Leaving blue states, political newcomers hope to turn Wyoming a darker shade of red

TEN SLEEP – It’s the Fourth of July, and thousands of people dressed in red, white and blue wait along the road in the late morning light for the parade to begin.

Locals and visitors have staked out curbside spots using blankets and lawn chairs. Volunteers hand out star-spangled balloons to kiddos eager for candy and firetrucks, while the smell of food trucks parked down the street wafts through the air. A bulldog in a cowboy hat and handkerchief slurps water from a silver bowl outside the town’s saloon. The bartender, stepping outside to get a peek at the crowd, says she’s never seen such a great parade-day turnout.

Independence Day is the busiest this northern Wyoming town of about 250 residents gets all year. Most visitors aren’t far from home, making the drive from other Bighorn Basin communities. They come for the parade, and stay for the rodeo.

The parade’s route spans the half mile that encompasses most of Ten Sleep’s main drag. But with such a concentration of voters, it’s a popular stop for political candidates during election years.

A little after 10 a.m., the Washakie County Sheriff’s Office kicks off the procession of rodeo queens, men on saddled horses, classic cars, a chuckwagon, bicycles and floats representing ranches, churches and local businesses. A county commissioner is the first political candidate to make an appearance. And then, from behind the wheel wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans and a plaid button-up, comes the local boy made good.

“Next up, we have Ed Cooper for Senate District No. 20, born and raised right here in Ten Sleep, Wyoming,” the parade’s announcer declares.

Sen. Ed Cooper, a 71-year-old Republican and oil and gas consultant, is running for reelection following his first term in the Wyoming Legislature. Even-numbered Senate districts are up for reelection this year, as are all 62 House districts.

In the parade, Cooper is driving a 4×4 UTV adorned with an American flag, balloons and his campaign signs. He nudges the brake every few yards to stop and fling candy to the crowd. A few young men, on foot, pull bottled water from ice-filled buckets in the UTV’s bed to give away to parade goers sitting in the July heat.

“And I can tell you for a fact, them boys handing out water are fifth generation right here in Ten Sleep, Wyoming,” the announcer says.

Cooper was born 60 miles down the road in Thermopolis and grew up in Worland, Hulett and Guernsey before graduating from Ten Sleep High School.

“I was raised on sheep and sugar beets,” Cooper said when he sat down for an interview with WyoFile.

Aside from working overseas early on in his oil and gas career, Cooper has lived in Wyoming all of his life.

“We have family in every cemetery from Greybull to Thermopolis, so I guess that makes us local,” he says. “The thing is, we all came here at some time, but we’ve been here a while.”

Cooper is part of a long tradition of Wyoming political candidates who center their campaign on their deep roots in the state.

In the most high-profile race in Wyoming’s history, for example, then-candidate Harriet Hageman’s campaign told voters she was a fourth-generation Wyomingite and that her family had been here since before statehood.

The approach hasn’t been exclusive to Republicans, either. In 2022, Wyoming Democratic Chairman Joe Barbuto told voters he was a fifth-generation native of Sweetwater County in his run for county treasurer.

The strategy has been a way for candidates to engender trust in a place where out-of-staters are often treated with a heavy dose of skepticism. The latter has been the case for decades.

“It ain’t the money that’s going to ruin this state. It ain’t the coal companies. It ain’t the uranium,” a Shirley Basin grocery store manager told New York Times reporter Molly Ivins in 1978. “It’s the outsiders.”

At the time, an energy boom had made Wyoming the fastest-growing state in the country. And despite the prosperity, the rapid growth stoked anxieties.

“‘Preserve Wyoming wildlife,’ urges a popular bumper sticker, ’shoot an out-of-state hunter,’” Ivins reported at the time.

Different iterations of that bumper sticker persist today.

