Let’s take a step or two away from the corpse-strewn battlefield of the recent primary election, let the Freedom Caucus camp followers mourn their dead in peace, and let’s cast our eyes toward November.
The upcoming general election in Wyoming promises to offer some twists and turns that are worth considering while we take a breath and re-load. As the Boy Scouts always say, “Be prepared.”
Survivors of the Tuesday Night Massacre and their tireless supporters are making noises that they may try to outflank the results of the primary and shoulder their way into office through desperate end-runs.
As I mentioned in my last column, they are already trying to bust down the back door to the Governor’s Office by running Checkgate Becky Bextel as a Constitution Party candidate for Wyoming’s highest office.
Suffice it to say that I’ll cover any wagers from folks who want to bet good American money on her winning
Anyone who believes that a candidacy from Wyoming’s Constitution Party will make a dent in the electoral realities of the Cowboy State needs to visit with me about a surfside beach cabana I have for sale on the outskirts of Wamsutter.
If you combine the votes cast in the 2022 (the last midterm) general election for both the Constitution and Libertarian Parties, you’ll come up with about 10,000 votes, roughly the population of Jackson.
You can’t stand there with a straight face and tell me that a tail that tiny is gonna wag the big dog of Wyoming politics. But more on the Libertarians a bit later.
There are rumblings around the ol’ campfire that supporters of Brent Bien, who came in last during the gubernatorial primary, are planning a write-in campaign to install him in the Governors Office.
Someone is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe any write-in candidate has ever won a statewide office in Wyoming.
Bien himself says he doesn’t support that effort.
Without the candidate’s enthusiastic support, a write-in campaign is nothing more than a waste of ink and a good way to get writer’s cramp.
I detect the stirrings of another movement out in the hinterland.
They call themselves ABC (Anyone But Chuck) and they can be a monkey wrench in the machinery of Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s attempt to win Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat.
The numerology in this scenario is intriguing.
Gray won the GOP nomination with 27,000 votes, less than 25% of the total votes cast.
Expressed in other terms, 75% of Wyoming Republicans, or about 100,000 cowgirls and cowboys, voted for Anyone But Chuck.
How those folks vote in the general election will go a long way to determining who occupies Harriet Hageman’s former seat in Congress.
As I see it, the ABC’s options are these: they can hold their noses and vote for Gray out of nothing but partisan loyalty; they can vote for Democrat Lisa Kinney, an experienced legislator; or they can roll the dice and vote for Libertarian Shawn Johnson.
If the ABC faction votes as a bloc, they’ll swing the election to the eventual winner.
The tea leaves are telling me that this is the only chance that a third party has to gain a statewide seat in the Big Empty.
The Libertarians are best positioned to do that, and to send someone other than a Republican to Congress for the first time since the days of Teno Roncalio and Gale McGee.
But it’s still a long shot.
Much will depend upon the kinds of campaigns that Kinney and Johnson conduct between now and November 3.
There are Republican votes there for the taking, if they make the right moves.
Voter turnout in the general election will also be a factor. But one thing is certain – nobody is going anywhere with only 25% of the vote. Selah.
