Wyoming Governor- Race of the Day

24 Days Until Election Day

Wyoming Governor

Status: Republican Incumbent

2020 Presidential Result: Red State (West)

Outlook: Safe Republican

The final Race of the Day is among the easiest to predict. It does not get much more Republican than  today's Wyoming and incumbent Governor Mark Gordon will cruise to a second term.

A rancher and businessman, Gordon lost his first bid for office in a 2008 Republican Congressional primary. In 2014 he was elected State Treasurer and in 2018 emerged on top of a very crowded GOP primary for Governor with 33 percent of the vote. In that race, Gordon was considered the most mainstream traditional Republican. The general election was not much of a challenge as the Republican won with over two-thirds of the vote.

It seems as if his tenure as Governor has been pretty low-key but conservative activists would have liked to see somebody else in office. The Donald Trump backed primary challenge to Congresswoman Liz Cheney (a race where Gordon remained neutral) took up most of the political oxygen in Wyoming this year and that probably worked to the Governor's advantage. He took 62 percent in the four way August primary, well ahead of the 30 percent won by Brent Bien, a civil engineer and retired Marine Corps Colonel who ran to Gordon's right. In this primary, the incumbent was endorsed by the widow of the wealthy businessman who had taken second place to Gordon four years earlier. The third place finisher from the 2018 Gubernatorial primary easily beat Congresswoman Cheney (who is obviously one of my political favorites) despite the effort of many of the dwindling number of Wyoming Democrats to take a Republican ballot.

Winning the Republican primary is akin to being elected in Wyoming. While a good deal of Democrats may have voted in the other party's primary, the turnout for Wyoming Democrats in theirs was pretty abysmal. Theresa Livingston, a retired federal employee and Air Force veteran, who had previously lost a 2020 State Senate race took 71 percent. She defeated her sole opponent, frequent statewide candidate Rex Wilde, a grizzly looking fellow with a white beard, who never wins, despite his name. 

This could be the most lopsided race of any contest for Governor or U.S. Senate this year.

Gubernatorial Races predicted:

18 D  (2 Safe, 10 Likely. 3 Leans, 3 Tossup) 

18 R  (5 Safe, 9 Likely, 3 Leans, 1 Tossup)

Total with predictions thus far:

24 D (6 Holdovers, 2 Safe, 10 Likely, 3 Leans, 3 Tossup)

26 R (8 Holdovers, 5 Safe, 9 Likely,  3 Leans, 1 Tossup)

 

DEMOCRAT NET GAIN OF 2