In 2021, a billboard in Park County caused a stir when it declared, “DON’T CALIFORNIA OUR CODY.” More recent versions take on a more xenophobic flavor, reflecting national political narratives. “Leave illegal immigrants,” reads a hand-painted sign alongside Wyoming Highway 789, south of Thermopolis. “We don’t want you here.”

This election, however, voters across the state will have to weigh the value of Wyoming bona fides against a new type of candidate — someone who doesn’t shy away from the fact that they moved here not that long ago and promises to save the state from who they consider fake conservatives and the policies of the left-leaning places they left behind.

Some go as far to call themselves “political refugees,” after leaving blue states like Oregon, California and Colorado for the cover of Wyoming’s conservative shade of red. At the same time, these candidates say Wyoming hasn’t lived up to its Trump-loving reputation as the most Republican state in the U.S.

“We have a [Republican] supermajority in this state, but if you look at their voting records, we’re a purple state at best,” Tom Olmstead told a YouTube channel, The Protection Project, in June.

Olmstead, a U.S. Navy Reserve veteran, moved with his family from a Denver suburb to Basin in 2021. He’s now running against Cooper.

“The citizens of Wyoming are truly conservative people and they are not being properly represented. So that’s why I’m doing this,” Olmstead said in the June interview.

Olmstead’s move to Wyoming is reflective of a national trend of Americans moving to places they feel better reflect their own politics, which some political scientists warn can exacerbate political entrenchment and extremism.

“To say that the pervasive liberal agenda is not a threat to Wyoming is at best naive & at worst, dangerous,” Olmstead wrote on his campaign website. “I truly believe that Wyoming is this Nation’s best hope for preserving our traditional family values, liberty, & the Conservative ideals we hold dear.”

Redder pastures

Olmstead is middle-aged with a buzzed head and a prominent brow ridge. He began his career as an aviation electrician in the U.S. Navy in 1996, according to his LinkedIn page, before spending about three decades in aviation technology services. He currently works in business sales for TCT, a high-fiber internet service provider.

When his family decided to leave Colorado in 2021, his wife Jen and their oldest son took a road trip through Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado.

“We actually called it ‘the freedom tour,’” Olmstead said on camera while seated in front of a house plant and padlocked gun locker.

“We were looking for like-minded people.”

Olmstead’s interview with the Protection Project offers insights into what motivated his family’s move to Wyoming. After exchanging information with a reporter at a parade in Worland in July, he did not return WyoFile’s calls.

His family ruled out Montana after it looked “a lot like Colorado did 10 years ago,” Olmstead said. Wyoming, however, stood out for the way people appeared to be defying a statewide mask mandate.

“The people weren’t really listening to the mandates,” Olmstead said. “People were living their lives. Critical thinkers. Free thinkers. And people that embraced liberty.”

Olmstead said they soon chose Basin — a town of about 1,300 near the center of the Bighorn Basin — and moved in July 2021, purchasing property that’s since been developed into an RV park. They named it Liberty Ranch Campground.

It’s been “a whirlwind journey,” Liberty Ranch’s website states. “Starting a new career mid-life, getting our children back into public school/sports, reviving a small ranch with steers/chickens, while simultaneously getting to know our community & developing our campground inch by inch.”

Olmstead’s campaign website chronicles his family’s decision to start over in a new place.

“Unfortunately, in 2020/21, in light of widespread unconstitutional COVID restrictions & mandates, our family was faced with the harsh reality of the loss of my Aviation career or conceding my deepest principles of individual liberty,” the website states.

“This, combined with the onslaught of liberal legislation in the completely compromised State of CO forced an abrupt end to my career & our family to become political refugees.”

Olmstead is endorsed by Gun Owners of America and Wyoming Right to Life. Some of his more concrete policy stances, according to his website, include limiting or abolishing property taxes, and entirely defunding the University of Wyoming and the state’s community colleges.

“I certainly do not support any funding for higher education, especially when their primary focus appears to be more of a liberal conditioning camp for a woke agenda than institutions for learning,” Olmstead wrote on his website. “If an amendment to the Wyoming Constitution is needed to defund these institutions, so be it.”

