The
2018 Wyoming gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 2018, to elect the Governor of Wyoming. Incumbent Governor John Anderson sought re-election for a second consecutive term in office. Although Republican Labor challenger Darren Miller narrowly headed the poll, nominally defeating Governor Anderson by 11,389 votes, the Wyoming Board of Electors refused to certify Miller and the RLP's victory on the Straight-Line Ballot for the Gubernatorial, Secretary of State, State Auditor, State Treasurer, and Superintendent of Public Instruction elections, creating a protracted and unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The Liberal Party have been in continuous power in Wyoming since 1986, consolidating their control of the state during the 1990s and 2000s. Although Liberal control of the state was never as unchallenged as Party control in other states, in Wyoming the Liberal Machine largely ensured a steady string of reelections, made easier by the introduction of the Straight-Line Ballot in 1998, which amalgamated the ballot for Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor, Treasurer, and Superintendent of Public Instruction into a single choice, and made risk of individual defeats impossible but left the Liberal's open for a wipeout. Despite this, or rather because of this, the Liberal's enjoyed consecutive reelections, and ensured Wyoming would reliably carry the Liberal candidate at each Presidential election, with Bernie Chen carrying the state and its three electoral votes in 2016 54%-31% against the Democratic Party.
In America's demographically smallest state- a little over half a million reside in Rocky Mountain Cowboy heartland- politics is decisively working class. Dominated by the mineral and energy industry and agriculture, nearly one third of the state's population belongs to a Union, the Liberal domination of the state may appear to be paradoxical, especially with the libertarian trends of many Wyomingites. This complicated relationship can largely be explained by generational mentality in regards to party membership, the Wyoming Liberal's commitment to a small c-conservative social policy and limited state interventionism into the privetly owned state industry while enshrining the rights of Unions (who in turn pressured members to vote Liberal), and the lack of an organised and dedicated party of labor within the state.
Enter Darren Miller. A long-haired Union Representative from County Platte, Miller viewed the Liberal domination of the state's politics as a threat to the working class he represented. Although a member of the Liberal Party for many years, stating that "it was the only way you could do anything in Wyoming", the reformation of the state's Republican Party Branch in 2016 during the Senator William Berry of Mississippi's run for the Presidency saw Miller drift further to the left, becoming the first Chairman of the 'Republican Labor Party of Wyoming'. With the Republican's strong showing in the 2016 Presidential and House election's ensuring it would have ballot access, the next year and a half was dedicated to building up the RLP's presence in the state, with their twelve-person caucus in the unicameral State Legislature providing the first real opposition to the Liberal's in a generation.
As the Gubernatorial election approached, the state Democratic Party increasingly found it difficult to find funding to run a full slate and a House Candidate. Ultiemtly they chose the latter, deciding it a better (and cheaper) gamble, running their sole State Senator Donald Love for Wyoming's House seat. In a suprise announcement Michael Gannett, the state's second term Liberal Senator, announced he would be launching a bid for the Governorship, recruiting the rest of the Democratic Party's planned Straight-Line slate. Planning to run under the banner 'Wyoming First' on which he now represented the state in the Senate, due to a paperwork mistake at the WBE (although some have accused it of being a purposeful error to deliberately disrupt the ballots), Gannett and his slate were listed as Independents, making it impossible for them to receive a Straight-Line vote. Nonetheless, Gannett continued, making the state's energy concerns his campaign tentpole, accusing Governor Anderson being in the pockets of crooked Union bosses, while promising to cut interest rates and tax while deregulating the the state's industries.
Governor Anderson was unfettered by these challenges. Believing in the machine, a strong polling start from the RLP did little to shake him, although Gannett's decision to quit the Liberal's and run as an Independent irked many Liberal's in Washington, who wanted to know what petty state dispute had led to one of their own splitting off. Anderson's response was to shrug- if Gannett felt the way he did about him, then he'd of challenged him for the nomination rather than try and split the party. Obviosuly there was something else going on, but Gannett was never going to win without Liberal backing. The same however could not be said about Miller, who slowly began to claw away the polling gap. Anderson's campaign was caught flat footed. Accusing Miller of being a socialist who wanted to push the state socialised medicine did little to cut the cork, as this was explicitly part of Miller's platform, and he sold it well, framing it as something Wyomingite's "deserved" for surviving the economic hardships the state endured following the collapse of Canada and the Silicon Depression: a welfare state for Wyoming that would be paid for by the resources of Wyoming, specifically through the nationalisation of the various mineral and agricultural companies within Wyoming and the establishment of a state-wide common fund to ensure a redistribution of the state's wealth equally while also allowing worker control of the means of production. This cut cork in Wyoming, and although some were disconcerted with how 'communistic' all this sounded, the permanent fund was as deeply attractive prospect as the neglected General Fund had been three decades earlier.
Anderson was in a tricky position. The Harvard educated lawyer sold himself poorly to the working classes of Wyoming. Although a competent administrator who was able to fall back on his previous four years of steady helming of the ship of state, his vision for the future was hardly inspiring, and his expectance that he would simply coast into a second term was clear. Debates proved somewhat problematic because of this, with Anderson able to say why he was a good Governor, but unable to sell why he should keep being Governor, with many unwilling to accept 'more of the same' when both Miller and Gannett offered such radical visions. Then again, there may have been some stroke of genius to this- by presenting himself as a bland hands on the wheel with a solid track record, even if he didn't have the vision, he could sell himself more on a vision of stability. Nonetheless, Wyoming uncharacteristically wanted someone radical after 7 years of steady austerity, and with the sight of a real possible change, the hunger was unabated by a boring everyman.
