Next Tuesday may turn out to be the most groundbreaking election in Wyoming’s history.
Voters have an opportunity to override the establishment’s refusal to address unfair property taxes (Proposition 1). Simultaneously, they are poised to break a record that has stood since Lewis Tidball won 11.28% of the gubernatorial vote in 1894.
Tidball was running under the Populist Party banner, and no third party has ever broken the 10% ceiling since. But Rebecca Bextel seems likely to vault the Constitution Party well past that mark next Tuesday.
If either of these things happens—or even come close—David will have defeated Goliath’s millions with his puny slingshot.
Wyoming’s 2026 general election has developed into a high-dollar contest between an alliance of globalists, unions and associations of government workers on the one hand, and the man on the street on the other. This contest, up and down the ballot, centers on whether you want taxes raised or taxes lowered.
The massive out-of-state spending itself makes this clear. Forget the carefully-curated campaign messaging. Just look at the money flow. It is glaringly obvious that the very same dark money that handed Eric Barlow the GOP nomination is now opposing Proposition 1.
Likewise, the governor who endorsed Barlow is the same governor who used his bully pulpit to attack Proposition 1. County employees have already threatened vital services with malicious enforcement of Prop 1. Now, candidates who primaried proven conservatives last August may punish you with a state income tax if you vote for it.
Most recently, we learned that the National Education Association (NEA) has poured $1.8 million into Wyoming in addition to the $206,000 from the globally-funded Wyoming Donor Alliance — all to defeat, you guessed it, Proposition 1.
The Wyoming GOP, on the contrary, has endorsed Proposition 1. But it has little money to advertise that fact. And the tens of thousands of Cowboy State citizens who petitioned to get Proposition 1 on the ballot have no national funding or slick organization to promote it.
Clearly the anti-GOP establishment treats tax reduction as kryptonite.
On second thought, it is only tax reduction to long-time Wyoming homeowners that gives Prop 1 opponents the heebie-jeebies. Tax exemptions for out-of-state developers is cool for them.
That’s the clarity that Rebecca Bextel has brought to the table. For her, property tax reform is not just a campaign issue. It is the issue that has been her passion for years, and the issue that motivated her to run for governor on the Constitution ticket when no one else would.
Bextel’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson centered on this issue. But you would never know it from the reporting.
The biggest part of her 34-minute conversation was about how the Wyoming Community Development Authority (WCDA) has total discretion in shoveling taxpayer dollars to Wall Street equity firms and foreign investors through private developers, while torpedoing local investors, local homeowners, and local zoning.
The paper trail is a labyrinthine shell-game involving investors who gain hundreds of thousands of dollars in leverage for a mere $100 buy-in, while the public takes all the risk. The WCDA promises housing for low-income workers but ends up renting the units to people with $200,000 bank accounts and sketchy documentation.
Nevertheless, the federal government gives them millions in future tax exemptions which they sell on the open market for cash on the barrel-head. Then fifteen years down the road, when the low-rent housing is run down and depreciated, they start over again with million-dollar development fees or sell it to the town that gave it to them in the first place.
This is the kind of irresponsible governance that wastes tax revenue while enriching insiders. It’s the sort of injustice that forces a 94-year-old woman to come out of retirement to pay her property taxes, while exempting out-of-state investors from paying property taxes just down the block.
That is the real issue at stake next Tuesday. It is no wonder that globalists are spending so much money to keep their gravy train on the tracks. And it is no wonder that the same globalists want to elect the candidate who is not talking about this, rather than the one who is passionate about it.
But it is not only gobs of money that bind the gubernatorial race together with Proposition 1. The ballot itself does. Wyoming has a “quorum rule” that makes your “yes” vote on Proposition 1 an absolute necessity.
The “quorum rule” means that votes for Proposition 1 are not just counted against “no” votes. They are counted against every ballot cast. If you cast a vote for anybody at all next Tuesday, your ballot will automatically count as a “no” vote on Proposition 1 unless you turn the ballot over and fill in the “yes” oval for Prop 1.
It’s one more rule that intentionally puts a thumb on the scale against the average citizen. But when you see the connection between the candidates and Proposition 1, you will know how to vote on both sides of the ballot.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
