Wyoming Republican Party Chair Bryan Miller explained Monday to Cowboy State Daily why the party hasn’t endorsed Republican nominee Eric Barlow for governor, nor Constitution Party nominee Rebecca Bextel.
In doing so, Miller also delivered a scathing critique of Bextel, and a post-mortem examination of the primary election in which voters rejected most Wyoming Freedom Caucus candidates.
The party didn’t endorse Barlow because the state senator who won the GOP nomination didn’t participate in the party’s vetting process during the primary election cycle, Miller said.
It hasn’t endorsed Bextel for governor either.
“Heck no,” said Miller of that prospect.
She’s not a Republican, he added, and “we have to live by our own rules."
Bextel and Barlow vie for election Nov. 3, along with Democratic Party nominee Ken Casner.
Miller’s comments followed Bextel’s interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, released Saturday, in which she accused state Republican Party leadership of being ineffective.
“The Republican Party has imploded. It's not just imploded nationally. It's imploded in Wyoming. We don't have any leadership,” Bextel told Carlson.
The Big First Amendment Case
Miller rebutted that accusation.
“What she leaves out is the fact that the largest change this state is going to see, regarding the political arena in the state, is coming, and it’s been instituted by the current leadership,” said Miller.
Under Miller’s leadership the party’s bylaws committee, then the full convention, enacted a change in April authorizing the party to vet and endorse candidates during the primary election cycle.
That positions the party to sue over a state election law that Miller and many GOP leaders say violates the its First Amendment rights.
The state Legislature in 1977 passed a lengthy election law that banned major political parties from spending money boosting some of their candidates over others during the primary election cycle.
The party can spend money on candidates during the general election cycle from mid-August to early November.
Some interpret the law as barring endorsements, since even a Facebook post announcing an endorsement arguably cost someone time.
But since the GOP primary is more decisive than the general election in nearly all of deep-red Wyoming’s races, Miller sees the law as crippling the party’s power.
State GOP leadership sued Wyoming in June to regain the party’s primary-election voice. That case is ongoing in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
Dark money has burgeoned in Wyoming politics.
Miller told Cowboy State Daily that giving the party spending power and a voice in the primary election cycle would give Wyoming Republicans a way to combat that.
“We’d be able to counter that big money,” he said. “The … 213,000 registered Republicans will be able to determine who our standard bearers are.”
Why Not Barlow?
The Wyoming Republican Party has endorsed GOP nominees U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman for U.S. Senate, and Secretary of State Chuck Gray for U.S. House.
“Mr. Barlow chose not to participate in the endorsement process, because he said that we were violating the law,” Miller said.
Miller disputes that the endorsement process violated the law.
It may have, but doing so also poised the party to wage its constitutional case to overturn that law.
The “endorsement process” involves committing to the state GOP platform, the bylaws say. Only people with 80% agreement or higher can win endorsements.
Many candidates bristled at this requirement, noting inconsistencies in the platform.
Why Not Bextel?
Miller said the party can’t endorse Bextel because she belongs to a different party.
Bextel, a longtime Republican, switched to the Constitution Party in May to run for governor so that she could mount a post-primary challenge against Barlow.
“Yes, we’ve had people who just love her to death,” said Miller of Bextel. “And we’ve had people leave the party over her and go and join the Constitution Party.”
Bextel ran for state GOP chair in 2024 and lost to Miller 42-32.
“She’d been involved with the party for a very short time,” Miller said. “She decided to run for chair, gets the most powerful politician in the state’s endorsement; loses the chairmanship race.”
Hageman had endorsed Bextel’s chair run.
Miller said Bextel promised she’d raise lots of money for the party, but then quit her finance chair position and said she wouldn’t “raise another dime” after her loss.
She said she resigned because Miller told the State Central Committee he had $400,000 coming into the party the day of the chairman election. Cowboy State Daily also reported that statement at the time.
“Obviously, he had incorrect information,” she said.
Freedom Caucus Fall And Checkgate
Miller on Monday recounted the Checkgate saga from his view.
