Letter to the Editor: Candidates matter

Up and down the ballot last Tuesday, the Wyoming Democratic party supported candidates across the state.  In Wyoming, voters are often too quick to just vote for the candidate with the “R” next to their name, without really looking into how their constituents feel about the issues they stand for will affect our state and the people who live here. Tuesday’s results show that might be changing.

U.S. House candidate Lisa Kinney and U.S. Senate candidate James Byrd both received about 1/3 of the vote statewide – that is higher than in any general election in recent memory.  Here locally in House District 26, Democrat Ralph Nieder-Westermann ran a spirited eight-week campaign against the incumbent Dalton Banks for a seat in the Wyoming House of Representatives. During those two months he garnered 18% of the vote across the district, and 30% of the vote in his hometown of Greybull.  The last time a Democrat ran for this seat was in 2016.  Mr. Nieder-Westermann doubled the share of the vote over that figure.

Election results across the state used “wide margin,” “dominated,” “easily defeated” and “landslide” to describe the results of all of these races, without providing any historical context in how the Wyoming electorate might be changing.  Last Tuesday’s results show that when qualified candidates show up and run, voters pay attention. 

Jade Smith

Shell