Eric Barlow won the Republican nomination for governor Tuesday.
The state senator from Gillette defeated Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder and retired Marine Corps Col. Brent Bien.
He’ll face Democratic nominee Kenneth Casner, and Constitution Party nominee Rebecca Bextel at the Nov. 3 general election.
Barlow secured the win in spite of sizable obstacles.
Degenfelder received President Donald Trump’s endorsement in January. Bien received an endorsement from the Wyoming Republican Party’s state central committee in July.
And in the dog days of the election, Barlow weathered a high-dollar attack campaign from at least two groups: Wyoming’s Turn PAC and Women For Responsible Government PAC. The former published falsehoods about Barlow, claiming he had pushed for fuel tax hikes in 2013 and 2020 when legislative records show he had, rather, fought to keep fuel taxes low both years.
Barlow was first elected to the Wyoming Legislature in 2012 and rose to the rank of House Speaker in 2021. Following a Wyoming tradition, not uniformly kept, of seeking higher office after his speaker term, Barlow was elected to the state Senate in 2022.
One of his more high-profile legislative achievements passed in 2023, when he led a bill to give non-violent felons a path to restore their gun and civic rights.
Degenfelder
The public resistance to Degenfelder's campaign was more muted, but still comprised at least one attack ad campaign and around $200,000 worth of opposition PAC spending.
Strong support from Trump – who reiterated his endorsement of her no fewer than four times – and from U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman marked her run.
When she ran successfully as the state’s schools chief in 2022 against the appointed, short-lived incumbent Brian Schroeder, Schroeder had the Trump endorsement.
Degenfelder told Cowboy State Daily during a live video interview earlier this month that Trump first noticed her when she defeated his endorsee.
In her tenure as superintendent, Degenfelder grappled with the social issues that roiled Wyomingite parents of young kids starting in about 2022. She dispatched guidance for schools to handle sexually-explicit books, and advocated for protections for girls’ school sports.
Bien
Bien finished a distant second to Gov. Mark Gordon in the 2022 primary election, and was the first to declare for office this cycle. His campaign was characterized by passion and a wish to “audit everything” in state government, then “audit the audits.”
Bien touted the backing of both the state’s Republican Party leadership and many Freedom Caucus-aligned groups and figures.
On the campaign trail, he harkened to his experience seeing “the end state of tyranny in many theaters,” and told the public he first ran for office because Gordon had shuttered private businesses and schools during COVID-19.
