Like with Alaska, trying to find successful statewide Democratic campaigns for Federal office in Wyoming is pretty difficult, if not entirely impossible in recent years. In Alaska, the closest thing we had was Governor Tony Knowles' winning runs for Governor in 1994 and 1998, but the first race was decided by less than one-half of one percent, and Knowles won in very large part because the sitting Republican Lieutenant Governor decided to run as an independent, thereby splitting the GOP vote to let Knowles sneak through. His 1998 win was as an incumbent, so it was not an insurgent campaign by any means; incumbents of either party in any state, assuming they have not totally screwed up, are generally favored for re-election, particularly governors, as the same hot-button issues that Congress faces are not dealt with at the state level. Besides 1994, which we place an asterisk next to, all that was left to study was Knowles' painfully close loss in 2004, and his slightly wider loss two years later in the governor's race.
Republican strength in Wyoming has been dominant and long-standing
What we have to work with in Wyoming is much the same. Wyoming has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since it re-elected liberal former University of Wyoming professor Gale McGee all the way back in 1970. Nor has a Democrat represented the Equality State in the House of Representatives since the popular Tino Roncalio was serving his final term there in 1977-78. As a result, when one peruses past Federal election results since then, what stands out is the litany of absolute beatings Wyoming Democrats have absorbed.
To wit, when Senator Clifford Hansen retired in 1978, Alan Simpson, the son of former Governor and Senator Milward Simpson succeeded him in 1978 by trouncing Raymond Whitaker 62-38. Six years later, he won 78-22 over Victor Ryan, and then 64-36 over Kathy Helling in 1990. Similarly, Malcolm Wallop won 57-43 in both 1976 and 1982, before sweating out his 1988 race (which we will look at) and retiring in 1994. In the House, Dick Cheney easily succeeded Roncalio in 1978, and never faced spirited competition to hold his seat. When Cheney resigned to become Secretary of Defense in 1989, Craig Thomas won the special election fairly easily over State Senator John Vinch by 53-42, and when he ran for the Senate himself in 1994, he won 58-39 over fairly popular two-term sitting Governor Mike Sullivan, and then 74-22 over a hapless opponent in 2000. Finally, current Senator Mike Enzi, a former Gillette mayor, State Representative and State Senator, won his first Senate campaign easily over former conservative Wyoming Secretary of State Kathy Karpan by 54-42. Both he and junior Senator John Barrasso (he was appointed to replace Thomas after he died of leukemia in June 2007) will win extremely easy re-election this year over weak opponents after the DSCC failed to recruit Governor Freudenthal to run against Barrasso (he would have been the only Democratic candidate who would have given either a tough race).
The one exception to this level of dominance has been Barbara Cubin, Wyoming's At-Large congressional Representative since her election in 1994 as part of the Republican Revolution. While Cubin has been elected seven times, many of her races have been close despite the state's strong Republican bent. Cubin won 53 percent in 1994, 55 percent in 1996, 58 percent in 1998, 55 percent in 2004, and finally 48 percent in 2006 (after winning her primary 60-40 over a unfunded and unknown GOP opponent). These numbers speak volumes to Cubin's weaknesses. To be frank, the reasons for this are Cubin's personality and effectiveness. She is very well known for her outbursts, outlandish statements, and other strange behavior, which I will link to but not discuss in detail. Perhaps the most noteworthy incident, however, was at the end of a 2006 debate where she approached her libertarian opponent and threatened to slap him. The candidate, Thomas Rankin, is in a wheelchair. This term, Cubin boasts one of the very worst attendance records in all of Congress, though that is at least in part because her husband has been fighting a rare and serious illness for some time. That said, even before this Congress, Cubin was notorious for boasting a poor attendance record. So, Cubin's is a unique case of a Republican who has just skated by in spite of her caustic personality and weak record.
While I am on this subject, let me add a quick word on what Cubin's tough races say about Wyoming politics. While Cubin never did lose, her close calls show that many Wyomingites vote for the person more than the party affiliation. That may not describe a majority of the state's electorate today, but it has certainly been a characteristic of a good deal of the state's voters for some time. Alan Simpson, Wyoming's delightfully fascinating former Senator, and even his father Milward Simpson, show this. The younger Simpson was well known for being very independent, and possessing numerous moderate-to-liberal positions; perhaps astonishingly to some today, he was comfortably elected three times. Similarly, his father, who was against the death penalty, was elected both Governor (in 1954; though he was defeated for re-election at least in part because his opposition to the death penalty) and Senator (in 1962). I would wager that if Alan Simpson were still in the Senate, a conservative group such as the Club for Growth would probably have tried to primary challenge him for not being Republican enough; and I have little doubt that he would have been re-elected easily just the same. The fact is that many people in Wyoming, even Republicans, vote for the person more than the affiliation. This is an important theme to keep in mind when assessing whether Gary Trauner can put together enough support to win in November.
Looking beyond the strange case of Barbara Cubin, on the whole, Democrats have tasted brutal defeat in Wyoming Federal races for the past few decades. As was mentioned in the first post, the governorship has been another story entirely. Over the last 35 years, three Democratic Governors have occupied the Governor's Mansion in Cheyenne for 28 years. Mike Sullivan (1990-98) and Dave Freudenthal (2002-present) each won two terms, and before them Ed Herschler was elected three times from 1975-87. It is these races, particularly Freudenthal's first run for office, which provide the most useful instruction for us here. As I noted earlier, re-election campaigns are not as useful to scrutinize because incumbents are generally able to win easily, regardless of state or affiliation. The same applies here, where the Democratic governors had relatively easy re-election runs, even in Wyoming. What is useful for us is the first run. Whereas Wyoming has a two-term limit for Governors, Federal offices have absolutely no term limits; and what we are interested in is discovering whether someone like Gary Trauner can win that first term and establish that all-important electoral beachhead which would make subsequent races much, much easier.
In this post, we are going to look in detail at three Wyoming races: the 2002 Governor's campaign, the 1988 Senate race, and Trauner's close loss for U.S. House in 2006. By the end of this post, I hope that it will be apparent why I am going through them, and that their lessons for Gary Trauner this year, and Wyoming Democrats running the future, will be clear.
