Wyoming has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. House in 50 years.
Gerald Ford was president the last time it happened. Gas was 59 cents a gallon.
So it's notable when Clair McFarland reports in Cowboy State Daily that Inside Elections, a national nonpartisan outfit, has moved Wyoming's House race from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican."
Gray called it fake news. He does that often, when he doesn’t like the news.
The Cook Report still calls the seat solid red.
But Politico's Jonathan Martin pointed out something you can't spin. Chuck Gray is running affordability ads in October.
When a Republican in Wyoming starts airing poll-tested commercials about rural hospitals and congressional stock trading this late in the race, somebody on his staff is reading numbers they don't like.
Martin also said Gray has "no lack of adversaries in his Republican Party."
I'd go further. The Gray-backing Republican Central Committee has spent the last two years telling voters they are not welcome in the Republican Party.
Start in April. The party voted to sue the state over Title 22, the election law that gives major parties their power in the first place.
Title 22 is why the Republican Party gets a taxpayer-funded primary. It's why the party's nominations carry legal weight.
It's why the party sends the governor three names when an office comes open. The Central Committee decided they were above the law.
At the state convention, a couple dozen insiders wrote the platform the day before. The delegates got it with no debate, no amendments, and no questions from the floor. Then candidates were asked to pledge loyalty to it.
The party also stood up a Dispute Resolution Committee that meets in secret, has no rules of procedure, limits the right to a lawyer, and claims it can hand out money judgments against party enemies.
When that committee told Hot Springs County to count votes from people state law says don't get a vote, a district judge in Uinta County told the party to follow the law. The party appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court.
Then came the endorsements.
People inside the party and out warned the Central Committee not to pick favorites in a primary. They did it anyway. That move angered 22 campaigns and every volunteer, donor and true believer behind them.
They passed over Megan Degenfelder, who carried the party's water for four years as superintendent, and ignored Donald Trump's endorsement of her while they were at it.
In August, the voters graded their work. For state-level offices, the Central Committee's endorsed candidates went zero for the lot.
Back in June, when I wrote that the party was eating itself, former party Vice Chair, David Holland answered me on Cowboy State Daily's Facebook page.
"No, Tom, the Wyoming GOP has finally decided that if you are going to run wearing our brand, you should be a critter we are pleased to call our own. Ranchers do it all the time. It is known as culling, and it improves the quality of the breed."
Current Party Vice Chair, Bob Ferguson chimed in to ask whether that meant it was time to send me to the sale barn. Holland answered, "Long past due."
Anybody who has spent time around a sale barn knows who does the culling. The rancher does. Not the cattle, and certainly not a handful of steers who appointed themselves to run the herd.
In August, the rancher showed up. Wyoming's Republican primary voters looked over the Central Committee's hand-picked stock for state office and sent every last one of them down the chute.
You'd think that would prompt some soul-searching.
Instead, the party seems to be giving permission to vote for candidates outside the party. If they don’t support the party, why should you?
Sheridan County Republican Party, the chairman's home county, posted an ad for Rebecca Bextel, the Constitution Party's candidate for governor. Albany County let her film part of a commercial at a party meeting and took her money.
The former State Chairman, Campbell County and Albany County party officers are openly supporting a Constitution Party Candidate while maintaining their Republican Party positions.
Every Republican officer who helps them get there is cutting the branch they're sitting on.
Now look again at the House race.
Chuck Gray won the Republican nomination with 25 percent of the vote. Three out of four Republican primary voters wanted somebody else.
The Libertarian, Shawn Johnson, is out there with an endorsement from a former Natrona County Republican chairman, telling disaffected Republicans he's their guy.
Democrat, Lisa Kinney, is getting endorsements from long-time Republicans and former popular governors.
The current leadership treats that tent as something to purge. Every censure, every loyalty test, every endorsement, every lawsuit against the state sends the same message to some Republican somewhere: you're not welcome here.
The voters didn't break the Republican Party. The people running it are doing that job all by themselves.
If the party won’t support their nominees, don’t be surprised if the voters do not, either.
Tom Lubnau served in the Wyoming Legislature from 2004 to 2015 and is a former Speaker of the House. He can be reached at: YourInputAppreciated@gmail.com
