Going to the Dark Side: Wyoming’s Divide on Crossover Voting
Photo by Jimmy Emerson, DVM. Welcome to Wyoming US Hwy 26.
With midterm elections in November and the threat of Republicans gaining legislative control, many Democrats are urging Americans to “go vote.” To Democrats, that means voting for their own candidates. However, just voting is not a feasible reality to institute change for many rural Democrats.
In states like Wyoming—where, as of July, only around 15% of voters are registered as Democrats, and over 70% of voters supported Trump in 2020—Democratic candidates often run unopposed. That is, if any Democrats run in the first place. The last time Wyoming elected a Democratic representative at the federal level was in 1964, and the last Democratic senator was elected in 1970. To put it bluntly, a Wyoming Democrat’s vote means next to nothing without a completely open primary system allowing voters to privately choose which primary to vote in. Instead, Wyoming has a partially open primary system allowing voters to change their party registration on or before election day. However, this change is often daunting or inaccessible to absentee voters unable to physically go to the polls on election day to switch their party and receive the correct ballot.
While Democrats are likely to lose in Wyoming—and in rural elections in other loyally red state —Democratic voters still have the ability to affect how they lose, pulling the election closer to their ideological position. A trend developed for Democratic voters in red states to switch parties before the primary to vote for the “least bad” Republican candidate in a process referred to as “crossover voting” or “strategic voting.”
In the upcoming Wyoming midterm primary election, the “least bad” Republican candidate for many Democratic Wyomingites is the lone Wyoming Representative in the federal government, incumbent Liz Cheney. She faces the only Trump-endorsed candidate in Wyoming, Harriet Hageman. Cheney gained favor from Democrats—and enemies in her own party—through voting to impeach former President Trump and her role as vice-chair of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Cheney is encouraging voters to cross over: a recent flier campaign supplied info sheets on changing party registration, specifically targeting registered Democrats. According to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office, between January and June, the number of registered Republicans in Wyoming increased by 1,689, while Democrats and unaffiliated voters dropped by a total of 1,303.
While many question the ethics of party switching before a primary, crossing over is not the same practice as “ratfucking,” where voters participate in another party’s primary election to nominate someone unelectable. It is not uncommon for moderate Wyoming Republicans to recruit Democrats to cross over preceding primaries. Current Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon used this method in 2018 to secure his nomination over a primary field that also included now-Cheney challenger Hageman.
In addition, the Wyoming legislature has made repeated attempts to limit Wyoming voters’ ability to change party affiliation on election day. During the 2022 legislative session, HB0152 sought to remove political parties from elections but failed State House introduction due to a dissenting Republican majority. The most recent attempt in a long history of citizen-started ballot initiatives came in February when a Trump-backed ballot proposal intended to prohibit electors from changing their party affiliation starting in May of the election year. If the measure had submitted enough signatures by the deadline and passed the state legislature, voters may not have known which candidates were running for their party when the time passed to change their registration. The measure carries weight as Wyoming Republicans fear Democrats and Independents will cross over at a higher rate to re-elect Cheney.
The ability to crossover has implications outside of the federal legislative seats. Many local Wyoming elections do not have any Democratic candidates, to begin with. As a result of the primary system, Democrats do not have a say in selecting their local representatives, such as county commissioner, sheriff, or coroner. For example, in Wyoming’s Sheridan County—a county with, as of July, 12,681 registered Republicans out of 16,898 total registered voters—every single partisan county candidate is running as a Republican. If a voter is not registered as a Republican, they only have the option to write in candidates for those positions.
While Wyoming is the most extreme example, crossover voting or open primaries are not just beneficial for rural Democrats but also in any state where an opposing party’s primary is more consequential and competitive. These situations include Republican voters in places like New York and Massachusetts or in other liberal cities and congressional districts. For example, Vermont Republicans could have rallied behind Bernie Sanders, Democratic Primary challenger in the 2018 senate race. Although, in the end, as is probably the reality for Cheney, it may not have been enough to secure a different outcome.
The limited primary system prevents elected officials from representing the wishes of their entire constituency. Movements to remove political parties from primary elections, such as the failed Wyoming House bill, can help maintain equal access to elections and allow civic engagement by all American voters. Other proposed voting systems, such as ranked choice voting or approval voting, fulfill the desire for more say in elections for voters who often feel marginalized. While bringing about its own set of complications, ranked-choice voting has been lauded as a more equal system of running elections. Currently, 15 states run completely open primary elections, including Wyoming’s northern neighbor Montana.
It is yet to be seen whether crossover voting will be enough to save Cheney from losing her seat in August; poll results in May from the Club for Growth PAC and Wyoming Values PAC have Cheney 30 and 28 percentage points, respectively, behind Hageman. Nevertheless, crossover voting’s increased popularity will lead rural Democrats and Independents in Wyoming to have more say in their representation and do more than just show up to vote for Democratic candidates. While this might not be what Democratic activists mean when they urge their fellow Americans to show up to the polls, it does lead to a government that better represents all its constituents.
Claire Schnatterbeck is a junior editor for Policy 360 and a summer staff writer for CPR. She is a rising junior (CC ‘24) studying political science. When she's not searching for an open seat in Butler Library she can be found listening to a podcast, rock climbing, or discussing the best museums in the city. She has roots in Illinois and Wyoming.