Why recent presidential are useless (except 1992, sort of)
Unfortunately, we cannot really use recent presidential results to provide any meaningful instruction. As I noted earlier, Al Gore and John Kerry absorbed 69-28 and 69-29 losses, respectively, with Kerry breaking 35 percent of the vote in only two counties. Looking at losses, or even comfortable losses is one thing as some counties, cities, or regions might be closer and thus worthy of careful scrutiny; here, in Wyoming, the presidential results have been so lopsided it is impossible to glean anything worthwhile for our purposes. Gore and Kerry were exactly the type of Democrats that can't appeal to Wyomingites, and it showed. This is unfortunate because it makes our job, and really the job of Wyoming political students and campaign and party workers much more difficult. Hopefully if Obama does more respectably in the state in November, and there are strong indications that he will, this can be changed somewhat.
However, just for the sake of my own interest, let's take a quick look at the 1992 presidential results. The results for the year are a bit misleading because Ross Perot took 26 percent in the state, probably almost all votes that would have gone to the first President Bush. Still, these results might be a bit interesting for us to (1) show us where Republican votes might be softest, thereby more likely to vote either for a third party candidate, or perhaps even the right kind of Democrat; and (2) help confirm or not confirm our assumptions about certain counties and parts of Wyoming and their political lean. Reminder: Bush won Wyoming with 40 percent, to 34 percent for Clinton, and 26 percent for Perot.
Let's look at the results by county, starting from largest to smallest:
Laramie (Bush 48 percent, Clinton 31 percent, Perot 21)
Natrona (36-36-28)
Sweetwater (30-43-26)
Campbell (47-24-28)
Fremont (39-34-26)
Albany (32-44-22)
Sheridan (37-36-26)
Park (47-25-28)
Uinta (39-30-30)
Teton (34-37-28)
Lincoln (45-25-26)
Carbon (35-41-24)
Converse (45-28-27)
Goshen (45-33-22)
Big Horn (47-26-26)
Platte (41-35-24)
Washakie (48-28-27)
Johnson (51-21-27)
Sublette (45-21-32)
Weston (48-24-27)
Crook (51-21-27)
Hot Springs (41-31-27)
Niobara (49-23-27)
Bush won 18 counties, to five for Clinton, and none for Perot. Clinton won Natrona, Sweetwater, Albany, Teton and Carbon counties, confirming our initial assertion that southern Wyoming leans more to Democratic candidates relative to the rest of the state. These counties had the strong Democratic base vote, even for a candidate that did not appeal to many Wyomingites.
Bush ran at 45+ percent in 13 counties: Laramie, Campbell, Park, Lincoln, Converse, Goshen, Big Horn, Washakie, Johnson, Sublette, Crook and Niobara counties. These are the counties he would have won with the greatest ease had Perot not been on the ballot.
The other five– Natrona (won by Clinton by 100 votes), Fremont, Uinta, Platte and Hot Springs, at least in 1992, represented the lowest-hanging fruit available for Democrats, as each, excepting Natrona (barely) went for Bush, but weakly. Laramie County is the hardest one for me to explain: either it has turned more Democratic in recent years, or it performed so well for Bush (comparatively, and given its history) for some other reason.
Four years later, when Dole beat Clinton 50-37, with Perot taking just 12 percent, Clinton only won three counties: Albany (43-36-10), Sweetwater (36-45-18), and Teton (44-45-9) counties. Bush carried Carbon County by a close 45-41-13, and Natrona by a wider 47-40-13.
Now, let me anticipate one criticism for relying at all on these numbers: Perot stole all those votes from Bush, and there is no equally strong third party candidate on the Wyoming ballot for either President or House this year. Assuming Bob Barr gets on the ballot, he will be able to do ok in Wyoming, but I readily agree. The point of summarizing these numbers is just to either disprove or reinforce this layman's view of Wyoming's political breakdown along geographic lines. Because the state is so small and has remained largely unchanged since 1992 (though it has continued to get a little older in recent years), these results have continued value today as a barometer of Wyoming. In other words, at the very least, they are not dated. They help confirm which counties lean more to Democrats today, and which are untouchable for the get-go.
Anyway, let's move onto 2002.
Freudenthal v. Bebout
The first race I would like to look at is Governor-2002. We are not going in chronological order. I am starting here because this is the only of the three races we are going to look over where the Democrat actually won.
When Republican Governor Jim Geringer was barred from seeking a third term in 2002, the state's top office opened. Geringer had first been elected in the GOP wave year of 1994 over a fairly strong Democratic nominee, Secretary of State Kathy Karpan. When Geringer took the office soon thereafter, it represented the first time that a Republican had sat in the Governor's chair in Cheyenne in 20 years. Eight years later, when Geringer was leaving, the office was expected by many to remain in the Republican Party's hands.
Geringer had a mixed record – he was re-elected 56-40 over well known Democratic populist, State Senator John Vinich, a good, but not overwhelming margin – and may not have been able to win a third term, had he been allowed to. When he rode into office in 1994, Geringer had promised to bring new high-paying jobs into the state, using the slogan "Wyoming is open for business." Yet, when the economic boom of the 1990s enveloped neighboring states like Colorado, Nevada, and even Idaho and Montana, all of which attracted dozens of high-tech companies, Wyoming was left out in the cold. The population stayed old (as most U of W graduates fled the state upon graduation; indeed, while between 1990 and 2000 the state's population rose close to eight percent, school enrollment in Wyoming tumbled 14 percent, though, to be fair, this a trend that continues today as the booming mining industry provides few jobs in general), and the state continued to rank at the bottom in key economic statistics. Geringer was roundly criticized for being too industry-friendly, and not doing enough to reaching out beyond Wyoming's traditional economic bases to help grown more diverse job opportunities. Wyomingites' discontent with this record certainly carried over at least a little to touch Eli Bebout, the Republican nominee for governor in 2002, who himself had tight ties to the oil, case, and mineral industries.
As the election campaign took shape, Wyoming's economic development was the central issue of concern for all the candidates and Wyomingites. The initial field was crowded, with five Republicans and four Democrats vying for the open office. The GOP primary was headed by State House Speaker Eli Bebout and rancher Ray Hunkins, and ended up particularly nasty. Bebout attacked Hunkins over some questionable business deals. Bebout also had the support of former Senator Alan Simpson, who relentlessly attacked Hunkins in print and on radio and television.
Speaker Bebout had an interesting story. Originally from Fremont County close to the city of Riverton, Bebout had been a Democratic state legislator, but he switched parties in the 1990s, spurred on by political disagreements with and personal dislike for President Clinton. He was a farmer and rancher, but also owned a Nucor Oil and Gas, an oil and natural gas drilling company based in Riverton. Bebout had deeply conservative positions on social issues, and was well known and popular among state leaders and business figures as the past head of the Wyoming Business Alliance and the Wyoming Heritage Foundation. As a result of his business connections, he won wide support among many state legislators and powerful business figures. Indeed, according to the Wyoming Equality State Policy Center, "roughly half of his out-of-state contributions and about one-quarter of his in-state donations came from oil and gas interests." Yet, in the five-person field, he won a fairly strong 49 percent of the vote to 28 percent for Hunkins. Still his campaign created some unhappiness and distaste among Wyomingites and Republicans for its nasty tone.
