is well-suited to the position. He delivered a confident, complimentary projection: “I look forward to her outstanding campaign and also her service for the next four years as senator.”
Angelos emphasized in her own interview that the decision to run was her own. She said she prayed about it for months, discussed it with her husband, and made the decision Sunday.
She declared her run publicly on Monday.
“I want people to understand, and I put this in my press release, that my vision when I originally ran for my House district has not changed,” said Angelos on Friday. “I (am) just a very strong nurturer. I’m a mother, so (I seek) to protect my fellow Campbell County residents: protect their values, their way of life.”
Since Campbell County is an energy giant among Wyoming regions, it’s no stranger to attacks via “the war on coal, oil and energy,” she said.
Angelos said she hates “the politics of it and bickering” and just wants to do right for her county.
Some Freedom Caucus members seek to jump to the Senate or higher offices. Rep. Ken Pendergraft has declared for his Sheridan-area Senate seat. Wyoming Freedom Caucus Chair Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who's dropped the "Rodriguez" half of her surname for this campaign, is running to become Secretary of State.
The CPA
If Bear chooses to run for his own seat again, he’ll have an opponent in the primary election.
Saying he wants to be a “true representative” of the Gillette area, retired certified public accountant and small business owner Bruce Brown announced his bid for the GOP nomination this week.
He told media outlets in a press release that he’s committed to practical leadership rooted in accountability, economic reality, and the well-being of the community.
He said he seeks a transparent, fiscally disciplined state government, wants to address Wyoming’s mental health challenges and bolster access to mental health services.
Being a true representative for the people of Gillette “means listening first, leading with common sense, and always putting the people of Campbell County ahead of politics,” he said.
Senate Opponent
Campbell County Parks and Recreation Executive Director Dwayne Dillinger is planning on retiring from the county at the end of this year.
And he’s running as a Republican for the Senate seat that Angelos seeks and Barlow holds.
Dillinger was born and raised in Laramie, but has long roots in Gillette as he spent summers there on and off throughout his upbringing, he said in a phone interview this week.
He’s worked for Campbell County for 35 years and became executive director of the Parks and Recreation Department in 2020.
He is a Republican because he grew up around the ranching and agriculture industry, and that’s cultivated his conservative values, said Dillinger.
He’s running because he’s been in public service his whole life and fees like it’s time to try something different, that will still allow him to support his community, he said.
If elected, Dillinger said he seeks to protect “what I call our backbone: the energy and agriculture industries in Wyoming. They’re our heritage. But I think protection isn’t enough: we need to also be always looking forward.”
He said he wants to bridge the gap between colleges and universities, promote Wyoming, and seek opportunities for kids growing up into young families in Wyoming.
Regarding the session that ended this month amid significant political and budget controversies, “I think everybody saw the headlines in the press,” said Dillinger.
But he didn’t want to reflect on the session in particular until he’s had a chance to get to Cheyenne, get “behind the scenes and see what’s driving some of that stuff.”
“It’s hard to be a drive-by person that makes an observation from 30,000 feet,” he added.
Dillinger is married, has two grown boys and a couple grandkids, he said.
He believes political discourse of late focuses too much on the roughly 20% in differences of opinion he believes people generally have from one another, rather than on the 80% in commonalities people have.
“Regardless what happens here, one of us is going to be representing the other,” said Dillinger.
As long as no one enters the race late and beats both he and Angelos, that is correct.
“And I hope we can sit down and talk and go over anything that may come up,” he said.
One of Dillinger’s objectives is to make Highway 59 into a four-lane road all the way down.
He said it’s a main driver of revenue, and he’d like to see money generated from industries put back into the infrastructure in Campbell County, including to help protect the workers who drive down that road every day.
More About Angelos
Angelos is married and has three children.
She and her husband owns a gunsmithing business, where she jokes that he builds the guns and she’s the boss, she said.
Angelos said she believes there’s more of a “recent lack of conservative values and agenda in the Senate” and she’d like to bring the Republican Party’s platform points to that chamber.
She said she doesn’t know Dillinger, so she couldn’t opine on what distinguishes the two of them.
But, she said, voters can look back on her voting record and see what she’s done.
“They can just look back and say, ‘Oh, I know exactly how she’s going to vote, because she’s kept her promise,’” said Angelos.
As for the recent budget session, she emphasized that with a conservative majority, the House succeeded in its part in passing the budget.
That same iteration of lawmakers had not passed a supplemental budget in 2025, which she said may have given people “angst and nervousness,” but the 2026 full budget was “a really successful budget.”
No everyone got what they wanted. But the Legislature slowed the growth of government, noted Angelos.
“It didn’t get the press it deserved that we really did come together for the benefit of Wyoming,” she said. She pointed to funding for the Veteran’s home in buffalo and a program for the developmentally disabled.
“That was huge for us,” she said of the health program.
Angelos said she’s been a conservative her whole life and considers herself accountable to her constituents rather than any caucus.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
