Rep. Lloyd Larsen (R-Lander), right, breathes a sigh of relief as Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander) congratulates him after they pull up the unofficial results on primary election night, Aug. 20, 2024. Larsen had been losing to Tina Clifford earlier in the evening. (Katie Klingsporn/WyoFile)

LANDER—Early primary election results showed incumbent Republican Rep. Lloyd Larsen trailing challenger Tina Clifford, and by 9 p.m. the mood at this restaurant gathering was tense. But then someone refreshed the election results page, and Larsen had pulled ahead in the final unofficial count by 227 votes. 

“You have a couple more gray hairs,” a friend teased Larsen as his supporters gathered around to congratulate him. 

Larsen wasn’t the only Fremont County incumbent to get a run for his money. Incumbents Sen. Tim Salazar and Rep. Pepper Ottman of Fremont County Districts 26 and 34 held comfortable leads. But in House District 55 in neighboring Riverton, county prosecutor Ember Oakley was upset by political newcomer and conservative Christian Joel Guggenmos.

“It was a very close race,” Larsen said of his campaign. Political mailers containing falsehoods about him didn’t help, he said, as he had to work hard to establish the facts. “I think the nasty mailers that came in really polarized Lander.” 

Whether to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot this November was never up for consideration or voted on by the Wyoming Legislature, but a political action committee is telling voters otherwise in mailers sent to Laramie, Fremont and Sweetwater county households. The PAC is now facing a defamation suit. (photo collage by Tennessee Watson/WyoFile)

The WY Freedom PAC, the political action committee launched in 2023 to support the hard-line Wyoming Freedom Caucus, is responsible for the mailers. 

Larsen, a longtime Fremont County resident and former private business owner, has served in the House of Representatives for 12 years, and his record toes the line with conservative ideals like limiting the size of government and supporting extractive energies. 

Newcomer Clifford is a Fremont County native and business teacher who vowed to fight for freedom. Her campaign material berated COVID-19-era economic shutdowns, COVID vaccination shots and inflation. Disingenuous conservatives have taken over but aren’t representing true Wyoming values, it stated. 

“The people we have elected to represent us in Wyoming have not protected our freedom,” it said. Clifford declined to participate in a League of Women Voters candidate forum. 

District 55 

Incumbent Oakley is a fifth-generation Wyomingite and prosecutor for the Fremont County Attorney’s Office who was first elected to her seat in 2020. She supported protecting agriculture from federal overreach, supporting law enforcement and maintaining Wyoming’s extractive industries. WyoFile was unable to reach her for comment Tuesday. 

Rep. Ember Oakley, R-Riverton, asks a question during the House Judiciary Committee meeting March 11, 2021. (Michael Cummo/Wyoming Tribune Eagle/Wyoming News Exchange)

Riverton resident Joel Guggenmos, who will take her seat in January, owns a small business that installs flooring and custom showers. 

Guggenmos is pro-life and opposed to property taxes, according to his campaign page. He is in favor of Wyoming “taking back our land and resources” from the federal government, according to his page, along with parental rights, school choice and standing against a movement to sexualize children. He is an ardent Donald Trump fan, according to his Facebook page.

“I am running for HD 55 Representative because I have been disturbed by how some of our legislators have been representing our community, and while I have never desired to enter the political arena, nor do I want to be a ‘politician’, I understand that if I want to see change back toward freedom and liberty, it has to start with me,” his campaign page reads.  

Guggenmos also declined to participate in a League of Women Voters candidate forum. 

Katie Klingsporn reports on outdoor recreation, public lands, education and general news for WyoFile. She’s been a journalist and editor covering the American West for 20 years. Her freelance work has...

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