State Rep. Jon Conrad, R-Mountain View, has no illusions about the uphill battle he faces to win re-election in Tuesday’s general election as a write-in candidate.

“It’s incredibly heavy work,” Conrad said.

Write-in ballot campaigns have a notoriously low success rate due to the difficulty of not only getting someone to vote for you, but also getting them to remember to write your name on the ballot.

A majority of voters are still not very engaged in politics and with a high-stakes presidential race as the main attraction in Tuesday’s poll, there will be a significant contingent of voters who likely have little or no familiarity with the legislative candidates for whom they vote. on. Another important contingency will also likely vote for Republican candidates in elections in allegiance to former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Under Wyoming law, if a candidate loses in the primary election, they are not allowed to have their name printed on ballots for the general election that year.

Moral satisfaction

After losing his race in the House District 19 Republican primary in August, Conrad decided to launch an official write-in campaign after receiving pressure from others to do so and to correct what he saw as part of misinformation and lies told about him during his primary elections. race against Lyman resident challenger Joe Webb. Setting the record straight, Conrad said, is one of the main reasons he ran a full campaign this fall, which served as a continuation of his primary election.

“I just want the facts to be out there,” Conrad said. “I felt like there was so much misinformation, disinformation and propaganda against me in the primary that I needed to set the record straight.”

After spending $36,896 on his primary campaign, Conrad spent an additional $31,678 on his write-in campaign for the general election this fall. Conrad goes door-to-door almost daily and spends large sums on direct mail and Facebook advertising, in addition to writing individual letters and making phone calls to voters.

When contacted Monday morning, Conrad told Cowboy State Daily he was ready for the election season to end.

Nick Piazza, Cody resident and owner of Sleeping Giant Ski and Zip, is running a write-in campaign on behalf of his lifelong friend, Cody Mayor Matt Hall, who lost in the House District 24 Republican primary to fellow Republican Nina Webber by about 170 votes.

Hall is not participating in the campaign, to avoid being seen as a sore loser, but Piazza is taking the effort very seriously, paying for a full-page newspaper ad and campaigning for Hall on Facebook through his Sleeping Giant company. and other local business collaborations.

Piazza hopes to right a wrong he sees in the fact that only about 10 percent of the local population participated in the primary election. Piazza, who has dual Ukrainian citizenship, said that if a similar scenario happened in that country, the election would likely be considered a huge scandal and a fraudulent election.

“This is, in my opinion, an exercise in democracy,” Piazza said. “I don’t think it will change anything, but I think it will at least be a reasonable and fair election.”

Piazza is also frustrated that Republican infighting has taken over the GOP and believes most Republicans agree on about 95% of issues, mentioning the collaborative process that took place to help Cody secure a complex state-run shooting. Piazza sees divisions within the GOP as a distraction from the real issues at hand, which he called a “sugar-sweetened” approach that dilutes the quality of the candidate pool.

“At some point you’re going to run out of Republicans to devour and everyone knows if you give kids a lot of sugar, eventually they’ll fall over,” Piazza said.

Casper resident Gina Douglas is running as a write-in candidate for District 37 after not running in the primary election. Douglas has been involved in various grassroots campaigns, including working extensively against Casper Republican Rep. Jeanette Ward’s campaign during the primary election.

After having conversations with Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, Douglas felt Harshman was making too many capitulations to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and not representing the most important issues in Wyoming. Harshman ran unopposed in the primary and also has no official opponent in Tuesday’s election.

“Wyoming has lost our democracy, and we have a party so entrenched that it doesn’t care what you think,” Douglas said. “People have been led into the idea that Republicans are more patriotic.”

Douglas, a registered Democrat who is running as a nonpartisan candidate, has also taken the campaign very seriously, although she recognizes the chances of success, doing a lot of door-to-door canvassing. If elected, Douglas wants to pass Medicaid expansion and legalize medical marijuana.

“Why don’t we talk about these issues? » asked Douglas. “Why are we talking about illegal migrants voting? Why are we talking about protecting women and girls in bathrooms instead of Medicaid expansion and marijuana reform? »

Low turnout in primaries gives hope

Public participation in the August primary was rather low, with only about 27 percent of the state’s eligible voters casting ballots. This gives hope to all registered candidates that a strong turnout in Tuesday’s elections could improve their chances, knowing that turnout in presidential elections is always higher than that in primaries.

“People don’t realize that the low voter turnout was representative of the public? » asked Conrad.

Only about 1,800 people voted in Conrad’s August race, which he lost by 220 votes. If the 9,459 people who voted in Uinta County for the 2020 election were to do so again on Tuesday, it’s not out of the question that Conrad could narrow his margin against Webb.

A similar scenario could play out in Park County, where 2,650 votes were cast for Hall’s race with Webber in August. In 2020, 16,815 votes were cast in Park County’s general election.

Douglas, a transgender woman, was also encouraged by the response she received when she knocked on her door, saying about three out of four people she spoke to support her campaign.

“People treating me like a normal person, that’s a victory in itself,” Douglas said.

Harsh reality

The biggest hurdle registered candidates face is getting voters to remember their name on Election Day. To help overcome this obstacle, Conrad and Douglas both sent out mailers and other information telling voters how and where to register their names.

Very few write-in candidates have been elected in American history, with a few exceptions. One of the most famous examples is that of Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who lost her U.S. Senate primary race in 2010 but then won after a successful general election campaign.

Rep. Ember Oakley, R-Riverton, said she was approached by a group of supporters to run a write-in campaign after losing her re-election bid to Republican challenger Joel Guggenmos in August. Oakley has been frank with her supporters that an organized campaign should be launched before taking part.

“I said, ‘I’m not going to start another campaign until I see where it goes,'” Oakley said.

Although the group paid for some local radio and online ads, their efforts fell a bit short of what Oakley wanted to see getting back on the campaign trail.

Conrad, Piazza and Douglas all said that if their campaigns post a competitive result on Tuesday, they will consider it a moral victory and recognize that their chances are slim.

Sometimes in politics it’s about playing the long game and winning voter recognition over the course of multiple elections. Douglas views his write-in campaign as setting the stage for a more formal campaign in 2026.

“I’m building momentum to beat him next time,” Douglas said.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at [email protected].