The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.
If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Herbert Stein.
September 23, 2026
Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.
Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden. Stein's Law has arrived.
GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump. A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot. She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat. The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.
Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt. From her Facebook.
Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices.
That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs.
While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.
I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.
She otherwise demanded that the war against Iran be stopped.
Hinson had voted against the War Powers Resolution every time it's been voted on in the House, and did so just a week prior, so she's voted to keep the war rolling. Now she wants it over. Fuel prices are the reason why.
Closer to home, there are all of a sudden all sorts of die-hard right wingers who are criticizing Trump. Whether that translates over to opposing Trump lover Chuck Gray and Trump supported Harriet Hageman is another thing, but there's definitely stirring in the ranks.
Indeed, Cowboy State Daily carpetbagging columnist Dave Simpson went into a "boo hoo' fit about the whole thing, wondering if the imaginary Sweet Home Alabama Wyoming he believes to have existed has gone "wobbly".
Go home Dave. You drank too much WFC Kool aide.
Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:
Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure
And it's been noted that Wyomingites are voting their interests:
Beyond that, the revolt is getting large enough that as early as it is, we're now seeing the non Trump GOP start to reemerge from the bunkers for the 2028 races, with Chris Christie having basically indicated that he's running.
Elections are not over, until their over, but it is clear that the GOP, and for that matter Trump, have no idea on how to hold on to the Senate, let alone the House. Doubling down on all the old tired lines (the Red Chinese are coming to have babies, date your daughters, steal your lunch) isn't working. The MAGA base was always the demographic that was most vulnerable to an economic downturn and now it's suffering. Agriculture, a Republican base, can't deal with the high fuel and fertilizer prices. Trucking can't deal with the high prices either. Regular people don't like the high prices at the grocery store and nobody likes the high fuel prices in the West.
This can't and won't be fixed by the election. The war against Iran won't be over and fuel prices will be high unless a ban on exports tanks the price of diesel, which it likely won't.
It took a lot, but people seem to be waking up to being lied to. Moreover, as that happens, Trump gets weirder and weirder by the day.
One place that appears now almost inevitable to go to the Democrats is Texas, where Texas Democratic Senate James Talarico has seen a 28-point swing in vote share against Ken Paxton.
Cont:
Fresh from getting its head handed to it in the primary, where its endorsements didn't pan out for the most part, the Dixiecrat controlled central committee of the Wyoming Republican Party has endorsed the property tax cut bill that would gut local governments like fish.
Basically, the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus hates the Gubbement and figures that stuff like education and the like can be handled by Ella Mae back at home.
September 24, 2026
September 25, 2026
Dixiecrats are moving over to their rightful home:
Rod Miller wrote an op ed on this and I've been meaning to post on it, so I'll just comment here. Bextel moving over to the Constitution Party, delusional though she is, is a good thing if it causes other Dixiecrats of the WFC to follow her, and they should. Here, a prominent Hot Springs politician has done just that.
The Constitution Party, which believes in a double secret constitution written in crayon and visible only through secret decoder glasses may pull over 10% in the election, which would make it a good place for people from the WFC to pack up their gray kepis and go and be "real". As is actually they, not traditional Wyoming Republicans, who are the aberration, they'd be doing themselves a favor, they'd have more voice in the CP, but the Republican Party and the State one as well. It'd allow the GOP to shake off the chains of the Confederacy which the WFC is attempting to bind it with.
In this environment, it might be noted, it's amazing that the Democrats can't get more traction than they are, but they aren't. Byrd still stands a good chance, but he's about the only one outside of the very few Democrats holding seats in the legislature.
September 29, 2026
From here on out in the election we're going to see Bat Shit Crazy on full display nearly every day.
Apparently not realizing that the election is a referendum on Donald Trump, a couple weeks ago Trump urged votes to imagine he's on the ballot.
The Republican problem is that voters are doing just that.
If people think back to the 2024 Presidential Election, most voters were never very keen on Trump. The most commonly expressed opinion going into the election was that voters disliked both candidates. The Democrats screwed themselves by running Biden, which was simply insane. Republican voters in the primary were in part MAGA true believes, but that misses the point that a lot of Republicans have left the party. When Biden dropped out, way too late, the Democrats did the typical Democratic thing and killed themselves by nominating a Kamala Harris, about the most irritating candidate they could have found.
2024 is in the rear view mirror of course, but what's been missed in the Trumpian Reign of Terror is that most people went into 2025 disliking Donald Trump and it's gone downhill from there, something made worse by the fact that this administration is made up of the cynical advantageous and those with some agenda, often a deluded one.
With that mix, Trump has had a free hand in acting like a mad king, and he's made the most of it. People with an agenda, moreover, are fully exercising their one and only chance to try to pull it off.
Trump's pretty clearly aware of this, in spite of his addled state. It explains the constant effort to build monuments to himself. In spite of what some in the far right Evangelical camp believe, there's pretty good reason to doubt Trump's belief in an afterlife. He certainly hasn't lived like he believes in one. So he's trying to make sure we remember him as a great man in terms of architecture and conquest.