A forged path

Plenty of candidates have succeeded in Wyoming despite having lived in other places before starting a political career here.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso grew up in Pennsylvania before moving to Casper and becoming known as “Wyoming’s doctor” for his spots on local TV. He served in the Legislature before being appointed to the U.S. Senate and ascending to the body’s third-ranking Republican.

Before she was defeated by Hageman in 2022, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney represented Wyoming for three terms in Congress, despite having left the state for much of her adult life.

Whether Olmstead can follow in their footsteps remains to be seen. But one state legislator successfully forged a similar path two years ago.

“I came to Casper, Wyoming a political refugee from corrupt Illinois,” Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper, told Oil City News in 2022.

Ward, who quickly rose to prominence in the hard-line Republican Wyoming Freedom Caucus in her first term, moved to Wyoming in 2021. In Illinois, she served on the state’s largest elected school board but lost a bid for the statehouse the year before the move.

“The straw that broke the camel’s back for our family was when one of our high-school daughters was threatened with out-of-school suspension for not wearing a mask,” Ward told Oil City News. “We were done with Illinois. I don’t want this for Wyoming.”

Ward defeated Thomas Myler by about 300 votes in the 2022 primary election, according to election records, and won in the general election against Democrat Robert Johnson by a much wider margin.

This year, a political newcomer is challenging Ward. House District 57 hopeful Julie Jarvis stressed her Wyoming background when launching her campaign in April.

“I am from Wyoming, for Wyoming,” she said in a campaign video.

Jarvis was born and raised outside of Buffalo and has made her roots a hallmark of her campaign.

“We’re not fans of people trying to come in and change us or take our individual rights away,” Jarvis said in the video.

Ward hasn’t dodged the residency question. Instead, she’s leaned into it.

In mailers, Ward told voters she “came to Wyoming for freedom,” while Jarvis “left Wyoming for several years, several times.”

“As the saying goes, I wasn’t born in Wyoming, but I came here as fast as I could,” Ward wrote in a Facebook post celebrating Wyoming Statehood Day in July.

“Having lived outside of our state, I have a special kind of love for Wyoming and the liberty she promises,” Ward wrote. “Our Wyoming way of life isn’t something I take for granted.”

The post inspired Jessie Rubino, Wyoming state director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, to chime in.

“As a Wyoming native myself, I’ve found that those who have fled TO Wyoming appreciate her more than my fellow born-and-raised Wyomingites do,” Rubino wrote.

The comment echoed an op-ed, penned months earlier in The Sheridan Press, concerning another candidate.

“We are writing to give you our response to the political attacks we’ve seen made against Laurie Bratten who is running for State House District 51,” several locals wrote.

In 2022, Bratten was one of four people accused of “trying to tear our state apart” in anonymous mailers sent to Sheridan and Johnson County residents. The mailers called Bratten a “Colorado greenie” who “moseyed up from Denver two years ago.”

The mailer purported to be paid for by the Wyoming in Name Only political action committee — a play on RINO, or Republican in name only — but the PAC wasn’t registered with the state or the Federal Election Commission.

Bratten was not seeking public office at the time, and a Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office investigation determined that Rep. Cyrus Western, R-Big Horn, was in part responsible for the leaflets.

Bratten is now running unopposed for the seat Western currently holds. And she’s got the support of her neighbors, according to the op-ed signed by Dave and Jan Nelson, Rod and Linda Holwell, Wayne Harper, Terry Harper, and Dan and Shelly Reinke.

The Brattens became their neighbors in 2017, according to the op-ed.

“You never know what you might get when someone new moves in, but after 7 years of having them live next to us, year-round, we’re glad they are here,” the op-ed states.

“We have far more in common with the Brattens than with some people who happen to have been born in Wyoming,” the op-ed states.