On the Democratic side, it was mostly a two-person affair between Paul Hickey, the son of a former Wyoming Governor, and David Freudenthal, a Cheyenne Attorney who had served as President Clinton's United States Attorney for Wyoming from 1994 until 2001. Hickey was initially favored because of his well-known name and fears that Freundenthal's ties to the unpopular Clinton would sink his candidacy. Freudenthal was a native Wyomingite, growing up on a family farm in Thermopolis in tiny Hot Springs County in the northwest part of the state. As a younger man, he worked on oil fields building oil tanks. Freudenthal had gone out of state for college, to Amherst College of all places, before returning home to go to work for three-term Democratic Governor Ed Herschler, first in the Wyoming Department of Economic Planning and Development, then as state planning coordinator in 1975, and finally as an aide to Gov. Herschler. After leaving the Herschler administration, Freudenthal attended law school in Laramie at the University of Wyoming. Freudenthal became a successful attorney in Cheyenne in the 1980s, opening his own practice which eventually became a large firm, and also served as head of the state Democratic Party for a time. In 1994, President Clinton tapped him to the U.S. Attorney in Wyoming, a high-ranking position for any up-and-coming lawyer. Freudenthal entered the race as an underdog, but ultimately defeated Hickey by 54-37.
In the general election Bebout was initially heavily favored, with one poll even showing him ahead of the Democrat by over 50 points. Bebout ran a negative campaign, attacking Freudenthal for his ties to the Clinton administration, repeatedly reminding voters that Freudenthal had been a "Clinton appointee". For his part, Freudenthal touted his bipartisan approach, and defended his affiliation, saying that he was "brave enough" to call himself a Democrat in Wyoming, and noted that his nomination to be U.S. Attorney had been supported by both of Wyoming's Republican Senators Malcolm Wallop and Alan Simpson. Bebout also claimed that in the late 1980s Freudenthal had funneled a $12 million loan to a company he owned a state in while he was Vice Chairman of the state Economic Development and Stabilization Board. However, media accounts quickly refuted this allegation.
In spite of Bebout's attacks, Freudenthal ran a spirited campaign, going door-to-door, employing an expansive grassroots organization, and working hard in even the most Republican-leaning areas in northern Wyoming. He was pro-death penalty and against any new taxes or gun controls. Freudenthal focused carefully on Wyoming's economic problems and Geringer's failure to capitalize on the economic boom that had benefited so many of Wyoming's nearest neighbors, bringing attention to both themes in the campaign's two televised debates between Freudenthal, Bebout, and Libertarian Party candidate Dave Dawson. He even said that given the state's economic problems, voters could not afford to elect a candidate based solely on his party.
By the end of campaign in October, polls showed the race tightening. A poll published one week before the election by the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle showed Bebout ahead by only 44-36 (with a high 20 percent undecided), a startling ratio given the state and that 2002 was shaping up to be a strong Republican election with President Bush's approval ratings sky-high, particularly in Wyoming. In that poll, just 60 percent of GOP respondents said they were supporting Bebout, with 25 percent saying they would back Freudenthal, and 14 undecided. That so many Republicans were undecided, or who were planning to vote Democratic so late in the game was telling. This GOP unease was exhibited when Vice President Cheney made a campaign stop in Cheyenne for Bebout the Sunday before the election.
The year of 2002 was, for the most part, a devastating year for Democrats across the country. The Democrats lost their slim hold of the Senate, as they lost painfully close races in Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, and New Hampshire, and contests that had at one point looked promising in North Carolina and Texas. The House stayed the same, with neither party making gains. Gubernatorial races had gone a bit better overall, with Democrats picking up a net of three new seats with impressive wins in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, while losing their holds in Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, and South Carolina. Still, on the whole, it was a rough election night for Democrats, as President Bush had campaigned at an unprecedented level for a sitting President to help carry into office as many Republican candidates as possible on his then-wildly-long coattails. Republicans certainly had hoped that Bush's popularity would ensure that Bebout would finish off Freudenthal, but it was not to be. Coming from behind, Freudenthal scored a stunning 50-48 win over Bebout, 92,662 votes to 88,873, with the libertarian Dawson receiving about two percent, or 3,924 votes.
Let's look at the all-important geographic breakdown for the vote, from the highest populated county to the least populated county.
Laramie (Freudenthal 61 percent, Bebout 38 percent)
Natrona (56-42)
Sweetwater (59-38)
Campbell (34-64)
Fremont (40-58)
Albany (60-38)
Sheridan (49-49)
Park (39-58)
Uinta (48-49)
Teton (57-41)
Lincoln (34-63)
Carbon (58-39)
Converse (47-51)
Goshen (40-58)
Big Horn (34-62)
Platte (55-42)
Washakie (45-53)
Johnson (40-58)
Sublette (39-59)
Weston (38-59)
Crook (33-64)
Hot Springs (55-45)
Niobara (34-63)
Unfortunately, I do not have access to any exit polls from 2002, as CNN scrapped their poll and did not release any results from this election cycle. This is not helpful, but the results are valuable by themselves.
Freudenthal was able to win in a tough national environment for Democrats, in arguably the most Republican state in the Union, the then-ultra popular sitting Vice President's home base no less, and by winning only eight of Wyoming's 23 counties. How did he do it? Geographically, he did really well where he needed to, held his own in the base Republican areas, and scored a couple of surprise showings.
Several of these results stand out. First, Freudenthal built up the margins necessary for a Democrat to win statewide in the more Democratic leaning base counties. He won great showings in Laramie (+23 percent over Bebout), Natrona (+14), Albany (+22), and Teton (+16) counties. These are generally the counties where Democrats have to run up big margins to make up for huge losses in the very heavily-Republican counties in northern Wyoming, and elsewhere. Lying in more traditionally Democratic-leaning southern Wyoming along the Union-Pacific line, Laramie (Cheyenne), Natrona (Caster), and Albany (Laramie and the U of W) are all easy to explain. Ditto Teton (Jackson), where Democrats have established their strongest county in Wyoming. Not coincidentally, many of these were President Clinton's strongest counties in 1992, as he won all four plus Sweetwater, thereby confirming their status as the Wyoming Democratic "base" for special Democratic nominees.