This was going to be an issue. The mineral companies of Wyoming faced nationalisation if Miller won, and with Straight-Ballot Voting, they could well be waking up to a hostile administration. The four largest companies, creatively named the Gang of Four, pushed Anderson for bold new ideas, pumping millions upon millions in personal donations into his campaign, far outspending the RLP, but money alone wouldn't push them aside. Noting that they would have backed Gannett if he had a snowballs in hell, Anderson began to shift his message, starting to promise deregulatory measures to allow a "more competitive environment to allow for economic growth". This failed dramatically and instead Anderson was accused of flip-flopping, having previously charged that Gannett's own deregulatory promises were meaningless and a sign that he was anti-business, as the only way he would be able to implement them would be to introduce anti-trust laws to break up the Gang of Four, and in doing so would cripple Wyoming's industry for a generation.
From a mess came a mess. Miller's inroads came within the state's gas belt, many of the major mineral regions, and Wyoming's major cities, however his margins were often small, only narrowly winning an outright majority in may of the counties the RLP would turn green. Part of the problem was the fragmentation of the working class vote within Wyoming, who were split largely between Miller, one of their own, even if he represented the Green River Union, and Anderson, who represented a party they had voted for their entire life and who their parents voted for (except perhaps in the close-run election of '82). As a result, where Miller was able to clean up in the Green River region, while being edged out in the Powder River Oil region where perception of his 'outsider' nature saw Anderson carry the counties on narrow pluralities. At the disadvantage of party label, Gannett struggled in many counties, with his highest vote coming in his home county of Campbell.
Nominally Miller won the Gubernatorial vote, edging Anderson out by 11,389 votes. And with Miller winning, this meant that his full slate, be law, should win with him. But there was a snag: Gannett's non-party run meant that he ran himself and four other individual candidates for each office, forcing ballot's to print out those candidates individually while both the RPL and Liberal's maintained their own Straight-Line. This meant that of the 275,000 who voted, over 20,000 spoiled their ballots trying to vote for Gannett or one the other Independents while also trying to vote for Anderson or the rest of the Liberal Straight-Line. The Liberal controlled Wyoming Board of Electors, consequently, refused to certify the results of the night, and instead accepted Anderson's repeated calls for a recount. Within the week, the Liberal Majority legislature passed emergency legislation that would allow for those spoiled ballots to be counted under the understanding that if anyone voted for the Independents, that vote would be counted, and if they also crossed the Liberal Straight-Line, then whichever vote was absent for individual Independents would go to the adjacent Liberal Candidate, and exploiting pre-existing rules, as long as one of the Liberal nominees won over their RLP opponent, then the whole slate would be elected.
The rug had been pulled from beneath Miller, the RPL, and Wyoming itself. Democracy had been stolen, and once it became clear that the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction's Michelle Tyler was set to defeat her RLP opponent, legal action was launched. Miller's case was a solid one: he and his slate had fairly won and the legislation that allowed the Liberal's to win retroactively was unconstitutional to both state and federal law. The Liberal packed Wyoming Supreme Court was uncharacteristically divided, and deliberated over the case over the Christmas and into the New Year as Miller and Anderson's supporters made themselves busy, taking to the streets of Cheyenne in often violent clashes, with both sides accusing the Court of stalling so a Federal case could not be lodged when they made their decision. Ultiemtly the Supreme Court sided with the Liberal's, claiming that the legislation violated the 'spirit' of the election, but was under the circumstances perfectly constitutional to the state, instead recommending that Miller and Anderson reach a compromise.
There would be no compromise. A week later at inauguration day, both Miller and Anderson held separate inaugurations, with Anderson holding his at the Governors Mansion, and Miller his on the doorstep of the Wyoming Supreme Court. The Federal Government, recognising what a nightmare had unfolded in Wyoming, has refused to get involved, with President Chen noting that the issue was one for the state to work out itself, and that bad faith from both sides were to blame, although many have noted that this wriggling out of responsibility was more because he didn't want to get egg on his face by removing his own party Governor and allowing a socialist to take control of a state, but also not wanting to endorse the electoral theft that had been undertaken and go against the state's supreme court.
As the crisis enters its third week, there are no signs of either side backing down. Governor Miller, now residing in Rock Springs with loyalists, has announced the assembly of a pro-Democracy militia made up of RPL loyalists, sympathisers, and dissident National Guardsmen to march on Cheyenne, while Governor Anderson, holding Cheyenne but residing at an emergency residence in Casper, has threatened the Rock Springs Governor with the full force of the state National Guard (and the support of the neighbouring National Guard of Dakota and Nebraska) if Miller makes good on his threats, both men demanding the other stand down to prevent a full state-wide civil war. Neither men are recognised as Governor by the Federal Government, who plan to force a new election to be held in 2020, however their neighbouring state's have individually recognised either man. Only time will tell if Miller and Anderson will make good on their threats and who will become the Governor of Wyoming.
These United States
1.
Mississippi
2.
Superior
3.
Río Colorado
4.
Alaska