Wyoming Senate President Bo Biteman announced Thursday he will run for U.S. House, joining an increasingly crowded field of candidates seeking the state’s sole congressional seat.
“Wyoming needs a proven America First leader who will turn President Trump’s vision into real results for our state,” Biteman, R-Ranchester, said in a press release.
“As a husband and father raising two daughters in Sheridan County, I want what every Wyoming family wants: for our kids to grow up here, find good jobs, build a life, and actually be able to afford it,” he said.
Biteman is running for the seat now held by U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, who announced in December she would run for U.S. Senate. Hageman, meanwhile, is now running for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who is not seeking reelection.
Biteman joins a field that already includes five Republicans: Casper business owner Reid Rasner; Secretary of State Chuck Gray; former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow; U.S. Army veteran David Giralt; and Kevin Christensen, also a U.S. Army veteran.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will weigh in with an endorsement, as he did in 2022 when he backed Hageman against then Rep. Liz Cheney. Such an endorsement would likely go a long way in a crowded Republican primary. Trump won Wyoming by a wider margin than any other state in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump had backed Biteman in the past. In 2023, he encouraged Biteman to run for governor against Mark Gordon.
Biteman moved to Wyoming after graduating from Michigan’s Grand Valley State University with a degree in business administration in 2002. He and his wife, Mercedes, have two daughters. For the last 23 years, Biteman has worked as a landman in the oil, gas and mining industries, according to his website.
“He will fight every day to stand with our coal miners, oil and gas workers, and uranium producers and help President Trump deliver the affordable, reliable baseload energy that keeps our nation strong and our families’ budgets intact,” Biteman’s campaign announcement states.
Other priorities Biteman highlighted in his campaign announcement include: “Protecting Wyoming’s Outdoor Heritage,” “Defending our God given Rights,” “Standing up for Wyoming Agriculture,” “Protecting the Unborn,” and “Supporting Wyoming Veterans and F.E. Warren Air Force Base.”
Voters first elected Biteman in 2016 to Sheridan County’s House District 51, knocking off the second-highest ranking Republican in the House. In 2018, he successfully ran for Senate District 21, which he currently represents in the upper chamber. He chaired the Senate Revenue Committee from 2023 to 2024, and his legislative peers elected him as Senate President for the current term.
When Biteman first ran for the Legislature, some politicos objected to his campaign tactics, which included attack mailers. But in the final days of the 2026 session, many of Biteman’s Senate colleagues credited his presidency with restoring civility in the upper chamber after several turbulent years.
“I don’t think there’s very many life experiences that allow us to see other people’s true character, like being in the confines of this Capitol — under pressure, under stress, fatigue, and all these big decisions we need to make on behalf of our constituents, that you really do get to see what people are made of,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott said March 6 as several lawmakers gave closing remarks to the session.
“And I have been blessed and honored from going from fighting like cats and dogs to knowing that President Biteman is a man of honor and courage and his moral compass points true north,” she said.
As a lawmaker, Biteman has largely focused on gun rights, anti-abortion measures and tax reform.
He also led the Wyoming Republican Party’s charge to put a stop to “crossover voting,” or registered Democrats, minor party or unaffiliated voters from changing their party affiliation to participate in the primary election as Republicans.
“It’s been probably the most vetted bill this body has ever seen,” Biteman said on the Senate floor in 2025 as the body debated an anti-crossover voting bill.
“It’s been shot at. It’s been nuclear-bombed. It’s been fumigated. It’s been thrown in the garbage can. It’s been beaten, dragged, you name it.”
More recently, Biteman championed legislation to slash residential property taxes, and Trump gave him kudos for advancing a universal school voucher bill.
In 2025, Biteman, alongside other members of Senate leadership, made the unprecedented decision not to pass a supplemental budget.
“After weeks of diligent consideration, the Wyoming Senate has concluded that now is not the time to increase spending needlessly,” Senate leaders said in a joint statement Feb. 26, 2025.
This year, Biteman successfully brought legislation to create the Wyoming Energy Dominance Fund, which set aside $105 million to provide grants and loans for energy-related applied research, demonstration, pilot projects and commercial development projects.
He also sponsored legislation to revise Wyoming’s Second Amendment Protection Act, a law that imposes restrictions on enforcing federal gun directives within Wyoming’s borders. Law enforcement largely opposed the legislation. And after Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed the bill, the Senate failed to override the governor’s decision.
More recently, Biteman has regularly squared off with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of Republicans who control the House. He also led the Senate in taking a decidedly different approach than House leadership when it came to addressing a controversy this year involving campaign checks being handed out to lawmakers at the Capitol.
The official candidate filing period in Wyoming does not open until May 14.