What we learned at the world’s largest outdoor rodeo
USA Today Wyoming politics reporter Cy Neff went to Cheyenne Frontier Days to learn about all things rodeo.
On Election Day, there won’t be a lot of surprises in Wyoming. The Cowboy State is expected to overwhelmingly re-elect former President Donald Trump. Incumbent Republicans Senator John Barrasso and Representative Harriet Hageman are likely to return to Congress with ease. And on the state level, Republicans are expected to keep their dominance in the state’s legislature.
But a closer look shows cracks in the state’s red wall and mounting questions about what it means to be a Wyomingite and a conservative.
“It’s been disheartening to see the division in our own party,” Republican State Senator Wendy Schuler said. “We still have people that are really thinking that this far right rhetoric is what we need to hear.”
The “Code of the West,” derived from the book “Cowboy Ethics,” is written into the Wyoming constitution. Members of the Wyoming legislature have no staff or assistants and often work full-time in the communities they represent as ranchers, lawyers, or truck drivers. The cowboy code and citizen legislature feed into Wyoming’s political reputation as a handshake-forward, small-town style, independently thinking state. National trends, however, are coming home to roost.
Recent legislative sessions have been rife with hot-button culture war issues, with the 2024 sessions including proposed abortion restrictions, a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and a ban on gun-free zones. Republican fissures on the issues mirror national trends, with more moderate, establishment Republicans bearing allegations of being “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only) from their further-right, often Freedom Caucus-aligned opponents.
The clashes have played out in Wyoming’s highest echelons. Republican Governor Mark Gordon vetoed many of the legislature’s culture war bills and ended up facing censure from his own party. Gordon frequently butts heads with Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who secured his office with a Trump endorsement and campaigned on disproven claims of a stolen 2020 election.
The fissures were on full display in the state’s primary, which shifted power rightward towards the growing Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The campaign season featured accusations of misinformation, including a defamation lawsuit, out-of-state money, and continued the state’s trend of increasingly expensive election cycles.
The Freedom Caucus will enter 2025 in the driver’s seat instead of its members’ long-held positions as political outsiders and disrupters. Republican State Representative and Freedom Caucus member Chip Neiman says the reshuffling of power indicates voter discontent with Wyoming politics.
“If people didn’t want something, or were satisfied with the howngs were, this would not have gone this way,” Nieman said. “I would suggest that people are looking for more conservative type leadership.”
Cy Neff reports on Wyoming politics for USA TODAY. You can reach him at cneff@usatoday.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CyNeffNews
