Wyoming’s Disappearing Democrats Not Shy About ‘Crossover’ Voting

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo.—There is no secret cabal of Democrats working in cahoots with Rep. Lynn Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) campaign to reelect former President Donald Trump’s most ardent Republican critic.

Many Wyoming Democrats will tell you openly they are switching parties on Aug. 16 to cast ballots for Cheney in her Republican Party primary against Fort Laramie land use-water rights attorney Harriet Hageman.

But few think it will matter.

A University of Wyoming July 25 to Aug. 6 survey of 562 likely primary voters, released on Aug. 11, indicates that Hageman leads Cheney by nearly 30 percentage points—57 percent to 28 percent—with 41 percent saying they are voting more against Cheney than for Hageman.

Unless Cheney has a stealth reservoir of support—“quiet Republicans,” she called them recently—within the GOP, there aren’t enough Democrats or, for that matter, enough non-Republicans, to have much efficacy in the one-way Equality State.

Math confirms the veracity of polls that show a very narrow path to a third term for Cheney, who has enraged many Wyoming Republicans for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump, serving as co-chair of the Jan. 6 House committee, and being among Trump’s most severe, unrelenting critics.

Of 284,557 registered voters on Aug. 1, 207,674 were enrolled as Republicans, according to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office. There were 39,753 registered Democrats and 33,769 unaffiliated, with about 4,000 registered in third parties.

In January, the Secretary of State’s Office documented that there were 280,741 registered voters with 196,179 signed onto the GOP, 45,822 registered as Democrats, and 35,344 unaffiliated.

Earlier polls indicate about 70 percent of the state’s Republicans supporting Hageman over Cheney. According to some estimates, the embattled incumbent would need at least 40,000 votes from non-Republicans to make up that inter-party difference.

“We see some movement from registered Democrat to registered

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