Wyomingites do elect people to political office based on what they know of the person–not always on their political affiliation or their stand on the issues. Wyoming is becoming more like lots of other states. Knowing a politician personally is still commonplace, but more and more, the successful candidate will be the one with the highest name recognition, gained through the media or from party promotion. A few issues still separate the two parties in Wyoming, but the divide probably isn’t as strong as elsewhere in the country. In such an environment, the incumbents inevitably have a strong edge. Barring a catastrophic blunder, it is not the officeholder’s stand on the issues that defeats him/her. It comes down to consistent constituent service or perceptions of it.
Wyoming’s political history defies easy classification. The state was the first to grant women the right to vote and to elect a woman governor. While the state elected notable Democrats to federal office in the 60′s and 70′s, politics have become decidedly more conservative since the 1980s as the Republican Party came to dominate the state’s congressional delegation. Today, Wyoming is represented in Washington by its two Senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, and its one member of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis. All three are Republicans. The state has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, one of only five times since statehood. At present, there are only two relatively reliably Democratic counties: affluent Teton and college county Albany. In the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush won his second-largest victory, with 69% of the vote. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is a Wyoming resident and represented the state in Congress from 1979 to 1989.
Republicans are no less dominant at the state level. They have held a majority in the state senate continuously since 1936 and in the state house since 1964. However, Democrats have held the governorship for all but eight years since 1975. Uniquely, Wyoming elected Democrat Nellie Tayloe Ross as the first woman in U.S. history to serve as state governor. She served from 1925 to 1927 after winning a special election after her husband, governor at the time, unexpectedly died. Wyoming residents lived in one of the five most populous Wyoming counties. Wyoming license plates contain a number on the left that indicates the county where the vehicle is registered.
In 2008, the first American State Litter Scorecard rated Wyoming a nationally “Best” state for statewide litter/debris eradication from public properties/spaces. Rooster Teeth’s web series Red Vs Blue created a freelancer character bearing the state name.
Wyoming’s highest court is the Supreme Court of Wyoming, with five justices presiding over appeals from the state’s lower courts. Wyoming is unusual in that it does not have an intermediate appellate court, like most states. This is largely attributable to the state’s size and correspondingly lower caseload. Appeals from the state district courts go directly to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Wyoming also has state circuit courts, of limited jurisdiction, which handle certain types of cases, such as civil claims with lower dollar amounts, misdemeanor criminal offenses, and felony arraignments. Circuit court judges also commonly hear small claims cases as well.