“Laurie and Rich Bratten have earned our respect, our trust and our friendship. It’s disgusting that some politicians and media people think they can attack someone they don’t even know just because they weren’t born here. We know the Brattens, and we are glad that Laurie is running to represent us.”

The Basin

A few days after the Independence Day Parade, Cooper sits down for an interview at the Ten Sleep Senior Center.

Tall and slender with blue eyes, Cooper apologizes for his muddied boots and Wranglers. He’d been out on his property repairing a center pivot sprinkler before losing track of time.

He says he has a different understanding of what it means to be a political refugee.

An employee of Cooper’s is married to an Ukrainian woman, he said. About a year and a half ago, the man traveled to Ukraine to help get her out of the country and away from the war raging against the invading Russian Army.

The two made it out on foot across the Romanian border. They reached Bucharest, where they waited while trying to get her a U.S. visa. She’s now in Calgary, still waiting on papers.

“That’s a political refugee,” Cooper says.

“Someone who moved here from Colorado because they didn’t like the politics, that’s not a political refugee,” Cooper says. “Why did they not stay and fight for what they felt was right in their own state?”

As the Aug. 20 primary nears, things have only gotten busier for Cooper. Meanwhile, his wife, Becky, who organized Ten Sleep’s parade is gearing up for Worland’s parade later in the month.

Cooper’s got a lot of ground to cover before Election Day.

Geographically, Senate District 20 is one of Wyoming’s larger districts. It stretches across five counties — Big Horn, Fremont, Hot Springs, Park and Washakie.

The rural district includes Thermopolis and its tangy hot springs, Meeteetse with its cowboy chocolatier, and Ten Sleep’s red buttes and gaping canyon.

Just about smack dab in the district’s center is where Wyoming Whiskey is distilled in Kirby. Worland, where a grower-owned facility has processed sugar beets for longer than the last century, is the district’s largest population center, with about 4,800 residents.

The next evening Cooper will drive to Shoshoni, the southernmost town in his district, for a forum where he expects to see his opponent.

“He’s welcome in Wyoming. I welcome him to Wyoming every time I see him,” Cooper says. “But I really feel like he would be a better candidate if he had been here long enough to really understand the issues of Wyoming, and the people of Wyoming, and to better understand our Constitution.”

Olmstead misunderstands what it means to be Republican in Wyoming, Cooper says.

“It’s not that we’re not conservative, it’s just that we’re not radical about it,” he says. “We’re very much a live-and-let-live state.”

“The bulk of the people that I represent are conservative, common-sense, old-school Republicans,” he continues. “They don’t like the radicalism that’s going on. They don’t like the division in the Republican Party right now. And I hear that consistently every day.”

Cooper also takes a different approach than Olmstead when it comes to funding for public services, like education. He doesn’t, for example, support defunding the University of Wyoming and community colleges.

“Fiscal responsibility doesn’t mean no spending, it means responsible spending,” Cooper says.

When it comes to property taxes, Cooper says it’s important not to take extreme measures since property taxes fund local services, like K-12 education, transportation and law enforcement.

That philosophy guided his approach earlier this year when he sponsored successful legislation to double an existing property tax exemption for certain veterans. Cooper got the idea from a constituent.

“For anybody who believes that one voice can’t make a difference, the genesis for this bill was a [veteran] up in Cody,” Cooper says.

On his campaign website, Olmstead accuses Cooper of having “liberal leaning tendencies,” and links to several political ranking sites, most of which operate anonymously.

Cooper stands by his voting record. He’s also not willing to amend the state’s constitution simply to account for unconstitutional legislation, he says.

“Our Wyoming Constitution is unique. It’s very well written. And it’s really a treasure for our state. So that’s the first thing I look at [when considering legislation],” he says. “The second thing I look at is, ‘What does it do for my constituents?’”

How to understand a state

Before he retired from the Wyoming House two years ago, former Washakie County lawmaker Mike Greear endorsed Cooper.

These days, he’s frustrated with the campaigning he’s seen from new-to-the-state candidates.

