Wyoming voters have selected Secretary of State Chuck Gray as the Republican nominee for the state’s at‑large U.S. House seat. Gray, a longtime supporter of former President Donald Trump, secured the nomination after a competitive primary that featured businessman Steve Friess, former state legislator Reid Rasner and several other candidates.
Primary results and candidate background
Gray, who has served as Wyoming’s Secretary of State since 2023, won the nomination with a decisive margin, making him the heavy favorite in a state that consistently backs Republican candidates. The primary was the most expensive race on Wyoming’s ballot, reflecting the high stakes of an open congressional seat.
Gray’s campaign emphasized his experience overseeing elections, business licensing and state records, as well as his alignment with Trump‑era policies. He did not receive an official endorsement from former President Trump or from Rep. Harriet Hageman, who is running for the U.S. Senate, but he attracted the same conservative voter base that supported those candidates in other statewide contests.
Why the seat is open
The race opened when Rep. Harriet Hageman announced she would forgo re‑election to the House and instead pursue the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis. Hageman first won her House seat in 2022 after defeating former Rep. Liz Cheney in a high‑profile primary.
Hageman’s move to the Senate race, combined with Lummis’s retirement, has created an unusual alignment of three major statewide offices—governor, Senate and House—being contested in the same election cycle for the first time in more than thirty years.
Implications for the November election
Wyoming is one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states. In the 2024 presidential election, Trump carried Wyoming by nearly 46 percentage points, his largest margin in any state. The state has elected only one Democrat to statewide office in the past three decades, and Republicans hold every statewide office and dominate both chambers of the state legislature.
Given this political landscape, the Republican nominee is expected to win the general election comfortably. Gray’s victory in the primary positions him as the likely next U.S. Representative for Wyoming, where he will join a small delegation of western conservatives in Congress.
Looking ahead
Gray’s campaign will now turn to the general election, where he will face the Democratic nominee, who has yet to be selected. The race will likely focus on issues important to Wyoming voters, such as energy policy, land use, and federal‑state relations, rather than the intra‑party battles that defined the primary.
Wyoming’s voters will have the final say in November, but the primary outcome makes it clear that the state’s conservative electorate continues to favor candidates who align closely with Trump‑era principles and who have experience in state government.
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
