The Democrat and Republican running for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat filmed each other having a verbal clash Saturday at the Centennial library.
Democratic nominee Lisa Kinney and Republican nominee Chuck Gray both accuse the other of unpleasant behavior. Their separate videos only show part of the clash.
The general election is Tuesday.
Gray emerged from a nine-candidate field with the coveted GOP nomination Aug. 18, and now faces Kinney, Libertarian Shawn Johnson and Constitution Party nominee Jeff Haggit.
Gray and Kinney both visited the library in the 520-person town of Centennial on Saturday for a late campaign event with rural Albany County voters.
They each gave very different accounts to Cowboy State Daily about what happened. So did two eyewitnesses.
Kinney’s Account
According to Kinney’s account, she approached Gray to discuss issues and tried to get him to take a photograph with her.
“I thought it’d be kind of fun to have him and me talking about issues, discussing stuff,” Kinney told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. “That’s when he said ‘No pictures are to be taken; none.’”
She said she and Gray spoke, and she tried to speak to him while he wasn’t talking to any voters.
“Before I could even get two steps, he popped into my face, extraordinarily aggressively with this mask of a camera on his face,” said Kinney, referring to Gray holding his smartphone near his face.
So she decided to record him in turn, she said.
Kinney said she wanted to confront Gray about attack ads that a political action committee (PAC) supporting Gray has run against her.
WY Action PAC is an independent expenditure PAC that, as of Oct. 14, was funded exclusively to $150,000 by Gray’s father, Jan Charles Gray, FEC reports show.
It has run multiple attack ads against Kinney.
“I just wanted to chat with him to tell him, listen, rural health care has been a major focus of mine for 30 years,” said Kinney.
By all accounts, the discussion didn’t go well.
Kinney and her friend, Sue Lowe, both told Cowboy State Daily that Gray ran away from Kinney, with Kinney adding that it seemed Gray wanted to lead her outside.
Gray and the event host, Vicki Haley, both said Kinney pursued Gray relentlessly.
Kinney said a woman came to her, pushed her arms and said, “you can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” Kinney asked in her own interview. “Ask an elected official a question?”
Gray’s video appears to refute some of Kinney’s claims.
Kinney’s video shows Gray retreating from her; and shows his campaign manager lifting a phone as if to video Kinney outside the library as the candidates emerged.
“I think now it is clear he was leading me outside where his staff was waiting to video us,” she said.
Taken together, however, the two videos show that Gray’s campaign manager Gabe Saint was inside watching the spat at first, then circled around the two candidates to the outside, where he raised his phone toward them.
Gray’s Account
Gray told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday text message that Kinney “decided to try to make a scene because she’s upset about an advertisement, and now is deciding to lie about what happened.”
Gray said he was cordial to Kinney when she arrived, but she “immediately started accusing me of lying about her because she’s upset about a PAC ad.”
Gray said one of Kinney’s supporters recorded him. He said he tried to deescalate, adding that he’s fine with — and even pleased with — being recorded, since that can serve as a “fact check.”
Kinney approached Gray again a few minutes later, accused him of lying and took her phone out, Gray said.
This is one of numerous areas in which their two accounts diverge. Kinney said Gray started recording first; Gray said Kinney did.
Gray said he deescalated again by walking away, but Kinney kept following.
Then Haley told Kinney she was out of line, Gray recalled.
Gray pointed to points at which his video contradicts Kinney’s statements.
“These continued desperate false statements from Democrat Lisa Kinney are an attempt to distract from the truth,” he said.
And he pointed to Kinney’s opposition to the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which created a fund for rural health care.
Kinney has countered in public statements, saying she doesn’t oppose all portions of the act and she’s been a proponent of bolstering rural health care.
Gray told Cowboy State Daily that Kinney's claims that he both ran from her and led her outside are contradictory, and he called her statement "false."
Her Video
Kinney’s video opens with Gray pointing his phone at her.
“I just want to ask why you put all those things about lies about me online,” she says in the video.
“They are not lies, they are not lies,” said Gray.
Kinney argues with Gray; he keeps saying “they are not lies.”
