A Wyoming crackdown on the use of the Republican National Committee’s elephant logo is rippling through this year’s election season discourse.
The Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming started a political action committee (PAC) in March to combat the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is a controversial and populist-leaning group of state House Republicans.
The PAC has raised six billboards across larger Wyoming towns urging people to “STOP The Freedom Caucus Agenda” and vote in the Aug. 18 primary election.
The billboards show a red, white and blue cartoon elephant in the bottom left corner.
The Wyoming Republican Party issued a warning safeguarding the national party’s logo via public statement Monday, saying, “Many candidates have removed the trademarked elephant from their materials at the request of the Wyoming Republican Party because of trademark licensing agreements.”
“Those candidates and candidate committees who have not removed it,” the statement continues, “are at risk of potential legal actions from the Republican National Committee for violations of trademark law.”
The elephant logo belongs to the Republican National Committee (RNC). The Wyoming Republican Party has an agreement to use it but that doesn’t extend to candidates, candidate committees or PACs, interim Wyoming GOP executive director Ginger Bennett told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday text message.
Scott Ortiz and Emily Madden, both Casper-based attorneys, co-founded Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming. They’re both registered Republicans and have been since at least 2012 when the office’s new registration system was installed, the Natrona County Clerk’s Office confirmed Friday.
Ortiz told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday phone interview that the group doesn’t have a bone to pick with the RNC and will happily alter its billboard imagery in the coming days.
Ortiz said he believes the PAC’s use of the elephant likely falls under “good-faith exceptions” that would allow the PAC to use it.
“And I’ve dealt directly with the RNC,” said Ortiz. “I told them, we’ll gladly change that when those contracts expire. And they said that’s fine… I don’t want to fight with the RNC. I’m a Republican.”
Ortiz added: “the Freedom Caucus just hates our billboards because they’re having to explain what their agenda is.”
Debra Gaylen, sales manager for the Wyoming-based Lamar advertising, emphasized in a Friday phone interview that Lamar is “just the billboard company” and takes no political stance.
After a brief exchange, Common Sense Republicans informed Lamar it had changed its logo, Gaylen recalled.
The PAC has arranged for the billboard company to plaster “snipes” or cover-up graphics featuring a buffalo onto the sign, and that process is underway, said Gaylen.
Elephants Everywhere
Former Rep. Tony Niemiec, who’s running in the Republican primary to win his Green River-based House seat back from Rep. Marlene Brady, said he had to buy American flag stickers to cover up his elephant this year, though he’s used it in the past.
“From what I understand, the state party is getting this from the RNC,” said Niemiec. He voiced surprise at that, saying that along highways and yards in Utah, “there’s hundreds and hundreds of yard signs” bearing the elephant logo.
Former House Speaker Albert Sommers, of Pinedale, is also running an effort to win his old House seat back in the GOP primary.
He asked Wyoming GOP Chair Bryan Miller and then-executive director Kathy Russell on April 27 whether he was “good” to use a modified elephant logo on the signs his wife had designed, Sommers’ emails show. Miller responded that day he’d forward the request to the RNC state team.
Miller texted Sommers on May 7 saying the RNC state party strategy director specified that only the state party could use the elephant logo.
By then, Sommers told Cowboy State Daily on Friday, he’d ordered and distributed campaign signs with the modified elephant. He’d also used the elephant in years past, and had believed that the true RNC logo depicted an elephant inside a circle, while his elephants did not.
Sommers’ wife had downloaded the elephant for her design from a professional stock photo website, “and we bought the license for the image,” he noted.
He spent “well over $1,000” to order American flag stickers to cover the elephants, said Sommers.
“It’s kind of interesting because we have a license that says we can use that image. But nonetheless, I wanted to be street legal,” Sommers said.
Miller told Sommers the RNC has been “cracking down for three cycles now, moving toward defending the brand at all levels.”
A Sheridan County group received a cease and desist letter in the last election cycle, Miller added, according to screenshots of the text message exchange. “It’s not a new issue, just being enforced more openly,” added the chair.
Sommers told Cowboy State Daily that Miller was “very professional.”
This License
Retired Marine Col. Brent Bien’s campaign team is more confident about its Shutterstock license to depict elephants than Sommers’ team. Bien's elephant rears upward.
“Yes, we did have to address the issue,” said Bien’s campaign outreach manager Cheryl Aguiar in a Friday email. “We have some old signs out there – from 2022 – that (have) an elephant that is ‘more similar’ to the trademarked one, but still not the same.”
Aguiar said the team wasn’t required to change those signs since the elephant is “pretty different.”
“Our new elephant for the 2026 signs… is extremely different, plus, we purchased the license for it from Shutterstock and I own the license.”
Aguiar said she sent the party the Shutterstock license and, “They can't argue with that one!”
The Completely Different Type Of Elephant
Miller told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that he believes Bien’s logo is different enough, but he’s clarifying. Sommers’ was not different enough, Miller added.
“He put yellow stars in it. It’s not different enough. He changed the colors,” said Miller. “The trademark law is very clear. Even similar items to it, you can’t do it.”
Bien’s is “a completely different type of elephant.”
Miller noted Bien's Shutterstock license and said that Sommers didn't produce a license, and had said the site took it down.
Sommers sent Cowboy State Daily his license on Friday. He said he didn't send it to the party "because it really didn't matter. I wasn't gonna fight the party over it."
Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Cheyenne, is campaigning with the image of an elephant rearing upward.
Miller said he’ll look into that one, and hadn’t heard of it as of Friday.
Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming, however, became the subject of multiple complaints to the secretary of state’s office, said Miller.
Miller said the Wyoming GOP leadership is separate from the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
Often people conflate the two. Their policy objectives bear many similarities.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
