Overview
Wyoming is the most Republican state in the country at the presidential level, having gone for Donald Trump by more than 45 points in 2024, and Democrats have not won a statewide race since 2006 or a U.S. Senate seat in the state since 1970. Both chambers of the state legislature carry large GOP supermajorities, and every statewide office and the state’s lone congressional seat are held by Republicans. Still, 2026 is an unusually active cycle because both of Wyoming’s federal seats are open at once: Senator Cynthia Lummis chose not to seek a second term, and Representative Harriet Hageman left her U.S. House seat to run for that open Senate seat. The resulting scramble pulled in a wave of Republican candidates and a small but real Democratic field in both races. The primary serves mostly to determine which Democrat carries the party’s banner into an uphill general election, but it is still the only contest where Wyoming Democrats get to make their case to their own voters.
Primary date: August 18, 2026. Filing deadline: May 29, 2026. General election: November 3, 2026. Wyoming uses a closed primary, meaning only voters registered with a party may vote in that party’s primary.
U.S. Senate Democratic Primary
Lummis’s retirement opened a seat Republicans have held continuously since 1977. Five Republicans filed, led by Hageman, who gave up a safe House seat to run. Two Democrats filed: James Byrd and Billy Benavidez.
James Byrd
Byrd is a former state representative from Cheyenne who served Wyoming House District 44 from 2009 to 2019, including stints as minority whip and minority caucus leader. He is the son of Liz Byrd, the first Black woman to serve in the Wyoming Legislature, and has framed his campaign in part around that family history of public service. He announced his Senate bid in February 2026, becoming the first Democrat to enter the race, and has positioned his campaign less as a partisan fight than as a push to elect someone who represents what he calls Wyoming values rather than Washington’s. He criticized the state’s Republican delegation for supporting the sale of public lands and tariffs that he said damaged the state’s agricultural exports. On energy, he describes himself as supportive of the existing fossil fuel industry while pushing for greater investment in nuclear, wind, and solar development, arguing Wyoming missed a chance to own emerging energy technologies rather than just extract resources. He has also criticized growing support for school choice and homeschooling in the state and opposed efforts to dismantle the federal Department of Education. Byrd lost a 2020 state Senate race to Republican Affie Ellis and lost a 2022 Democratic primary for a state House seat, so this Senate run comes after a stretch out of office; he has continued showing up at local Democratic events, including Pride gatherings, through the spring of 2026.
Billy Benavidez
Benavidez, of Sheridan, is the second Democrat in the Senate race, having filed by the May 29 deadline. He has run on a platform centered on personal freedom and limiting the federal surveillance state, including opposition to use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Americans, paired with a pledge to serve only one term and support congressional term limits more broadly.
U.S. House At-Large Democratic Primary
Hageman’s move to the Senate race opened Wyoming’s single U.S. House seat for the first time since she won it in 2022. Ten Republicans filed, headed by Secretary of State Chuck Gray, making it the most expensive and closely watched primary in the state this cycle. Two Democrats filed: Elena Del Real and Lisa Kinney.
Elena Del Real
Del Real, of Lander, is one of two Democrats who qualified for the House primary ballot. As with most of the Democratic field this cycle, her campaign has drawn far less statewide media attention than the crowded Republican primary, which has been dominated by infighting between Gray and self-funding rival Reid Rasner.
Lisa Kinney
Kinney, of Laramie, is the second Democrat in the House race. Laramie sits in Albany County, one of the few pockets of the state with a meaningful Democratic presence, and is home to the University of Wyoming.