It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, August 18th. I’m Mac Watson.
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It's primary election day in Wyoming, with many races up for grabs. Cowboy State Daily's political reporter Claire McFarland breaks down our coverage and what you can expect.
“The primary election in Wyoming tends to be more decisive than the general election because it's such a deep red state. So a lot of these big struggles are between Republicans, and so today we can expect to see Freedom Caucus versus non-Freedom Caucus showdowns, struggles over the U.S. House, one U.S. Senate seat, the governor, Secretary of State, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Treasurer. Cowboy State Daily is going to have live coverage, analysis, and up-to-date stories throughout the evening.”
Our live coverage of the primary starts at 7PM at Cowboy State Daily dot com.
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The New York Times featured the Wyoming Senate race between Chip Neiman and Ogden Driskill as an example of Wyoming's Republican Party divide. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that's accurate, but no one in that race thinks Neiman represents the “far right.”
“The New York Times story went over the Ogden Driscoll/Chip Neiman race, which was a showdown for Senate between an anti-Freedom Caucus figurehead and a Freedom Caucus figurehead. That's Chip Neiman. No one was really bent out of shape. It's just that Wyoming politics is incredibly nuanced, and anyone used to covering it from kind of a ‘Democrat versus Republican’ approach is going to miss it because the big power plays in Wyoming are all infighting in factions within the Republican Party.”
That race is anthemic of the divide between the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its intra-party foes, multiple news outlets and the NYT have agreed. But it’s difficult to capture the nuance of it.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Virginia-based PAC Make Liberty Win, which favors the Freedom Caucus, spent nearly $550,000 on Wyoming's primary election and more than $60,000 attacking specific candidates. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports the group’s director, Barrett Young says there’s a reason to go negative.
“Make Liberty Win has consistently been a big spender in Wyoming's elections for the last two election cycles. Now, spending the neighborhood of 300,000 in 2024, and more than half a million this time around. And they'll go positive, but they'll also go negative, really negative. One flyer attacking former House Speaker Albert Summers showed a crying child and called him out for his nay vote on a bill that he said he had constitutional doubts about, rather than you know merit concerns. The director of Make Liberty Win, which backs Freedom Caucus aligned candidates, said that that groups will go negative because it works.”
Make Liberty Win is among Wyoming’s top-spending state-level PACS and traces all this year's contributions for Wyoming races to Virginia, its campaign report says.
Read the full story HERE.
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Lindsay Woods of Jackson was poised to win the grueling 620-mile Mongol Derby but heatstroke and food poisoning left her unconscious in a river. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that even though this ends her bid on the remote Mongolian Steppe, Lindsay says she’s confident she could have won the race.
“She stayed with a Mongolian family and might have eaten something either that night or the day before that gave her food poisoning. She attempted to ride the next morning, but it was an extremely hot day, and the combination of food poisoning and the dehydration associated with that, and the heat led the heat stroke. She sat down in a stream to try to cool herself off, and after that point, she doesn't remember much, but she was found unconscious in that stream after activating her SOS signal. Lindsay absolutely wants to compete in the Mongol Derby again. It's a question of money and time because it's very expensive to enter and travel and everything. But in terms of what she did, her strategy was sound. She had a good feel for the horses, and she had a pretty good idea of how to win.”
Woods was one of 43 riders in the 2026 Mongol Derby. The Jackson horse trainer proved herself from the start, using her equestrian and strategic skills to become one of the frontrunners in the highly competitive, grueling endurance race. She’s discouraged but tells Cowboy State Daily she’s holding her head high after her ordeal on the Mongolian Steppe.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily News continues now….
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After a so-called "prankster" left a Cheyenne pizza joint stuck with 18 pizzas, the restaurant donated them to emergency room workers at the Cheyenne hospital. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that Dave Agovic, owner of L'Osteria Mondello said, “Let's reward them.”
“Cheyenne restaurant owner Dave Agavic says that he was already handling an order for 40 pizzas when another for 18 came in, so he quickly made the pizzas. And when the pies were ready, nobody showed up to pick them up. He called the number that had ordered them and quickly realized that it was a prank when the person said they never ordered those pizzas. Frustrated with more than $300 worth of hot food sitting on valuable counter space, he asked his staff what they should do with it, and the staff quickly came up with an answer. They decided that they should donate it to the local ER. Hospital staff happened to be hungry, and they were very grateful to receive the donation.”
In about 3 1/2 years running the restaurant, Agovic said something like this had happened only once.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman says California should be held accountable for the Colorado River crisis because instead of building water infrastructure it spent billions on “stupid things” like high-speed rail. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports in the meantime, Lake Powell has hit a record low.
“Hageman is a good one to talk to about this because before she was in Congress, she was actually a water and natural resources attorney. She's worked on cases having to do with the Colorado River Compact, and her point of view is say Arizona just goes ‘okay, the heck with it!’ We're going to start suing people for more water, she said. That would probably be because it's direct federal jurisdiction. It would probably have to go to the Supreme Court, and the argument that Arizona or California might bring to the table is that our municipal and/or industrial use of water is the best and highest use over irrigation in the upper basin states, and Hageman thinks if they tried to make that argument, that the counter argument that no irrigation is actually the best use would probably prevail in court.”
During a recent appearance on News Nation, Hageman said California, with a population of 40 million, still relies on water infrastructure dating to the 1960s, when about 16 million lived in the state.
Read the full story HERE.
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The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.
“It was the gardening that they do that caught the attention of some of their guests and led to the Martha Stewart visit, the guy was like, "Oh, we got to get our CGO out here to see this. Our chief gardening officer. How often have you heard that kind of a title? And come to find out, the CGO is Martha Stewart. And so, you know the guy that owns the ranch. He was like, "Oh yeah, right. Martha Stewart's gonna come out here and visit the ranch. And 10 days later, Martha Stewart is on the ranch, you know, touring their agriculture operation, and his wife, who is an excellent chef, is cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner for Martha Stewart.”
Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman.
Read the full story HERE.
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A couple was videotaping the Needles Eye Tunnel in South Dakota’s Custer State Park on Friday when a motorhome tried to thread the narrow opening and became stuck. Cowboy State Andrew Rossi reports that one witness said, “I think he just thought he could get through.”
“If they didn't have an awning on the side of their motorhome, they might have done it. But as they got in, the awning started scraping against the tunnel. They made it about halfway before they realized they weren't threading that needle's eye, so they backed out and the awning popped out before falling off. So it's not the first time that's happened on the needle's highway and in those tunnels specifically, but there's a first time for everything too.”
Drivers pass through three tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye is the tightest at 8 feet, 4 inches wide and 9 feet, 8 inches tall. Many people have attempted to get their RVs, motorhomes, and travel trailers through these tunnels, and many have failed.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
