The Republican-nominated candidates for Wyoming’s U.S. House and Senate races did not answer Wyoming Public Television’s (PBS) requests to join a televised debate next month, the outlet confirmed Friday to Cowboy State Daily.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who won the GOP nomination for U.S. House last month, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, who won it for U.S. Senate, did not respond to PBS’s debate invitations by the Tuesday deadline, Wyoming PBS CEO Joanna Kail confirmed in a Friday phone interview.
Kail did not opine on the candidates’ silence, but emphasized that PBS will host debates with the three other U.S. House members challenging Gray, and all balloted candidates for governor, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction.
State Treasurer Curt Meier and Auditor Kristi Racines are running unopposed, and PBS has said it’s cancelling the U.S. Senate debate without Democratic nominee James Byrd’s lone opponent — Hageman — on stage to face him.
The general election is Nov. 3.
'Won't Even Respond'
Byrd criticized Hageman in a Friday statement.
"Harriet Hageman won't stand on a stage. She won't return calls. She won't even respond,” he said in a Friday statement via email. “And now her silence is about to cancel the one chance Wyoming voters had to see both Senate candidates side by side.
"You don't get to represent this state if you won't show up and defend what you believe in front of it. Silence isn't leadership."
Hageman’s campaign advisor Tim Murtaugh told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday email that, "Representative Hageman will spend her time talking directly to voters as she has for the past five years.”
“She prides herself on being an open and transparent representative for the state which is why she will once again complete town halls for every county,” continued Murtaugh, adding that Hageman “proudly reports her voting record and recaps of her activity in her weekly newsletter."
Hageman took the stage for PBS’s primary election debate Aug. 13, against Republican opponents Sam Mead, John Holtz, and Jimmy Skovgard. Another candidate, Jill Edwards, did not attend.
Five days later, Hageman won the nomination with 64.7% of the vote.
Like Hageman, Gray appeared for PBS’s primary election debate. He faced eight other Republican candidates, and clashed with the debate moderator on stage.
Days later, Gray won the nomination with 25% of the vote.
Kail confirmed that Gray did not respond to PBS’s invitation to debate his general-election opponents — Libertarian nominee Shawn Johnson, Democratic nominee Lisa Kinney, and Constitution Party nominee Jeff Haggit.
‘Embarrassing’ Stuff
Johnson voiced surprise in a Friday phone interview.
“It also shows that he assumes he has this in the bag, and that he doesn’t need to let Wyoming hear the different policies between the candidates,” said Johnson about Gray not participating in the debate. “I think that’s unfair to the voters that he doesn’t want to defend his policies.”
Kinney also theorized about Gray’s motives.
“I know why he’s not coming,” she said. “Because there are so many things we could ask him about that would be embarrassing — that I’d intend to bring up.”
Kinney listed Gray’s decision last year to hand sensitive voter data to the federal government, while multiple other Republican elections chiefs chose rather to fight in court to protect their own voters’ data.
She referenced what Gray’s primary election opponents Kevin Christensen and state Senate President Bo Biteman called a pattern of incivility and inability to get along with others.
And she referenced a controversy in which federal election monitors — according to Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee — were disruptive in Cheyenne-area voting sites on primary election day, and didn’t coordinate with her ahead of time.
Public records Gray’s office released to Cowboy State Daily this week show that a U.S. Department of Justice division chief notified Gray about the Laramie County operation four days before the election.
Gov. Mark Gordon and Lee both said they were surprised by the operation, however; and Gordon asked the state attorney general to review the incident.
“He knew something, and didn’t share it with the people who should know about it,” said Kinney of Gray. “What’s that all about?”
Kinney also noted that Gray was an early founder of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a controversial group of state lawmakers, most of whose candidates performed poorly this year in the GOP primary election.
She cast doubt on whether he'd work to block AI data center expansion, as he has said, since Gray frequently voices praise and support for President Donald Trump, and Trump is working to fast-track AI data centers.
Haggit did not return a Friday voicemail request for comment.
In response to Johnson and Kinney’s comments and Cowboy State Daily’s inquiry about skipping the debate, Gray said, “My job is not to placate my opponents' desire to grandstand on TV. I'm focused on addressing the priorities of the people of Wyoming.”
He said he continues to campaign across Wyoming and is “focused on meeting voters and discussing Wyoming’s future and the key issues: unleashing our energy industry, affordability, health care, securing the border and getting bureaucrats off the backs of families and businesses.”
“We also must keep public lands in public hands,” added Gray.
He said he’s hosted 48 town halls and attended other events across Wyoming.
Gray noted that Hageman and Barrasso have both skipped debates in the past.
Barrasso in the 2024 primary cycle did not take the stage against then-opponent Reid Rasner. But Barrasso debated Democratic nominee Scott Morrow ahead of the general election.
After defeating then-Rep. Liz Cheney in the 2022 primary election, Hageman did not attend the general election debate. She skipped both 2024 PBS debates as well.
And, Byrd’s Critique Of PBS
Byrd’s team emailed a statement Friday to Cowboy State Daily saying PBS’s decision to cancel his one-man debate follows “prior assurances” by Kail that the station would try to find an alternative format like a single-candidate town hall or extended interview, “to ensure Wyoming voters retained access to public service broadcasting during the election cycle.”
The station then wrote to Byrd’s team saying single-candidate programming doesn’t align with standard operational formats, the statement says.
“By canceling coverage entirely, Wyoming PBS has allowed the refusal of one campaign to dictate public television programming, penalizing the candidate prepared to participate and leaving Wyoming voters without essential public discourse on the airwaves,” it adds.
The statement quotes Byrd saying, “Voters across Wyoming deserve a transparent, unfiltered look at who is running to represent them in Washington,” and that public television exists to serve the public interests instead of give a programming “veto” to a candidate who refuses to show.
In response to that, Kail forwarded to Cowboy State Daily an email, containing what she said is the text of her email to Byrd’s spokeswoman Jill Cumer.
It reads: “Unfortunately, since Mr. Byrd is the only U.S. Senate candidate who accepted our debate invitation, we are unable to host a debate among U.S. Senate candidates this year. At this time, providing extended program time for candidate town halls and/or interviews is also not a normal component of our stations’ broadcast day."
Kail said that was the extent of her comment on Byrd’s statement about PBS.
Of the debates generally, Kail said, “We are very proud to be able to offer the opportunity for the people of Wyoming to see almost all candidates in these debates, and it’s just an honor to do so.”
She said PBS’s level of debate coverage this election year has been unprecedented, exceeding the volume of recent decades. And she said she’s proud of her staff for being able to pull the events together.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