Bextel handed out checks on the state House of Representatives floor just after adjournment Feb. 9 — two days before the introduction vote on a bill she’d championed.
The checks were campaign donations, she and their donor have since said.
A criminal bribery investigation is ongoing in Laramie County.
“She decides to go down to Cheyenne,” said Miller, chuckling, “and go on the floor, and thinks it’s a smart idea to hand out checks on the floor of the House.”
“Legal or not,” said Miller, “that was a super poor decision.”
The act generated investigations, at least one public hearing, extensive media coverage and a vivid photograph, shot by Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie.
All check recipients were either members or allies of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which has lately been more ideologically aligned with state GOP leadership than its traditional Republican counterparts.
“The claims of corruption against the Freedom Caucus that came out about that … gave the progressives within the party and the Left, the Democrats across the state, what they needed to spend a whole lot of money to drive a corruption message that was not true, in any way shape or form,” said Miller.
And it “destroyed the Freedom Caucus, the group she’d taken time and effort and money (helping) them to win,” he added.
Freedom Caucus candidates and their allies performed poorly in the primary election, losing control of the state House and failing to take over the Senate.
Even candidates who were “unfairly” associated with the caucus fell, Miller noted.
“So the change at our Legislature was effectively driven by Ms. Bextel,” he said.
She disagreed with that in a Monday text to Cowboy State Daily, pointing to “larger forces” like dark money from Democrats.
“I personally raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for conservative candidates ruing the primary,” she said. “Which was far more than Bryan was able to raise through the Republican Party.”
Bextel also blamed Miller for the election of "a flood of Democrats into Republican office."
Will Not
Miller said Bextel knew Megan Degenfelder and Brent Bien would “split the vote” in the Republican primary, yet touted them both.
“There is no way the Wyoming Republican Party owes her anything,” he said of Bextel.
Miller said Bextel has countered the party from her chair election loss until now.
“And she’s out there going, ‘I’m a good Republican.’ No you’re not,” he said. “You’re not different than all the Democrats coming into the Wyoming Republican Party and messing with our election. You’re doing the same thing.”
Miller said he “cannot and will not” succumb to people’s calls to back Bextel.
“I will not change the way we do business to accommodate somebody because we lost an election — or they lost an election,” he said, another reference to the Freedom Caucus’ near-total downfall.
Bextel in her own text message told Cowboy State Daily that she’s running to stop Wyoming from turning into Colorado “if the Democrat candidate made it to the top of the Republican ticket.”
She said she will never base her decisions on what any party tells her to do, but will work only toward the best interests of the people of Wyoming.
All three members of Wyoming’s all-Republican congressional delegation endorsed Barlow last week.
Bextel called that “further” proof that “the system is corrupt!”
What Trump Chose
Miller lamented that the party landed at odds with President Donald Trump in the gubernatorial primary.
Trump endorsed Degenfelder.
Party leadership endorsed Bien.
Miller said the pair “split” the vote to give Barlow the win.
It’s unclear if this is the case: Bien and Degenfelder collectively won more points than Barlow, but it’s difficult to say if Barlow would have been the second, rather than third, choice for many Bien or Degenfelder voters.
Miller said Trump didn’t consult the party organization before endorsing Degenfelder.
He also asserted that Hageman asked Trump to endorse Degenfelder and U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis also “went” with her.
The two congressional delegates did not respond directly to that.
Hageman’s spokeswoman Carly Miller said the Wyoming GOP should be focused on getting Republicans elected up and down the ballot, and that, “President Trump does not need to consult with anyone on his endorsement of candidates.”
Lummis said she’s already voted for Barlow and urges Wyomingites to support the GOP ticket.
From Trump’s January endorsement in January to the party’s bylaws change in April, said Miller, he fielded an avalanche of questions and concerns.
“Everybody comes to me and goes, ‘Why, why — why did they do this?’” he recalled. “I don’t know. They had someone they wanted for governor, I guess.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