It's all going to fail.
Trump doesn't seem to be able to grasp that people do not love him. He's a narcissist who is profoundly in love with himself. The worst, therefore, nightmare of his life is unfolding. A lot of motivated people who range from horrified to absolute contempt are going to boot the GOP out of the House, and now it looks like the Senate, and for the very reasons that Trump has urged us to do. They're voting on him, as the GOP has become a sycophantic personality cult.
People don't love him.
From now until the election Trump will pull out all the stops to try to keep the result he fears from happening. Anything he can legally get away with he will try. It'll be a long month until the election.
On not loving Trump, it's a shame Wyomingites don't have a better option to contest Chuck Gray.
Gray has made a career out of loving Trump more than Trump loves Trump. That's about all he has going for him. We're about to send somebody completely unqualified to do anything for the State to Congress. Would that somebody other than Johnson and Kinney were running. Neither stand a chance, and they don't really deserve to.
If none of the above were an option in that race, that'd be the one that would win.
Speaking of Gray, Gray has been showing up at UW football games recently and having pictures taken with students.
It's pathetic.
September 30, 2026
Wyoming Secretary of State and GOP candidate for Congress Chuck Gray emerged from hiding from debate requests, while he's not going to UW football games to be photographed with students, to congratulate the Supreme Court for temporarily upholding
October 1, 2026
The backers of a data center in Natrona County invited Republican candidates for the County Commission to tour the site and omitted the Democratic candidates.
The GOP candidates are Lisa Jamieson (Democrat), Matt Keating (Republican), Ray Pacheco (Republican), Candace Machado (Democrat) and Dallas Laird (Republican).
We haven't addressed this race much yet, but Laird is a 1,000,000 years old and needs to go. Keating was a somewhat controversial commissioner and then a somewhat controversial assessor. He's been battling cancer. Pacheco is a City of Casper councilman. Machado was a controversial mayor of Evansville.
October 4, 2026
The Gillette News Record ran an article about a Campbell County event of the meet the candidate type in Gillette for Bextel. It was held at The Railyard, which is a restaurant in Gillette. It's a fair sized restaurant but not huge. Apparently about 20 people went, which shows how little interest Bextel's campaign is drawing.
Her campaign does receive media attention as she's able to run it and it's so unusual. I hesitate to post on her regularly as it makes her look like a bigger deal than she really is. It is interesting however.
For one thing, Bextel keeps stating the "I didn't want to do this but had to" type of line. Nobody has to run for anything. What that really means is that the Dixiecrat is suddenly awake to the fact that Wyoming isn't 1960s Alabama and is terrified of what that means.
Also, Bextel continues to use some crude language. I guess that's no shock in this day and age but at least to some it sort of edges her towards Southern White Trash, which isn't a good look for anyone.
Those in attendance asked why Hageman and Gray (Gray stayed at her house, apparently, while campaigning) haven't come to her support.
As if.
Politics is a backstabbing game and there's no way that Hageman and Gray are going to buck the GOP for anyone.
Some local politicians showed up, which risks their being associated with her. I don't blame them for showing up, but the press coverage might be a deterrent to that occurring in the future.
October 5, 2026
More on the Gillette News Record article.
Bextel claims that Harriet Hageman went after Barlow in a major way in a discussion with her personally, claiming that she said he was "pure evil". Bextel is clearly a bit baffled why Gray and Hageman don't come to her aid in her race.
She also has a theme, or maybe a sort of obsession, with "weak men", which she claims include the current Governor, Barlow, and some other male Republicans. It's odd.
Bextel has always been a curious figure, to the extent we know anything about her, but her naivete on why Hageman and Gray (she mused she wondered what they have on Hageman), is amusing. Gray and Hageman are on a glide path to higher office, in spite of not being very good choices, and they don't want to ruin it by supporting Bextel who is a crash and dive to political oblivion.
And once again we see the South sort of rearing up in the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus. Bextel crudely claimed she had bigger "balls" than Barlow and interprets them not being in Nathan Bedford Forrest's Partisan Rangers as their being weak males. There's a certain sort of peculiar early 20th Century literary quality to this.
Becky, the Southern Damsel, coming to rescue us all. . .
Go home Becky.
October 6, 2026
Just looking at net chatter, the boo hoo Dixiecrats who think they are conservatives are appearing to break for Bextel in surprising numbers. She won't win, but it'll be interesting to see if the Constitution Party is able to ride her back into 10% of the vote and be qualified as a "major party".
That wouldn't be a bad thing if it drug the Allemands, Bears, etc., over to that party, where they really belong.
I'm guessing they won't make the 10%.
As was seen in the last election, the Dixiecrat WFC is noisy as well as deluded, but it doesn't enjoy much support from real Wyomingites.
Another question is whether the Democrats are able to make 10% themselves.
They should, as one of the GOP candidates, Chuck Gray, is held widely in contempt. The problem is that the Democrat opposing him is Lisa Kinney.
Gail Symons wrote an op-ed on this topic for the Cowboy State Daily.
