With Wyoming’s primary election less than two weeks away, the race for our state’s only U.S. House seat has turned ugly.
You have seen the mailers: candidate attacks and claims that often fail even the most basic smell test.
Behind the scenes, it is worse.
Over the past week, two campaigns asked me to drop out of the race. One offered a high-level position in exchange for my endorsement. High-profile supporters of mine have been pressured to “switch teams.”
Apparently, my opponents lack confidence in their ability to beat a candidate who knows who she is, what she believes, and why she is running.
Voters have heard candidates promise to keep boys out of girls’s spaces (I already did that as State Superintendent).
Now some of those same voices seem far more comfortable keeping women out of the Old Boys’ Club of Congress.
At the televised debate for Wyoming’s U.S. House seat, two different candidates called this a “two man” race.
However, they couldn’t agree on who those two “men” were. They must not have seen the polling, which shows three top contenders, including me, with many votes still undecided.
Let me be clear: I am running to take the leadership principles that have guided my work in Wyoming for decades and put them to work for Wyoming families.
I'm not running on fear-mongering or attack ads; I’m running on proven experience, built right here in the Cowboy State.
Voters — not campaign managers, consultants, or dark-money groups — should decide who represents Wyoming. No amount of manipulated data, glossy advertising, or insider pressure should convince hardworking families that their vote does not matter.
That is a tall task in a race flooded with outside money. As one commentator put it, “boatloads of money are being spent,” and the question is, “How do you compete against competitors who are spending millions?”
My answer is simple: work hard, listen to voters, and tell the truth about where I stand.
I am running to make Wyoming affordable again for working families; cut taxes; rein in Washington’s reckless spending; protect our public lands; fight for our water; empower parents in their children’s education; and build our energy dominance so Wyoming coal, oil, gas, uranium, and rare earth resources can power our nation, strengthen our economy, and secure our future.
Money can buy a carefully crafted image. It can buy TV ads, radio spots, mailers, and campaign staff to polish slogans.
But it cannot buy experience. It cannot buy a record of taking on hard fights for Wyoming. And it cannot buy the grit required to get results in Washington.