Other big wins are a bit more complicated. Freudenthal also scored impressive wins in Carbon (+19), Hot Springs (+11), Platte (+13), and Sweetwater (+21) counties. Carbon Count lies along the same southern railway line, and has supported Democrats in the past; Freudenthal merely expanded his advantage there. Ditto Sweetwater, which at one time was the most Democratic county in the state, as it was home to a strong labor presence before the gas and mining industries went the non-labor route, destroying one of the Democrat's last bastions of support in Wyoming. Freudenthal's unusually good showing Hot Springs is probably attributable to him being from Thermopolis in the county. A close win would have been one thing, but I am not entirely sure how he pulled off such a big win in Platte County. Platte can be a swing county, and it is a bit less Republican as it lies in southern Wyoming, touching both Albany and Laramie counties. It was also the home of Ray Hunkins, Bebout's primary opponent who was so brutally attacked by Bebout and Alan Simpson.
Finally, while Freudenthal was unable to carry any of the overwhelmingly Republican counties, his showings, even though they appear lopsided, are nonetheless fine. Keep in mind that places like Big Horn (34-62 in the race), Crook (33-64), Johnson (40-58), Park (39-58) and Weston (38-59) are counties where Republican registration regularly touches into the 70s and sometimes 80 percent ranges; registered Democrats are endangered species in these mostly-northern counties. By not ignoring these counties entirely, as many Democratic candidates assuredly do in strategizing to run up the margins as much as possible in the south, Freudenthal helped ensure his victory. He appropriately understood that given the state's demographics he had to do adequate in these areas, and he did more than that.
Freudenthal turned out to be the exact kind of Democrat who could win in Wyoming. He had a folksy, low key style that appealed to voters, as well as conservative positions on social and tax issues that would not be non-starters to Wyoming's right-leaning electorate. He was trying to succeed a GOP Governor who had a mixed record overall and a fairly poor compendium of economic results, and ran a hard campaign focused laser-like on those issues. His hard work exposed cleavages in the largely Republican electorate which were concerned with Geringer's economic record, Bebout's potential to continue Geringer's lack of movement on the job-building front, and the acrimonious primary between Bebout and Hunkins.
Freudenthal's hard work, focus on the entire state, and overall campaign strategy worked to absolute perfection. While, as noted above, Democrats' scored great wins in a small score of gubernatorial contests, none should be taken as impressive as Freudenthal's Wyoming win. Rod Blagojevich's win in Illinois was less meaningful coming off of a scandal-tarnished Republican Governor's tenure in a blue state, ditto Jennifer Granholm and Bill Richardson's victories in Democratic-leaning Michigan and New Mexico. Running a superb campaign, Ed Rendell took back the big chair for Democrats facing a weak opponent after the sitting Governor decided not to run, and Jim Doyle beat a Governor who had ascended to the job after Tommy Thompson took the helm at HHS for President Bush. The only races that can compare were Janet Napolitano's win in Arizona, Kate Sebelius' victory in Kansas, and Phil Bredesen's close win in Tennessee. To be sure, all of them were pretty incredible victories in a bad Democratic year, but only one of all the races was won in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 2-to-1. (Though, to be fair, Brad Henry's shocking win in Oklahoma was perhaps equally impressive, but Henry was helped by a third party candidate who took 14 percent of the vote, probably handing the Democrat the victory over huge frontrunner, former congressman and football star Steve Largent.)
And in case anyone is thinking of it, please no garbage about how the libertarian candidate cost Bebout the election. Libertarian candidates are a fact of life in many Wyoming elections, as evidenced by Ross Perot's strong showings in the state. Yes, Dawson's votes added to Bebout's would have given him a 100 or so vote win, but that's kind of irrelevant. In a state like Wyoming, it should never have been so close for the Republican.
I also do not think that Freudenthal's win signaled any broader, or even narrower shift in Wyoming political demographics, even though Freudenthal scored an incredible 70-30 win in his re-election. If this were true, then Democrats would do well in November against Senators Enzi and Barrasso; they will almost certainly not do so. Then again, if Trauner or Obama score impressive showings this November, then perhaps Wyoming is undergoing a slight shift. That Teton is the fastest growing county in the state (between 1990 and 2000, its population great from 11,173 to 18, 251, a nearly 61 percent jump when the state's population rose a mere 9 percent over the same period), certainly bodes well Democrats, but it will need to grow exponentially more for it to counterbalance just about the entire rest of the state. In the end, I prefer to look at the correct way: that the right kind of candidate can win statewide in Wyoming under the right circumstances.
The late poll results are worth briefly discussing before we move on. That Bebout was held to 44 percent – below the magical 50 point threshold – was important, even though Freudenthal was still mired in the mid-30s at that point. In a state where over 60 percent of the voters are registered Republican, and many of the state's Democrats and Independents will routinely vote the same way, that only 44 percent were ready to commit to Bebout so late in the game spoke volumes for the intensity of his level of support. Sure, he ended up with 48 percent, but remember these numbers when we finally get to this 2008 race in the third post.
John Vinich
I think I can trace my interest in Wyoming politics to an article I came across a few years ago. I do not recall why or how I found the article, but it stoked my interest in the subject matter we're looking at today -- whether Democrats can win Federal office in Wyoming -- and led me to begin reading and researching Wyoming's recent political history. The piece was a late 2004 obituary for a former longtime state legislator named John Vinich published in Wyoming's largest newspaper, the Casper Star-Tribune. Vinich had died of a heart attack at the untimely age of 54 years old.
Vinich had been in the legislature for 24 years, first serving Wyoming State House from 1974 until 1982, and then the State Senate from 1983 until 1998. He was from the mining town of Hudson in Fremont County, and he was probably the legislatures' strongest populist, and at one time, Wyoming's most well known Democratic political figure. Vinich was a lawyer by trade, and restaurateur and barkeeper, running the Union Bar in Hudson. He was immensely popular in his segment of Fremont County, and was well known as a fierce advocate of Native American causes and legislation for the little guy and the downtrodden. While Vinich was a strong supporter of labor causes, he was also against gun control and in favor of the death penalty. He was known in Wyoming as a maverick given to harsh words and sometimes wild conduct. He cut an interesting figure in Cheyenne with his trademark suspenders and longer hair (not long by today's standards necessarily, but certainly by Wyoming's).