Haley’s voice sounds, saying, “Lisa, you are out of line.”
Gray walks backward and lifts his phone to Kinney again. “Please, stop harassing,” says Gray.
The video captures Saint briefly in the parking lot, his phone in hand.
“What you’re doing is out of line,” Haley says again.
“Please stop being out of line, thank you,” says Gray, walking away.
“Thank you,” says Kinney. “Glad you came by.”
His Video
Gray’s video opens less than a second before Kinney’s does, with Gray saying, “Thank you so much,” to someone, then Kinney asking about “lies about me online.”
However, Gray’s video shows Kinney using one finger to tap something on her phone’s screen, as if starting the video function — an indicator that Gray started filming first.
Gray’s video shows Haley putting one hand on Kinney’s shoulder and saying, “Lisa, you are out of line.”
Kinney steps backward.
The video shows Haley standing next to Kinney, continuing to say she’s out of line. Then Haley walks away.
Eyewitnesses
Lowe described her account of what happened before the videos started, and during. She said Gray ran from Kinney.
“She just walked up like anybody did; he just starts backing away and says, ‘No pictures, no pictures’ — just runs from her,” said Lowe, adding that when Kinney approached him about the ad, Gray announced he was recording her and started backing out the door.
“I’ve never seen anybody avoid someone like that, like the plague,” said Lowe.
Lowe said she saw a woman “trying to push Lisa.”
Haley’s account was completely different.
“She descended onto him,” said Haley.
The forum in Centennial is casual, fun, and hyper-local, said Haley. She invites every candidate on the ballot for the people of Centennial, from the two chambers of Congress down to the local races, she added.
“It became escalated when she got in his face,” said Haley.
Haley added, however, that she didn’t see everything that happened before the videos started. But she disputed Kinney’s statement that the Democratic nominee tried to confront Gray when he wasn’t talking with any voters.
“If you were having conversation with someone in the corner, people in half the room can hear your conversation,” she said. “It’s a small building.”
Haley said she tried to calm the situation but Kinney kept escalating, then “pulled out her camera and stuck it, like, 6 inches away from his face to video him.”
Haley also countered Kinney’s claim the “push” saying she merely “touched” Kinney.
“That was not a forum for her to air her grievances with him,” Haley said. “That was for the people who live out here to interface with the candidates. She was out of line to do that.”
The Spat With The Libertarian
Kinney had a confrontation with another opponent on Oct. 15 after the Wyoming PBS U.S. House debate, which Gray did not attend.
Backstage, Kinney spoke with her Libertarian opponent, Johnson, about a “letter” she believed Johnson had sent her.
Johnson never sent her a letter, he told Cowboy State Daily after the incident. Rather, the Libertarian Party of Wyoming made a Facebook post challenging Kinney’s stances on issues.
Johnson had commented under it that he’d be willing to debate Kinney.
Kinney told Cowboy State Daily this was merely a discussion, and conceded she’d been mistaken about the “letter.”
Johnson said the conversation eventually “toned down” and “we were cordial after that.”
“I think she was upset that she got called out on Facebook, really,” said Johnson.
He said no one yelled, but voices were “elevated.”
Haggit saw the encounter and he also said no one yelled.
And, The Ads
The PAC Gray’s father funds launched an ad accusing Kinney of standing with Democratic socialists and against rural hospitals, opposing the largest income tax cut in American history; and it said she puts democrat socialists and illegal immigrants “first.”
Kinney told Cowboy State Daily that the ads reference her disagreement with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included money for rural hospitals and other tax cuts.
She said the ad overlooks her public statements, in which she has said she favors some of the act’s measures, like grants for rural hospitals and temporary tax breaks on tips and overtime.
She said she doesn’t believe the wealthy are paying their fair share in income taxes, however.
Kinney sent Cowboy State Daily a clipping of a 1991 newspaper story that shows her pushing for better rural health care as a state senator.
On Monday, Kinney fired back online.
She reposted a man’s cartoon showing a caricature of Gray, holding an armful of dynamite. An explosion sounds, and the words "Blowing up Wyoming one vote at a time” flash on the screen.
“Don’t give him the chance,” the clip ends.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
