If Republicans can’t get Wyoming right, what are they fighting for?

Donald Trump carried Wyoming by 46 points in 2024. If conservatives cannot get the governor they want in the reddest state in America, what exactly is the conservative movement for?

That is the question raised with Tuesday's gubernatorial election. Eric Barlow, a former Wyoming House speaker whom many grassroots conservatives regard as a lukewarm Republican in name only, won the August GOP primary with about 45% of the vote. State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, endorsed by Trump, and Brent Bien, backed by the state Republican Party, divided most of the remaining vote. Barlow now has the coveted R next to his name.

What is the point of pouring donor money into primaries if the movement is forbidden to hold the winner accountable afterward? A party label is a useful shorthand, not a lifetime warranty.

Imagine the reverse in Massachusetts. Suppose a candidate opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and the climate agenda slipped through a divided Democratic primary. Would the left's donor network, activist groups, and party leaders dutifully fall in line? Of course not. They would wage war over the meaning of their own party's label. Yet in Wyoming, too many conservatives treat that label as the end of the argument.

We're not talking about a swing state where choosing the lesser evil may be the only realistic option. Wyoming is Trump +46 territory. A Republican nominee here ought to make Ron DeSantis look like a squish, not invite comparisons to Lisa Murkowski.

Barlow's record gives conservatives plenty of reason to question what they would get. He supported Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, voting for the 2021 measure that passed the Wyoming House before dying in the Senate. He had previously worked on expansion proposals as a legislator. That policy record should mean something, especially to voters who spent years demanding an end to Obamacare. Since when does a primary victory wipe the slate clean?

His energy views are even more troubling. In testimony before Congress in 2003, Barlow said America must move beyond nonrenewable energy and that fossil fuels should have a role of “transition and not reliance.” In America's leading coal-producing state, the Republican nominee once argued that fossil fuels should be a transitional source of energy. Why pretend that tells us nothing?

The broader legislative record contains more disputes over which bills Barlow advanced and which he stalled as speaker. Those fights should be argued from actual votes, not slogans. One thing is beyond dispute: The Wyoming GOP chairman says his party will not endorse its own gubernatorial nominee. Barlow refused to participate in the party's vetting process, which he considered “improper.”

So why should conservative voters automatically fall into line?

RELATED: A ballot is no substitute for a backbone

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They have another choice. Rebecca Bextel, a longtime conservative activist and donor, is running on the Constitution Party ticket. She campaigns on limited government, immigration enforcement, property rights, gun rights, and opposition to abortion. Her candidacy offers voters a way to register a conservative objection to the Republican nominee without voting for the Democrat.

Immediately the usual suspects howl about “splitting the vote.” In a competitive state, that concern would be serious. But the Democrat running for governor in Wyoming in 2022 received just 15.8% of the vote. Wyoming isn’t Massachusetts. That doesn't make a three-way contest risk-free; it makes the reflexive spoiler argument far less persuasive.

And yet where are the major conservative PACs? Where is the donor machinery that spends fortunes electing people who promptly surrender the movement's priorities? Bextel can secure an alternative place on the ballot, but she cannot manufacture the institutional support that conservative organizations claim to exist to provide.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R), who backed Degenfelder in the primary and is now running for the Senate, endorsed Barlow in the closing weeks. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis joined her in supporting the Republican ticket. That is precisely the establishment reflex I'm talking about: fight over the primary, then insist the letter after the winner’s name settles everything.

RELATED: Conservatives demand competition — except in their own primaries

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Tucker Carlson, whatever disagreements I have with him, was willing to interview Bextel. Too many better-funded conservative personalities and institutions have been conspicuously absent. They should not be surprised when activists seek out the few people prepared to challenge Republican orthodoxy — and begin listening to those people on other questions too.

What is the point of pouring donor money into primaries if the movement is forbidden to hold the winner accountable afterward? Primary voters choose a nominee, but they do not acquire ownership of every conservative's conscience. A party label is a useful shorthand, not a lifetime warranty. If the movement’s only measure of success is keeping that label in office, it can preserve the party while losing every principle that supposedly justifies its existence.

Here is the central irony: In a state where Democrats rarely win statewide, the greatest obstacle to an unapologetically conservative agenda can be the Republicans who wear the party's name. A politician can deliver Democratic policy results without Democrats paying the political price.

At some point, conservatives must stop confusing party loyalty with fidelity to their own cause. If we cannot support our own principles in Wyoming, of all places, what exactly are we fighting for?

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