In this interesting life story, one thing really stuck out at me. Vinich had run for statewide office three times, losing each time. This result, in itself, should be surprising to no one who has read these posts and considered Wyoming's political leanings. In his last run in 1998, Vinich ran against incumbent Governor Jim Geringer, losing by a respectable 56-40. Nine years earlier, he had run for the vacated House seat of Dick Cheney after the now-sitting Vice President resigned to accept his appointment as Secretary of Defense by the first President Bush, ultimately losing to fellow State Senator Craig Thomas by a fairly close (for Wyoming) margin of 52-43.
But it was Vinich's statewide run in 1988 that really caught my eye. Running against two-term U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop in a presidential year, Vinich lost by 1,322 votes, or 50.4 to 49.6. I was really struck by this margin. How, I asked myself, could any Democrat come so close to winning against a well-known Republican sitting in one of the reddest states during a presidential election? In turn, I did some research into the nearly 20-year old contest to find some sort of explanation. This section of our discussion will go through what I found, and what it means for someone like Gary Trauner who lost a nearly equally close race in 2006.
As usual, Vinich's strong showing in 1988 was greatly attributable to circumstances unique to his race: he was a strong and fairly likable challenger, while his opponent had many warts, and turned out to a very vulnerable incumbent. Malcolm Wallop had been elected to the Senate in 1976, ousting two-term incumbent Gale McGee, the last Democrat to represent Wyoming in the Upper House of the U.S. Congress. Wallop was able to beat McGee by focusing on the Democratically-controlled Congress, and the state's rural anger at coal stripmines and other Federal meaures that angered the Cowboy State's rural electorate. A rancher by trade, Wallop had served in the Wyoming House and Senate for four years apiece. Interestingly, he was originally from New York, and had gone to school at Yale. His lineage could be traced to the British royal family.
Wallop was strongly conservative on all issues. For example, over his career (including between 1989 and 1995) he opposed any gun control measures including a five-day waiting period to buy a handgun, he was against pro-choice measures, in favor of Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court, against banning strike replacements, in favor of limiting appealing options for Federal death row inmates, against most Federal government regulation, particularly environmental protection measures, in favor of allowing the use of force in the first Gulf War, against cutting the Social Security payroll tax, and against any arms control agreement. One of Wallop's signature issues was defense, as he was strongly pro-military and anti-communist. His views sometimes were to the right of President Reagan, as he opposed his INF Treaty, as well as SALT II under Jimmy Carter, and he was a fervent support of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Sometimes his views and temperment were seen as too extreme, even by Republicans, and amusingly, Time Magazine labeled him a "humorless ideologue."
It was many these conservative positions, and Wallop's broader focus on national issues over local ones that put him into hot water with Wyoming voters. Capitalizing on these concerns, and despite being outspent $1.34 million to $490,000, Vinich ran an aggressive campaign, calling Wallop out of touch and unable able to deliver for Wyomingites. "Every six years, Malcolm wakes up and remembers he's supposed to represent Wyoming," Vinich said in a typical refrain. A young Joe Trippi, the now-well-known Democratic operative who helped run Howard Dean's insurgent presidential run in 2004, helped steer the Vinich campaign, and crafted what he deemed a very effective TV ad highlighting Wallop's extremist views and ties to issues irrelevant to many Wyomingites. On the personal side, whereas Wallop was imperious and icy, Vinich was earnest and energetic. While polling through much of the campaign showed Vinich down 20 points or more, the race tightened considerably, and many prognosticators at the time rated the race only leaning Republican. When the dust was settled and after Vinich declined to pursue a recount, Wallop won a third term by 1,322 votes out of 180,964 cast in the state. Vinich had won the southern counties, Fremont County, and Casper, but not by big enough margins to offset his losses upstate.
Let's take a fairly quick look at Vinich's county-by-county vote breakdown, from the highest voting county to the lowest voting county in 1988
Laramie (Vinich 55 percent-Wallop 45 percent)
Natrona (53-47)
Sweetwater (63-37)
Fremont (58-42)
Albany (57-43)
Sheridan (46-54)
Park (39-61)
Campbell (36-64)
Carbon (56-44)
Teton (40-60)
Uinta (48-52)
Lincoln (46-54)
Goshen (39-61)
Big Horn (44-56)
Converse (46-54)
Platte (48-52)
Washakie (42-58)
Johnson (37-63)
Weston (36-64)
Crook (29-71)
Sublette (35-65)
Hot Springs (48-52)
Niobara (40-60)
Just as a side note, I could not find these results anywhere on the Internet or elsewhere; I guess they are just too old. I was able to have them faxed to me after I called up the Wyoming Secretary of State's office.
Even though, as the 2002 list shows, the order of the most populous counties has changed a bit, for the most part it is still pretty much the same. Vinich was able to win six counties: Laramie, Natrona, Sweetwater, Fremont, Albany, and Carbon. He won the top five biggest counties, and with the exception of Natrona, by decisive margins. It is interesting that his best county was Sweetwater; clearly, before recent years, this was the most reliably Democratic county in the state. After the old railroad labor workers began to move on, the county began to move to the right with the rest of the state. Ditto the rest of the big southern counties that Vinich dominated. He was able to do so well in Fremont because his hometown, Hudson, was smack in the middle of the county.
Vinich also took 46 percent in six other counties. All in all, a very impressive showing. He fell just short because he was badly beaten in just about all of northern Wyoming. As with Trauner, Vinich could not slap together enough rural support. Interestingly, whereas Sweetwater is no longer a Democratic bulwark, Teton County, which Vinich lost 60-40, has become Wyoming's most liberal county as more strong Democrats have moved in. Vinich also did very well in Platte and Uinta, to counties closer to the southern part of the state, and ones where Freudenthal and Trauner were able to do well in. I am not going to directly compare the 2002 and 2006 results to these because of population shifts and the length of time that has elapsed since 1988. The results are still valuable to show that the Democratic pockets in Wyoming have not changed all that much, and to further illustrate a Democratic candidate's immensely hard mission of winning the southern counties big and trying to do just well enough in the north. As Vinich showed, one can win the Union Pacific line in extremely impressive fashion, and still lose.
