Pay to play: Wyoming statehouse campaigns more than twice as expensive as in 2010
Wyoming's political landscape, including the increasingly divided Republican Party, is seeing a rise in challengers running for the legislature. Consequently, the cost of running a statewide campaign has more than tripled since 2010, according to a government watchdog group.
A recent report from the Equality State Policy Center shows that the cost of the most expensive state legislature races has risen to over $60,000 per candidate.
Policy Director Marissa Carpio said that her organization started investigating campaign finance after continually hearing from legislators about the escalating costs of their races. She also sees a correlation between these heftier price tags and the divisiveness of contemporary politics.
"My personal take is that part of this is the polarization of politics that we've seen. Races are getting more competitive, even in Wyoming, which has historically been a not-so-costly state," Carpio said.
The average candidate spending for a statehouse seat was $5,047 in 2010 and $7,347 for a State Senate seat. Both figures more than doubled by 2022 to $12,791 for Wyoming House of Representative races and $17,745 for Wyoming Senate races. The averages of the most expensive races have more than doubled in the same time period for the statehouse and more than tripled for the senate.
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Races are often decided by razor-thin margins − the 2016 Republican primary for Senate District 6 was decided by five votes −and a victory margin of over 10 percent, such as in the 2022 election for House District 33, means a gap of 210 votes.
While the report tracks a broader spending increase, it does not track exactly what the rising costs were spent on. Campaign expenditures include advertisements, staffing, postage, and retaining consultants.
Brian Boyle, chief program officer at American Promise, a DC-based organization working towards setting limits on political spending, sees the issues addressed in the ESPC report as both a Wyoming and a national issue.
"It's both the increase in the spending, which can undermine the influence of everyday voters, and the difficulty in tracing the sources of the spending. It's those two things combined that are problematic," Boyle said
The 2022 races saw a flood of PAC money and expensive races, with Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s father notably spending over $700,000 on his son’s campaign and [former Rep.] Liz Cheney pouring almost $13 million into a doomed re-election campaign. While the candidate filing deadline for this year's election does not open until May 16, a host of candidates have already announced races.
Carpio hopes the rising costs don't deter everyday Wyomingites—from doctors to ranchers—from throwing their cowboy hats into the political arena.
"We're trying to teach people that, hey, this is an accessible thing for folks to go and run for office," Carpio said. "Wyoming is a citizen's legislature, so it's actually a bit more accessible than in other states."
Cy Neff is a politics reporting fellow based in Wyoming for USA Today. You can reach him at cneff@usatoday.com, or on X @CyNeffNews.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Political spending for candidates, PAC money in Wyoming is spiking