On one hand, Greear said, it’s important to welcome people, along with their new ideas and entrepreneurship.

“But it is a bit frustrating when people move from another state to try to get away from the politics that they don’t like, and then they come to Wyoming and run for office and then engage in those same political tactics,” Greear said.

But for some voters, Greear said, it can be an effective strategy.

“People are frustrated with government. They just are,” Greear said, adding that most people in Wyoming are “livid about this [Biden] administration.”

So when a candidate shows up without any voting record and starts beating their chest about national topics, Greear said, people think, “That’s a person I agree with.”

But that alone doesn’t make someone a good lawmaker, Greear said.

“Not to understand our values, not to understand that Thermopolis and Worland have a tremendous basketball rivalry? Or Cody and Powell? I mean, you’ve got to know those things,” Greear said. “And understand the economic drivers in the area, and understand how the extractive industry has funded a lot of wonderful things in our state.”

Small-town forum

The front door of the Shoshoni Fire Hall is propped open on a Thursday night, as voters and candidates mill about waiting for the forum to begin in this community of fewer than 500 in central Wyoming.

The vaulted room is lit by hanging fluorescent lights, and free booklets of the Wyoming Constitution are fanned out on a table next to cookies and iced tea.

A video camera set to livestream the event and several rows of plastic folding chairs are facing the front of the room, where another four seats are arranged behind a table with four name tags for statehouse hopefuls — Sen. Ed Cooper; Rep. John Winter, R-Thermopolis; Olmstead and Kevin Skates.

But as the forum begins, the chair marked for Olmstead remains empty.

“He chose not to come,” forum moderator Maggie Miller announces. “I don’t know what the circumstances were, but we’re very disappointed in his decision and firmly believe that Fremont County voters deserve to hear from candidates.”

Other Republican candidates snubbed invites by the same organizers — Fremont County GOP, Republican Women of Fremont County, the Fremont County Democratic Party and the League of Women voters of Fremont County — in early July.

The three candidates in Shoshoni are asked questions about federal overreach, property taxes, the state’s school-funding model, access to health care services and corner crossing, among other standard Wyoming topics.

Winter, referring to himself as one of the “founding fathers” of the Freedom Caucus, laid out the group’s ambitious plans for this election.

“Right now, no Freedom Caucus members are in leadership positions as far as committees and so forth,” Winter says, but he’s confident that will change after this election.

“We have to make Wyoming the state that everybody thinks that it is,” Winter says.

Down the street from the forum, on the western edge of Shoshoni, a campaign sign of Winter’s tilts in the wind next to a sign of Olmstead’s.

“A TRUE CONSERVATIVE,” Olmstead’s sign proclaims.

“FROM WYOMING… FOR WYOMING!!” Winter’s sign reads.

When asked by WyoFile at the forum why he felt it was important to include that on his signs, Winter answers, “because I’m not from some other state.”

“I’m not a move in,” Winter says. “I’ve lived in Wyoming all my life.”

Not that coming from somewhere else is a disqualifier. Asked what he makes of new-to-the-state candidates, Winter says it would depend on the person.

Lunch with voters

On a mid-July day, the Hot Springs County Senior Center in Thermopolis is serving baked ham, mashed sweet potatoes, and peas and carrots. By noon, most of the center’s tables are filled with chatty diners.

Ted Brown, a local GOP precinct committeeman, is among those stopping in for a meal. After retiring from a manufacturing career in Casper, Brown moved to Thermopolis for the hunting and fishing.

“But the No. 1 reason was to get away from the wind,” Brown says.

Earlier this month, he went to an Independence Day parade in Dubois, which like Ten Sleep, hosted a small-town celebration.

“It was great, but I have problems with it,” Brown says. “It’s turning into a little Jackson.”

The parade marshal drove a slick 1958 Corvette, Brown notes, but it had out-of-state plates.