Like Gary Trauner in 2006, who I will be getting to shortly, Vinich was able to run a superb campaign, but fell excruciatingly short, even though he had had a lot of things fall in his favor. His opponent, despite being a well-known incumbent, had neglected the grass roots aspect of his job, and was incredibly vulnerable to criticism that he was not well-representing his rural state. Wallop was also seen as aloof, cold, and even nasty, while Vinich, despite possessing liberal views that were not in perfect tune with the state's voters, was likable enough that many people were able to overlook his policy leanings. What killed Vinich was that he had the misfortune of appearing on the same part of the ballot with the 1988 Democratic nominee for President, the pathetic Michael Dukakis. The Duke lost Wyoming by a 61-38 margin, losing every county, including close losses in Albany (50-48) and Sweetwater (50-49) counties when they were more reliably Democratic. He only broke 40 percent in three more counties, Carbon, Laramie and Sheridan.
Had Dukakis been able to do a little bit better against Bush, or had Vinich been able to run in an off-year election, he likely would have been able to close the 0.8 percent gap between him and Senator Wallop. Where Tony Knowles was unable to overcome the perhaps even more-unlikeable-than-Dukakais (and perhaps not coincidentally, fellow Massachusetts pol) John Kerry, who lost 61-36 in Alaska at the hands of Bush II, and thus fall by just 49-46, Vinich too could not withstand the presidential 23-point wipe-out above him on the ballot. In enormous red states like Alaska and Wyoming, a Democrat needs every possible break, and Knowles and Vinich, despite being able to face vulnerable incumbents, had the poor luck of running against the wind in strong GOP presidential years.
Part of what attracted me to the 1988 Senate race was also how it illustrated the cruelty of electoral politics. I could not and cannot help but sympathize with a candidate like John Vinich. From a political standpoint, he showed incredible courage in staying true to his populist and liberal views in Wyoming. He touted many those views proudly in his run against Wallop, and conducted a strong campaign. For those reasons, he probably "deserved" to win. While I would wager that being a United States Senator was not a life's goal for Vinich (unlike most sitting Members of the House of Representatives), and that he did not crumble up in devastation when he lost; indeed, he ran again for Congress just months later when Dick Cheney resigned, and again ran a vigorous, albeit more flawed race. Still, it had to have been a tough defeat. Politics is a rough business, and very often the candidate that might deserve to win or would likely be a more effective advocate does not win (though as ranking minority Member of the Energy Committee, Wallop certainly had the ability and position to aid Wyoming's interests in the Senate). I readily concede that had Vinich won, he likely would have been a one-termer with the Republican Revolution cresting six years later in 1994 when Vinich would have come up to face the voters. Given his liberal leanings, he probably would have made a lot of Wyomingites crazy back home, and would have been tossed out of office. But then again, you never know. Maybe he could have carved a niche for himself as a Western, libertarian Paul Wellstone (who himself was first elected in 1990 in a huge upset, albeit in a state that is much more left-leaning) and stayed a little longer. We'll never know.
Moving beyond that brief little stream of consciousness, the Wallop-Vinich race showed that a Democrat can compete with a Republican in Wyoming, even in a Federal race. Admittedly, Wallop was a flawed candidate, but Vinich also received many votes because people appreciated his earnestness and the fervor behind his often-quixotic beliefs. Vinich may have lost, but I believe that was more because of him running in a presidential year than running a bad campaign. His campaign, even 20 years later provides ample evidence that Wyomingites, can, in certain circumstances, look past a Democrat's positions and vote for him or her based on other considerations. This is precisely what happened, as will be seen, with Gary Trauner in 2006.
Gary Trauner
Up to this point, I have alluded to Gary Trauner several times without looking at him in any great detail. Naturally, Trauner's close race, how it transpired, and its ultimate results are worth close scrutiny, for even though he did not win, he came as close to winning as any Democrat running for Congress in Wyoming has in decades. Trauner ran for Wyoming's sole seat in the House of Representatives as the Democratic candidate in 2006. He basically came out of nowhere, having never run for high office before, and came within a hair of winning over a six-term hardcore conservative incumbent. Declaring his candidacy in January 2006, Trauner ran a largely grassroots campaign to come within about 1,000 votes of victory.
Trauner has a unique background, one which probably does not help running in Wyoming. While he has lived in the Cowboy State for almost 20 years, he was born in the Catskills in 1958, grew up in New York, and went to Colgate for his undergraduate degree, and obtained a masters in business from NYU. In 1990, he moved to Jackson in Teton County, where he founded an Internet service provider company. While Trauner served as head of the Jackson school board, he had no political experience, and touted himself not as a politician, but rather as a businessman and problem solver. Trauner lives in Wilson, a suburb of Jackson in southern Teton County, with a wife and two young sons.
On the campaign trail Trauner certainly cut an interesting profile. He ran energetically as a fairly-young 47-year old. He has a completely shaved head, and is Jewish, one of an estimated 430 in the entire state. His views on issues were strikingly Libertarian in many areas: while he supported the creation of a universal health care system, he was opposed to any gun control legislation, supported cracking down on illegal immigration, favored reducing the deficit and the national debt, and highlighted his strongly pro-business credentials. While these views probably did not gibe with many congressional Democrats, and if elected would have made Trauner one of the more conservative Members of the caucus, they fit well with most Wyomingites.
In his 2006 run, Trauner mostly ran the campaign he needed to run: with minimal campaign and no elective experience under his belt, he campaigned relentlessly for the seat, going door-to-door to over 10,000 homes by mid-way through the summer. He hired many of the people who made up Freudenthal's 2002 campaign team, and, and focused on areas in southern as well as northern Wyoming, deliberately trying to establish a presence in GOP strongholds, and he even stayed in some communities for a week or more to get his message out; in fact, one article detailed him knocking on door's in Barbara Cubin's own wealthy neighborhood in a suburb of Casper. As a relatively successful entrapenuer, Trauner fundraised well, and kept pace with Cubin, though much of his money came from more Democratic and wealthy enclaves in Teton County.
As I noted earlier, the incumbent in 2006, Barbara Cubin, had never been a particularly strong campaigner, nor was she beloved by her constituents. This is evidenced by glancing at her election votes over the years, which have been lackluster considering that she is in one of the reddest states, and has routinely run against underfunded to totally unfunded candidates. When Ted Ladd, another political novice who was outspent 3-to-1, held Cubin to a 55-42 victory on the same day that Bush-Cheney won Wyoming vote 69-29 (with 22 percent of Bush voters crossing the line to vote for Ladd, and Ladd also winning Cheyenne, Laramie and losing Casper by one percent), many state Democrats took notice for the 2006 cycle.
Into this void stepped Trauner, who still faced difficult odds, as well as an initial lack of support from the national Democratic Party which was uncommitted (or perhaps completely unaware) that any Democrat could win the At-Large seat. Early polling signs were encouraging, but not extremely so. A Mason-Dixon poll commissioned for the Casper Star-Tribune in February, not long after Trauner had thrown his hat into the ring, found Cubin ahead 54-32. Still, the poll found that Cubin was rated fairly or poorly by 53 percent of respondents, including a large 38 percent of Republicans.