I'm seeing a lot of moderate Republicans declare support for Kinney, and some for Johnson, but both candidates are really unattractive options. Kinney is singularly uninspiring and comes from the ancient Democrat demographic that caused the Democrats to slip into oblivion here. If the candidate came from the Mike Sullivan wing of the party, Chuck would be doomed. In spite of GOP support for her, Kinney is really hard to get enthusiastic about.
So is Johnson for that matter, and the Libertarians in general.
A debate would be really helpful but Chuck is hiding and won't debate.
For people like me this is really a problem. I'd like to see Gray loose so badly that he moves to Russia and takes a job as the toilet bowl cleaner in the Kremlin, but both of the other two candidates are really lacking. The Libertarian Party in general is always subject to a caution flag, although in Wyoming Libertarians are often moderate Republicans looking for someplace else to go following the Dixiecrat seizure of the party.
This one will be interesting to see how many people just can't vote for the other two non GOP candidates and therefore simply don't vote. My guess is that there will be a lot. My guess also is that Kinney will take a larger percentage of the vote than Democrats normally do on this race, which is usually about 25%. I could see her getting at least up to 30%, maybe 35%. I don't expect Johnson to do as well, but he might be able to draw 10%.
Overall, it's not impossible to imagine Kinney and Johnson together pull down over 50% of the vote, but probably not much more than that. Still, if that happens, Gray will be a Congressman with the minority of the vote.
Of course, this year, who knows. It's not completely impossible that Wyoming might elect a Democrat, although by the slimmest of margins, to the House for the first time in years. If it did, it would have a member of what's going to be the majority party in the House, and it would really give the Freedom Caucus the middle finger salute.
It'll also be interesting to see how many votes Byrd draws. Lummis' opponent in 2026, Merav Ben-David, drew 27% of the vote in an election in which former Congressman Lummis was going to win no matter what. Hageman has a lot more fanatic supporters than Lummis ever did, but she also has a lot more people who detest her as well. Byrd is a much stronger candidate than Ben-David, and Hageman has been hiding from debating him. Hageman showed up at a town hall somewhere recently and gave her usual poor performance. She's not good at handling negative questions at all, which is surprising given that she was a practicing attorney. Byrd might outright slaughter her in a debate.
Hageman also is taking flak from the disaffected Dixiecrats of the Freedom Caucus. Bextel complained in a town hall in Gillette about Hageman not endorsing her. Hageman endorsed Degenfelder in the Governor's race which upset the Dixiecrats as they, and the GOP they control, had endorsed Bien. Of course Trump endorsed Degenfelder, it was the point of her entire campaing, and Hageman sure wasn't going to buck Donald on that. Still, some disaffected WFC types are now mad at Hageman a bit.
I suspect they'll get over it, but a tiny percentage will write in Bien or just refuse to vote. One WFC person I know fairly well has outright declared they will not support Hageman, and another gadfly local WFC member has indicated that they're writing in Bien.
Byrd is definitely going to do better than Ben-David. I'm guessing that Byrd will draw at least 35% of the vote. That's not enough, of course, to get elected, but I'd also guess that Bien will still draw about 5% of the vote. That'd still leave Hageman with 60%, and that's likely, but it's not completely impossible that she draws under 50%.
October 7, 2026
Donald Trump, who loves Donald Trump, endorsed Carpetbagger Chuck Gray, one of the founders of the Dixiecrats in Wyoming, who has campaigned on loving Trump even more than Trump loves Trump. Hid did so on his Twitter like platform, Raging Delusional Lies Social, stating:
The fact that Gray is a "true friend of MAGA" is the very reason that Chuck ought to be sent to be a toilet bowl scrubber in the Kremlin. The question is who to vote for.
Former Gov. Mike Sullivan says that person should be Lisa Kinney.
Sullivan's endorsement shows how dim people have become in Wyoming, not because of the endorsement, but because the carpetbagging migrants fail to realize that Wyoming has had Democratic Governors fairly frequently until just recently. Sullivan is a Democrat and always has been, but one of the social commentary Twitter Twits came in to accuse him of being just that, having presumed that Sullivan must be a Republican.
Sullivan was gracious to Gray, he's a gracious man, noting something that I didn't know, that he's worked for Wyoming Right To Life. And he provided more information on Kinney than I had known.
Sullivan was a great Governor, but frankly I really doubt his endorsement will make a difference in the election. I also doubt Donny's will. People who are weak or lazy enough to pay attention to his endorsement were already going to vote for Chuck.
Early voting started yesterday in Ohio with people lining up before dark vote. According to polls, Democrats turned out in larger numbers than Republicans, but Republican voters may very well not be voting for Republican candidates.
Early voting has started here in Wyoming as well. With the races set, the major endorsements made for the most part (I'm sure more are to come), we'll close out this edition.
We'll probably also go down to the Courthouse this week and vote.
Appendix
Last edition:
Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, Alabama, Bill Allemand, Carpetbaggers, Chuck Gray, Dixiecrats, Donald Trump, Harriet Hageman, inflation, James Byrd, Questions for politicians, Rebecca Bextel, Taxes, Tom Lubnau, Wyoming Freedom Caucus
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