“There’s another guy that had a big jacked-up Bronco, and was whooping and hollering and playing music and revving the engine up. Guess what? California plates,” Brown said. “And it’s like, what happened to the Wyoming people?”

When Al Walker sits down with his lunch tray, he asks about the “don’t California” billboard in Cody.

“You seen that?” he chuckles.

Walker retired after working a variety of gigs, including one on the gun show circuit, another buying and selling diamonds, as well as a job with Bell Helicopters. As far as politicians go, Walker has some favorites.

“I sure love Harriet Hageman,” Walker says. “Man, that girl takes care of business.”

While Walker says he doesn’t blame someone like Olmstead for wanting to leave Colorado, he wouldn’t ever vote for someone so new to the state.

“I don’t think we need him,” Walker says.

Patricia Powell, a retired teacher and registered Democrat, takes different things into account when choosing a candidate.

“I’m not usually one who is gonna keep voting for the same guy, because it just seems like not very much is happening,” Powell says, standing downtown after eating breakfast with a friend.

“I’m a little upset with the Legislature in Wyoming,” she says. “They’re just swinging so far right.”

Like a lot of other seniors in town, Powell says she often has to travel to Casper, Billings or Fort Collins for doctor’s appointments. That’s the kind of thing she’s concerned about when choosing a candidate, not so much whether they’re new to town.

“I just need them to solve problems,” she says.

Smiles, waves and handshakes

It’s a quiet Saturday morning in Worland — other than a squealing hog raising hell in the hardware store parking lot.

The hog, fenced off atop a parade float, is accompanied by other livestock and proud 4-H and FFA competitors. It’s been a smoky and hot few days, but conditions have cleared and cooled off in time for the Washakie County Fair Parade.

Floats are lining up here, before making the trek downtown where most parader goers are lined up.

Olmstead has quickly stepped inside the hardware store, while his wife Jen and their two teenage sons put the finishing touches on a black Ford F-150. The truck is decorated with balloons, ribbons, American flags and Olmstead’s campaign signs.

After the parade, Jen says, they’ll go door knocking in Worland. After some hot campaigning days, they’re glad for the cooler temperatures.

When Olmstead returns to the truck, he’s friendly with a firm handshake. Tied up with parade business, Olmstead gives his card to WyoFile and suggests talking another time.

Most of the parade goers are gathered down the street between City Hall and Pioneer Park, where a Saturday morning farmers market is being held. Friends of the Washakie County Library are selling apple, cherry and chocolate chess pies for $20, next to a few jewelry vendors, farm stands and a kettle corn slinger.

Larry and Wanda Bolint show up just in time to see the parade begin. They’re surprised and delighted to see their neighbor, Janet Benson, is the parade marshal.

Benson is just one of many who have welcomed them to the community with open arms, they say. Like Olmstead, the Bolints came to Wyoming for political reasons. They moved to Worland from southern Oregon to “escape masks and taxes,” Wanda explains.

The trouble on the coast, Wanda says, began when the state legalized recreational marijuana. Soon, they say, their neighborhood smelled like skunk.

Then the pandemic happened, and they started looking for a new place to live. In 2021, they decided on Washakie County. They liked the tax laws, the cost of living and the low population density.

On this day, they’re watching the festivities in what they call their “mowing clothes,” while they wait for the grass to dry before they cut it. They’re not familiar with Olmstead or Cooper, but when it comes to what they look for in a candidate, Larry says, “traditional American values.”

“That means the Constitution,” Larry says, “And the founding fathers wrote a document to limit the federal government.”

Like many new arrivals, Wyoming is appealing both for its politics and its rural charm. As the parade passes by, both continue to gush about the beauty and the friendliness of their new town. This, Larry explains, is the world he grew up in. Where neighbors will weld them a clothesline or check on Larry when Wanda is out of town. The air is fresh, even if it does smell a bit like cows and sugar beets.

“Any direction we drive is a blessing. It’s true,” Wanda says. “Look at all of God’s gifts and glory.”