Hard-line Republicans gather in pursuit of ‘the prize’: control of the statehouse

CASPER—On Sunday afternoon, a crowd packed into the Tate Pumphouse along the North Platte River. The outfits of some in attendance made it clear what kind of gathering this was. 

One man’s shirt proclaimed: “The media is the virus.” A state lawmaker, Gillette Republican Rep. John Bear, wore a white “Trump 2024” cap. Wyoming GOP Chairman Frank Eathorne’s polo was emblazoned with the American flag. As Eathorne succinctly described it behind a lectern, the gathered crowd represented “the party that fired Liz Cheney and hired Harriet Hageman.” 

Wyoming is a state dominated by a Republican Party divided between traditionalist and hard-line factions. Sunday’s gathering attracted some of the biggest names in the hard-line wing — Eathorne, congressional Rep. Harriet Hageman and Secretary of State Chuck Gray — to discuss the critical issues in this year’s elections. 

The fervor to oust former congressional Rep. Liz Cheney and replace her with Trump-backed Hageman helped fuel these Republicans in the 2022 election cycle. Absent such a high-profile congressional race to animate the elections this year, what is at the front of their minds as the August primaries approach? 

On the federal level, Hageman, who made a brief appearance to speak on Sunday, talked about abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, the threat of China, illegal immigration at the southern border, concerns about federal bureaucracies encroaching on Wyoming industries, and trans issues (“I had to get in a three-hour argument one day with people like Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff about what is a woman!”). Sitting lawmakers and new candidates discussed the burden of property taxes on Wyoming homeowners, medical freedom and parental and Second Amendment rights, among other things. 

But the fundamental question, one that centers on ideological differences driving swaths of policy decisions in the Equality State, is this: Will these Republicans manage to tip the scale of power in Wyoming’s state government this year? The question applies in particular to one bastion of political power. “The State Legislature — that’s the prize,” Eathorne told the audience on Sunday.

In recent years, Republicans in Wyoming’s GOP-dominated Legislature have calcified into two distinct factions. That’s particularly the case in the House of Representatives where, last year, a group of lawmakers called the Wyoming Freedom Caucus staked their claim after partnering with a Washington, D.C.-based organization — the State Freedom Caucus Network — that aims to establish similar groups across the nation. Several members of the caucus — Bear, who serves as the caucus’ chairman, as well as Casper Republicans Reps. Jeanette Ward and Bill Allemand — attended Sunday’s gathering. Other lawmakers whose votes consistently align with the caucus — Reps. Ken Pendergraft, Tony Locke, Tomi Strock and Mark Jennings — were also present. 

The beginnings of the caucus first emerged in the mid-2010s as a nebulous and small group of frustrated lawmakers emulating Congress’ House Freedom Caucus, which formed in 2015. Over the years, Wyoming’s version of the national caucus steadily grew its ranks of sympathetic lawmakers. Originally calling itself the House Freedom Caucus, the group morphed into the Wyoming Freedom Caucus when it partnered with the State Freedom Caucus Network last year. The partnership provides the group with a state director — Jessica Rubino, the spouse of Secretary of State Chief Policy Officer and Hageman nephew Joe Rubino — to research bills and provide vote recommendations. In the past two legislative sessions, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus has supported legislation to ban abortion with few exceptions, restrict crossover voting and prohibit most forms of gender-affirming care for minors, among other things. 

During the 2023 session, lawmakers on the outs with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus formed the Wyoming Caucus to counter its power. Wyoming Caucus lawmakers have, for example, supported funding Wyoming’s 988 suicide prevention hotline and extending postpartum Medcaid coverage. Unlike the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, the group isn’t currently partnered with any national organization. “The Wyoming Caucus was just created out of its own grassroots energy there in the House as we were faced with obstructionist tactics by people associating themselves to the Freedom Caucus,” Rock Springs Republican Rep. Clark Stith, chairman of the Wyoming Caucus, told WyoFile in an interview earlier this month. 

Wyoming Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates will go head-to-head against more traditionalist Republicans in several districts this year. Ward, for example, will face challenger Julie Jarvis, a Natrona County school administrator, in House District 57. Jennings will go against Buffalo Republican Rep. Barry Crago, who has often been a target of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, in Senate District 22. 

The ideological struggle between these factions and their allies encompasses a battle of semantics. Wyoming Freedom Caucus lawmakers call Wyoming Caucus members “liberals,” “Democrats” and “RINOs” and describe them as being part of “the establishment” or the “uniparty.” Meanwhile, people aligned with the Wyoming Caucus use words like “extreme,” “authoritarian” and “uncivil” to paint their counterparts, and frequently accuse them of pushing a “national agenda” rather than focusing on “Wyoming solutions to Wyoming problems.” Both sides claim “conservative,” “Republican” and “grassroots” labels while dismissing the other’s attempts to do the same. 

“How many of you realize the word ‘conservative’ has been hijacked?” Eathorne asked the audience on Sunday. “So we have liberals, we have Democrats, we have RINOs that use the word conservative … it’s gotten wasted.” Others focused on the same point. “I’m running for office because I’m tired of electing people who say that they’re staunch Republicans, and, once elected, they go down to Cheyenne and vote right in line with the Democrats,” Kevin Campbell — a legislative candidate running against Edis Allen in current Rep. Forrest Chadwick’s soon to be vacated House District 62 — told the audience Sunday. The preferred kind of “conservative” in an age when the word has become diluted, Eathorne said, is one that “honors the platform of the Wyoming Republican Party and is liberty-minded.” 

Meanwhile, Stith — the chairman of the Wyoming Caucus — described his group in an interview with WyoFile earlier this month as fiscally and socially conservative. “But we want to be productive. We don’t think that you have to have the most extreme solution,” he said. 

Currently, there are 26 relatively consistent Freedom Caucus-aligned lawmakers in Wyoming’s House of Representatives (the number of official members, which the caucus keeps secret, is less than that). Though not a majority of the House’s 62 members, the group is now large enough to block legislation during budget sessions, when a two-thirds vote is required to introduce any measure. Through procedural wrangling and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the group and its allies have also managed to push through measures that initially appeared destined to die, such as legislation to restrict crossover voting and an abortion ban that’s now held up in court. 

The long-term aspirations of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and its allies go further than taking over the Legislature. “If we want to change how this land is governed, we need to change the butts in the seats, including the governor,” Ward, one of the most outspoken members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, told the audience on Sunday. Though the group and its allies have managed to push some of their priority bills through the Legislature, not all of those measures have made it past Gov. Mark Gordon’s veto power, which angered these hard-line conservatives and resulted in the governor’s censure by the state party. 

The field of Freedom Caucus-aligned gubernatorial candidates for the 2026 election cycle could be crowded; about a half dozen names in this camp are already floating around. This could be a problem for those Republicans looking to prevent a moderate from taking office. “I think there’s a lot of people that are interested in doing it that are on the conservative side,” Bear, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus chairman, told WyoFile in an interview last month. “I think the moderate and liberal side has got a little clearer-cut path to what they want, so it’s gonna be difficult.” 

Bear said his preferred solution to whittling down the field would be to conduct a poll of the public to see who people in Wyoming want to support, then have the caucus back that candidate. But even if the caucus managed to choose one candidate, that doesn’t mean the others would necessarily drop out. “Unless I can convince all those people that are interested in running for governor that the conservative movement is more important than their political career, it’ll be problematic, and it’ll probably hand it to the left,” Bear said.  

The primaries are on Aug. 20.