Wyoming Republicans on Tuesday selected Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., as their nominee for the US Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis.
Lummis, who won election to the Senate in 2020 after four terms in the US House, has said she will not run for a second term, creating an open-seat contest in one of America’s most dependable Republican strongholds.
Hageman prevailed in a five-candidate Republican primary that included former Kirby Mayor Sam Mead, Jill Edwards, John Holtz and Jimmy Skovgard, a former environmental services business owner.
Running in the nation’s reddest state by registered voter share, Hageman entered the Wyoming Senate race with clear advantages in name recognition and fundraising. She is now seeking to move from the House to the upper chamber of Congress.
President Donald Trump endorsed Hageman, reprising his support from her successful 2022 campaign, when she defeated former Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming’s Republican House primary.
Hageman, now in her second term as Wyoming’s sole US House member, became a national political figure after her decisive victory over Cheney.
Cheney became one of Trump’s top political targets in 2022 after joining the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol. She was one of only two Republicans on the panel, serving alongside Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who did not seek reelection that year.
The former Wyoming congresswoman, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, went on to become one of Trump’s most prominent Republican critics.
Hageman will now face the Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 general election — though with Wyoming’s deep red roots, it’s highly unlikely the single US House seat will flip blue this year.
The at-large seat is ranked by the bipartisan Cook Political Report as solidly Republican with a R+23, the best odds of any Senate race this election cycle.
Republicans enter the general election with a substantial advantage in Wyoming. All of the state’s statewide elected offices are currently held by Republicans.
The Senate contest is part of an unusually large turnover in Wyoming’s political leadership.
For the first time in 32 years, the state has open races for governor, US Senate and US House in the same election cycle.
