Back when the Legislature was more collegial, there was an adage often said: “Some of my friends are for this, some of my friends are against it, and I’m with my friends.”
It is a witty line. It is also a terrible philosophy for a primary election.
Wyoming conservatives cannot treat candidate selection like a social exercise. Elections are about power: who will exercise it, who will restrain the bureaucracy, and who will let it govern in all but name.
Wyoming is a conservative state, yet it has too often been governed by executives who accommodated the administrative state rather than controlling it. Agencies expanded, spending climbed, and Cheyenne’s permanent bureaucracy grew more confident in its own authority.
Wyoming needs a genuinely conservative governor for the first time since Stan Hathaway. That requires discipline.
The principal danger in the governor’s race is Eric Barlow. He represents the establishment candidate who promises steady management while leaving the entrenched bureaucracy in place. This is surrender dressed up as stability.
A government that spends vast taxpayer wealth while bureaucratic influence deepens is not conservative simply because it speaks calmly.
Brent Bien presents a different problem.
He is honorable, and his commitment to principle is genuine.
His insistence that property taxes must ultimately be eliminated is correct. But primary elections are not seminars in moral agreement.
They are contests with consequences. The arithmetic is plain: Bien cannot win this race. What he can do is split the conservative vote and hand the nomination to Barlow.
Wyoming has seen this before. In 2010, a divided conservative majority allowed Matt Mead to win on a narrow plurality. That was math.
The same dynamic threatens this race. Barlow can prevail with less than 40 percent if conservatives’ fracture. Megan Degenfelder can beat him, but only if conservatives act like a majority rather than a debating society.
That is why conservatives should unite behind Megan Degenfelder.
She is not merely the preferable conservative. She is the viable one.
Unlike her opponents, she brings direct knowledge of the industry that is most central to Wyoming’s economic future: energy.
Degenfelder has worked in government and regulatory affairs in the coal, oil, and gas sectors.
She understands how policy is made, how regulation is used, and how federal hostility can be resisted.
She has advanced a serious plan to unleash traditional energy, expand nuclear fuel development, and do so without turning Wyoming into a national waste dump.
She has also offered the clearest framework for data centers moving into Wyoming.
These facilities may offer opportunities, but only if development occurs on Wyoming’s terms. Degenfelder has made those terms clear: data centers must fund or supply their own power so local ratepayers are not burdened; they must use closed-loop cooling systems so groundwater is protected; they must hire Wyoming workers; and they must have support from host communities. That is prudent self-government.
Her record as Superintendent of Public Instruction reinforces the case.
She championed Education Savings Accounts, expanded public charter authorizers, secured 24 million dollars in federal literacy grants, and launched a curriculum transparency portal for parents. She has shown that an outsider, unbound by Cheyenne habits, can produce results.
She has also shown political backbone, standing for pro-life principles, parental authority, and a smaller, more accountable state government. She has earned the support of Harriet Hageman and President Donald Trump.
The same discipline conservatives need in the governor’s race should apply down the ballot.
In the U.S. Senate race, Harriet Hageman remains the clear conservative choice, a defender of Wyoming’s sovereignty and constitutional rights against federal overreach.
In the race for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat, Chuck Gray has demonstrated the firmness federal office requires. As Secretary of State and a member of the State Board of Land Commissioners, he repeatedly opposed massive, subsidized wind leases in Converse and Niobrara counties that threaten Wyoming’s landscape.
For Secretary of State, Rachel Rodriguez-Williams brings serious legislative leadership. She spearheaded the Life is a Human Right Act and has championed election integrity measures, including limits on large-scale ballot harvesting.
State Treasurer Curt Meier also deserves support. He has managed Wyoming’s investment portfolio with steadiness, guided state funds through market volatility, and resisted woke ESG mandates and federal economic intrusion.
Education remains one of the clearest examples of bureaucratic excess. For decades, the Campbell decisions helped turn Wyoming’s schools into an administrative maze where funding formulas overshadow academic outcomes. To reverse that trend, school choice must empower parents and force schools to compete. Bureaucratic systems should not be treated as ends in themselves.
That is why candidates associated with perpetual administrative expansion, including Steve Harshman, should be rejected. Wyoming does not need more money poured into overhead while students are deprived of instruction in Western civilization, constitutional liberty, and foundational truth.
Tom Kelly is the principled conservative choice for Superintendent of Public Instruction. A former classroom teacher with a Ph.D. in political science, Kelly supports school choice, local curriculum control, and classical learning. He understands that education exists to form capable citizens, not to feed an empire of administrators.
A constitution cannot enforce itself. Neither can a conservative majority. Both depend on citizens who understand consequences, recognize political traps, and refuse to mistake affection for judgment.
The question is not whether Wyoming is conservative. The question is whether Wyoming conservatives are disciplined enough to govern.
If they are, the path is clear: unite behind Megan Degenfelder and this conservative slate, reject another establishment victory by division, and exercise the authority that belongs to the people of Wyoming.
Fred Harrison can be reached at: Fred.Harrison@fjhlawoffice.com
