Albert Sommers handily won the GOP nomination on a path to regain his House District 20 seat in a three-way race Tuesday, soundly defeating Rep. Bill Winney and Matt McGinnes in the GOP primary.
House District 20 covers all of Sublette County and a part of Lincoln County. No Democrat is running.
According to unofficial results as of about 9:20 p.m., Sommers garnered 2,027 in Sublette County, compared to 603 for McGinnes and 497 for Winney, and 7 write-in votes.
In the La Barge area of Lincoln County, McGinnes had 116 votes, Sommers had 36, and Winney had 34.
“I’m really glad that Sublette County rejected the negativity that came out of the Virginia PAC, and I so appreciate their support,” Sommers told Cowboy State Daily immediately after unofficial results were posted.
The HD 20 campaign turned nasty, with Sommers the target of attack mailers distributed by the Virginia-based PAC Make Liberty Win.
Remarking on the Lincoln County results, “That’s the best I’ve ever done in LaBarge, with 36 votes there,” Sommers said.
Sommers vowed to serve “those who voted for me, and those who voted against me.”
He added that “I will do my best to keep everybody informed, as I always have.”
Sommers left the HD 20 seat in 2024 for an unsuccessful bid for the Wyoming Senate.
He served in the House from 2013 to 2025. He was the 66th speaker of the House from 2023 to 2025 and identified with the more traditional wing of the state Republican Party.
Nasty campaign
The HD 20 campaign turned nasty, with the Make Liberty Win flyers.
“That one on child abuse was nasty,” Sommers remarked in a previous interview with Cowboy State Daily. “That was just beyond the pale.”
The flyer showed a girl, roughly kindergarten age, apparently crying and covering her eyes with her overlapping hands.
“When the Wyoming Legislature voted to stop the violation of children’s innocence, Albert Sommers voted to abuse our kids,” the flyer claimed.
The flyers were referencing Senate File 117 of 2023, which sought to forbid public school teachers from teaching sexual-orientation and gender-identity themes to children from kindergarten through third grade. It also sought to compel school district to tell parents of changes in students’ mental, emotional or physical health.
Sommers was House Speaker that year and told Cowboy State Daily at the time that he kept that bill in his drawer because he believed it would violate his oath to follow the state Constitution. The bill died.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