After Trauner began to get his name out, and began to turn some heads in Wyoming because of his hard work, he began to get some national notice. He was able to get a meeting with Howard Dean, and soon thereafter he was put on the front page of the Democrats' web page. This helped with national fundraising and gaining notice among important other figures. The race seemingly tightened as spring gave way to summer. A mid-May poll released by Rasmussen showed Cubin ahead just 47-43, within the margin of error.
As the campaign took shape, Cubin's attacks on Trauner intensified. She questioned his conservative credentials, and made a big issue out of him being from New York, airing some questionable ads linking him to his birth state. When Cubin only won her August primary 60-40, more red flags seemed to go up, and another Mason-Dixon poll released in mid-October showed Cubin up 44-37, a big difference from its February poll (and, may I add, strikingly similar to the Freudenthal-Bebout poll in late 2002 which showed Bebout ahead 44-36). The poll's crosstabs are worth highlighting. With a few weeks before the election, Cubin registered 60 percent of the GOP vote, 13 percent of Democrats, and 34 percent of independents. Trauner's split was 19-76-41. Perhaps more salient, Cubin's favorable/unfavorable ration was 45-43, while Trauner's was 33-18, demonstrating that a great portion of the electorate did not know Trauner, even with a few weeks before the election. Keep these numbers in mind for later, as they are important.
A final poll, released two weeks later by and a week before the general election by the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle showed Cubin ahead by just 44-40. However, the poll was conducted over seven days and had a high margin of error of seven percentage points.
Ultimately, despite Trauner's surge at the end of the campaign – spurred at least in part when it was publicized that Cubin had threatened to hit her handicapped libertarian opponent Thomas Rankin – he was unable to pull out the victory in the same way that Freudenthal had done four years earlier.
As the county-by-county results demonstrate, Trauner did very well almost across the board, but did not live up to Freudenthal's statewide showing enough to edge out Cubin. Let's take a look at the numbers in a different way than how we examined the 2002 gubernatorial, starting with those counties where Trauner improved the most over Freudenthal's numbers, down to those where he did poorest versus Freudenthal. The difference in percentage between Trauner's county showings and Freudenthal's is noted in each parenthesis.
Teton (69-29) +12 difference from Freudenthal's 2002 county number
Fremont (48-48) +8
Albany (62-35) +2
Goshen (41-55) +1
Natrona (55-42) -1
Lincoln (33-63) -1
Washakie (43-54) -2
Sublette (37-60) -2
Niobara (32-65) -2
Laramie (58-38) -3
Sheridan (46-51) -3
Converse (43-53) -4
Campbell (30-66) -4
Big Horn (29-66) -5
Park (33-62) -6
Sweetwater (52-43) -7
Johnson (33-63) -7
Weston (31-64) -7
Crook (25-71) -8
Platte (46-50) -9
Uinta (39-56) -9
Carbon (48-46) -10
Hot Springs (44-51) -11
The totals: 93,336 votes for Cubin (48.3 percent), 92,324 for Trauner (47.8 percent), a difference of just 1,012, or 0.53 percent out of nearly 200,000 votes cast. A tough defeat for the Democrat.
These results give us a lot of information. It is not hard to miss that Trauner improved upon Freudenthal's showing in only four of the 23 counties, with half of the four showing a small, incremental uptick. Trauner certainly improved on Freudenthal's good 57 percent showing in the fast-growing Teton County, and won 69 percent there, in no small part to him being from Wilson just south of Jackson. Notably, Trauner did better in Teton County than Cubin did in of the counties that she ended up winning. Also, his showing in traditionally-Republican Fremont County was impressive, as he went upped Freudenthal's showing by eight percent, winning Fremont by 69 votes. Right now, I can't say that I can explain this improved showing, but it certainly bodes well for Trauner this year if he can hold there. The other two counties where he improved on Freudenthal's numbers were in Albany County (+2), the home of the University of Wyoming, and GOP stronghold Goshen County, where he only upped Freudenthal by one percent.
In total, Trauner won just five out of 23 counties. Trauner's showings in the two biggest counties -- Laramie and Natrona -- were strong, and are difficult to heartily criticize. He won Natrona, Barbara Cubin's own county, by 13 percent, just barely off of Freudenthal's pace, and he was three percent off in Laramie County, in winning 58-38. He should be pleased with that result, but I am guessing Trauner is going to make winning Laramie County with 60 percent of the vote this year one of his very top priorities.
The bottom half of the chart is where Trauner lost. Let's write off a handful of them right off the bat: in Lincoln (-1 percent), Washakie (-2), Sublette (-2), Niobara (-2), Converse (-4), and Campbell (-4) counties, Trauner more than held his own in some of the most GOP friendly places in the state, and was not far off Freudenthal's 2002 showings in any of them. I will also dismiss Hot Springs County, where the biggest drop-off was present (-11 percent), as the small county is generally strongly Republican, but went for Freudenthal because he was born and raised in Thermopolis.
The biggest problems appear to have been Sheridan, Sweetwater, Platte and Carbon counties. Each of these four are a bit more friendly to Democratic candidates than the rest of the state, particularly Sweetwater and Carbon, but not at the level of Laramie, Natrona, and Albany counties. Trauner only lost Sheridan in the northern part of the state by five points, but he ran three points behind Freudenthal--these were votes he could have used. His showing in Platte was a similar 46-50 a respectable finish, but a huge nine points behind the 2002 final results.
But probably most troubling was the drop-off in southern Wyoming along the old Union-Pacific line area, specifically in Sweetwater and Carbon counties, -7 and -10 points, respectively. I think it is in these two counties where Trauner lost the election. In Carbon, turnout was actually slightly higher in 2002 than 2006, by a tally of 5,986 to 5,733 (+4 percent), and Freudenthal received 724 more there than Trauner. For one reason or another, turnout in Carbon County was up in 2002, even though it was down overall in comparison to 2006, and Freudenthal benefited handsomely. Similarly, in Sweetwater County, 2002 turnout eclipsed 2006 by 13,126 to 12,757 (+3 percent), and Freudenthal ended up getting 1,161 more votes than Trauner. Taken together, Freudenthal received 1,885 more votes than Trauner did in Carbon and Sweetwater counties, two areas where Trauner did alright, but not spectacular enough to outset his wide losses in the conservative and rural counties. Uinta, also was a bad loss for Trauner. Freudenthal had gotten 48 percent there, but Trauner was held to a weak 39-56 loss (overall turnout in Uinta was only 59 votes higher in 2002 than in 2006).
