The Wyoming Constitution Party’s chair is happy that the party’s gubernatorial nominee Rebecca Bextel vaulted it to major-party status Tuesday night by winning more than 10% of the vote.
But Joshua Shimkus said he doesn’t think that necessarily makes the third party a landing pad for the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, with which Bextel aligns politically.
“I wouldn’t say we are a Freedom Caucus party,” Shimkus told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “I think that is not where the party is heading.”
As Shimkus describes it, the Constitution Party is similar to the Republican, but places more emphasis on diffusion of government and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution – which call for states’ and people’s rights.
When running for chair he campaigned on elevating the minor party to major status, which requires a Constitution Party candidate to secure at least 10% of the vote share for either governor, U.S. House, or secretary of state.
“I’m happy, of course,” he said. “We set our goal and we achieved it. We said we wanted legitimacy, and we won that.”
The focus between now and 2028, said Shimkus, is “build the party."
“There’s already a lot of traction in that direction,” he added.
Regarding whether Bextel would be part of that, he said, “I don’t know why she wouldn’t be.”
That 31,000
Bextel won about 16% of the vote share in her Tuesday loss to Republican Gov.-Elect Eric Barlow.
Democratic nominee Ken Casner, whose campaign finance reports say he raised zero dollars and spent zero dollars, won 14% of the vote.
Bextel’s ending tally was 31,438. The figure is close-to-equal the tally U.S. Rep-Elect Chuck Gray won in the primary election: 31,224.
Gray was an early co-founder of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
Shimkus said the goal is to convert the roughly 31,000 voters who chose Bextel into Constitution Party registrants.
Bextel leaves the race with a war chest of about $400,000 in campaign contributions remaining — a rough estimate based on her campaign reports, which contain inconsistencies.
The Wyoming Constitution Party donated at least $300,000. Bextel’s reports say it gave $362,000, but Shimkus said the figure should be closer to $300,000.
Asked what she plans to do with the war chest, Bextel texted a shrug emoji.
In response to an inquiry about the Constitution Party winning major status because of her, Bextel voiced her gratitude and disappointment with regard to her contest’s outcome.
“Thank you to everyone who cast their vote for me yesterday,” she said. “Nine weeks ago, I entered this race to fulfill a promise I made to the people of Wyoming: To give them a choice in this gubernatorial election.”
The results were not what she’d hoped, she said, and, “it is clear that there are many misinformed voters still out there who blindly voted for an R, which is what the Democrats were counting on to get their guy in there!”
Bextel has accused Barlow of being a “Democrat” throughout her campaign.
She referenced the late Charlie Kirk’s prediction that Wyoming would become a blue state.
“I also question the machines,” she said. “More on that later.”
Bextel concluded with a bleak vision of Wyoming’s future.
Nah, Says Haroldson
State House Speaker Pro Tem Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, is the only Wyoming Freedom Caucus member in House leadership who survived the primary election.
He said the caucus isn’t planning a defection into the Constitution Party.
“No, not that I’m aware of at all,” said Haroldson in a Wednesday phone interview with Cowboy State Daily.
“I think there are people who are frustrated with the GOP in Wyoming, but I don’t believe that shifting into the Constitution Party is going to be the answer long-term,” he said.
Haroldson said “what needs to happen,” rather, is Republican adherence to the GOP platform.
Haroldson didn’t foreclose any possibilities, saying “political minds” may go unforeseen directions. But as of Wednesday, “no, I don’t believe the Constitution Party is the answer for a landing pad for the Freedom Caucus.”
He acknowledged that Bextel aligns with the caucus politically, but said her tactics don’t always match up with Freedom Caucus members.
“I think that (her campaign) was the Constitution Party’s way of giving the people of Wyoming another opportunity to have a vote,” he said. “So I think they accomplished what they came out to do in that realm.”
Freedom Caucus adherents often oppose Barlow.
Wyoming Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Williams, R-Cody, said it is "false" to assert that the Freedom Caucus is responsible for new Constitution Party registrants.
"It is part of an online intrigue that doesn't exist. Furthermore, The (sic) Wyoming Freedom Caucus is and will remain the conservative conscience of the GOP."
Williams' chairmanship stretches through this year. She did not win her primary-election bid for secretary of state.
The Slight Shift
On May 1, before Bextel switched from Republican to Constitution to mount a general-election challenge against Barlow, the Constitution Party contained 542 Wyoming registrants.
It gained four by June 1, another in July, lost two in August, gained seven in September, another in October, and 10 more by general election day — ending at 563, according to Wyoming Secretary of State registration figures.
That represents a gain of 21 voters since about the time Bextel declared her run.
Two of the party-crossers were public figures of Hot Springs County who align generally with the Freedom Caucus.
The Four Party Year
Former Sublette County Clerk Mary Lankford, who now works as a consultant for the Wyoming Association of County Clerks, recalled in a May interview the year both the Constitution and Libertarian parties won major party status.
It was 2014.
Ed Murray had won the GOP nomination in the secretary of state’s race and took on Libertarian nominee Kit Carson and Constitution Party nominee Jennifer Young in the general election.
Murray won in a landslide with 119,772 votes.
But Carson and Young both vaulted their parties to major status by crossing the 10% threshold with 16,858 and 18,918, respectively.
So, the 2016 primary election had four major parties in it.
It didn’t last.
“I think they rallied in ’16 and got stuff put together, and then it blew apart because they were just not as organized,” said Lankford.
That was also around the time the Tea Party movement made a major push in Wyoming.
“They were really radically right, but I think they kind of came and went, you know?” said Lankford.
That could be, she added, because now-President Donald Trump galvanized them under the GOP banner.
The county clerks ordered double their usual number of ballots for the 2016 primary election. Expenses in that area rose, Lankford recalled.
“It does create quite a bit of work as far as to service those two other parties on the ballot,” she said.
By 2018, the state was back to a two-party primary election, and it has remained that way since.
Shimkus, however, said Wednesday the party is determined to organize.
In 2028, the primary election will feature three party ballots.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