Sure, Trauner could have made up ground in the more conservative counties, but no Democrats do well there, including, ultimately Freudenthal. Where Trauner lost was in his inability to squeeze more votes out of Sweetwater and Carbon counties first, and then Platte, Sheridan, and Laramie. As the old saying goes, you can't squeeze blood from a stone. Here, Trauner squeezed a heck of a lot out of some of the reddest counties. His hard work in these areas paid off fairly well. What he needed was to get more votes out of the counties that are less red.
Exit polls
Interestingly, we are able to make useful comparisons between the 2002 and 2006 numbers because both elections elicited astonishingly close turnouts, in great part because both races occurred in off-year, non-presidential contest years where turnout is lower than in even-years. In 2002, the total turnout in the Governor's general election was 185,459, while the total voter turnout in the Cubin-Trauner race was 193,141, a difference of just 7,682, or 4.1 percent. This makes it easier for us to compare results from the two cycles fairly interchangeable, while recognizing, of course, the unique differences inherent in each races.
Also, unlike in 2002, we do have an exit poll. Some of the more salient results are below
Vote by Age
18-29 (12 percent of voters): Trauner 58 percent-Cubin 42 percent
30-44 (24 percent): 51-49
45-59 (39 percent): 50-50
60+ (25 percent): 46-54
18-64 (85 percent): 52-48
65+ (15 percent): 41-59
Trauner did very well among voters under 30, but they only made up a small 12 percent of the voters. He ran just ahead among voters 30-59, who made up 63 percent of the voters, but he was beaten by eight points among the quarter of older voters. This was decisive in a state with an older population. The second series makes the gap even more stark. Trauner was able to win a tight, but nonetheless solid four-point advantage among 85 percent of all the voters, but he was crushed among the other 15 percent: namely, older voters above 65 years of age.
Vote by Party ID
Democrats (28 percent of voters): 87-13
Republicans (55 percent): 25-75
Unaffiliated (17 percent): 71-29
In perhaps every other state in America (excepting Utah), if a Democratic candidate running statewide wins the Democratic vote 87-13 and independents by over 40 points, he or she is virtually certain to win. Unfortunately, this is Wyoming where registered Republicans make up over 60 percent of registered voters. Trauner did everything a Democratic candidate should be expected to do, and he still lost because his gap among Republican voters was simply too wide. Just enough conservative Democrats pulled the lever for Cubin to deny him victory. Furthermore, Cubin's showing among Wyoming Republicans is not, in itself, terribly spectacular: one in four of the GOP base in the second reddest state voted for the Democrat. Yet, the Democrat still lost because too many Republicans voted for the party line.
This data is also interesting for actually voter turnout breakdown. As I noted in the first post, of Wyoming's approximately 263,000 registered voters, 62 percent are registered Republicans, 25.5 percent are registered Democrats, and 12.5 are registered unaffiliated/independent. If the 2006 exit polls are accurate, participation by Republican voters was down about seven percent, as Republicans only made up 55 percent of the general voters. That six percent was split between Democrats and Independents. In other words, Republicans did not take up their share of the overall number of voters, at least according to the ratio of registered voters in the state of Wyoming.
Why this is, is open to interpretation. Perhaps Republicans were not as enthralled with their ballot choices in 2006, and many stayed home, or maybe more Democrats and Independents then usual showed up to vote because of a higher-than-usual interest in the election. Both possibilities are plausible given the circumstances in 2006 (where Democrats did very well nationally in taking back both houses of Congress). Interestingly, they might not be complete anomalies, as the 2004 presidential exit poll for Wyoming showed the breakdown of voters as 25-53-22. Here, then, Democratic participation relative to the registration was pretty much even, while GOP participation was down a hefty nine percent which went almost entirely to the independent column. I am at more of a loss to explain this ratio, as it would seem that given Bush's strong showing in Wyoming and nationally, Republican enthusiasm and Democratic dread would be high, particularly in Wyoming. Therefore, it is interesting that GOP participation showed a slight uptick in 2006.
Vote by Region
Southern Wyoming (47 percent): 62-38
Northern Wyoming (53 percent): 60-40
These numbers just confirm the other cross-tabs and what we have already discussed: Trauner got creamed in the slightly more populated northern half of the state, and while his own win in the southern counties was a bit more impressive, it was not impressive enough to overtake Cubin's showing in the north.
There are numerous other cross-tabs available here, but which I won't get into because I think most of the other data sets overlap with the above numbers and make the same points: namely that Trauner got creamed with older voters in rural areas, while winning or holding his own with younger and middle-aged voters in both the cities (Cheyenne, Casper) and the smaller towns scattered across the state.
One other point. You may have noticed that I am not comparing Trauner's results with Freudenthal's in his re-election campaign. This may seem puzzling since they were on the same ballot, and therefore the 2006 Governor's results may appear more applicable to Trauner's election. Not so. In 2006, Freudenthal won 70-30, an unprecedented showing a Wyoming Democrat running statewide. He won every county fairly decisively. Even if Trauner were to spend $17 million on this campaign, he would not come close to this result. He would not compete in Crook and Park counties. Trauner's campaign this year, even though it is his second try, more closely resembles Freudenthal's underdog campaign of 2002. Comparing his current run to the re-election campaign of a popular incumbent is like comparing apples and eggplants; they just do not fit. This is the reason I am relying so heavily on comparisons between Trauner 2006/2008 and Freudenthal 2002. Given overall turnout, the off-years, and their insurgent campaigns, there is a much better fit, for both academic and practical purposes.
Conclusion
The similarities between Trauner's 2006 run, and John Vinich's close loss in 1988 are particularly salient, and illustrate the circumstances which must be present for a Democrat running for U.S. House or Senate in Wyoming to have any chance. Both Vinich and Trauner lost, but barely so, and in their losses they provided a piece of a cogent blueprint on how a Democratic candidate should run in Wyoming. Governor Dave's 2002 win provided even more information for how to run successfully, as he actually did win, and his victory helps complete a good section of that electoral blueprint for us. Like Vinich, Freudenthal was running in a tough national environment, but he was able to slap together just enough votes to win 50 percent +1 (just barely).
In the next and final post we will delineate these lessons and apply them to 2008 and beyond to help decide whether, and under what circumstances, Gary Trauner can win this November.
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