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In House District 46’s Republican primary, political newcomer Cam Wright is challenging incumbent Ocean Andrew, aiming to unseat the three-time representative.
Andrew is a member of the state’s right-wing Freedom Caucus; Wright is not. The contest between them mirrors others playing out across the state wherein more moderate conservatives compete with Freedom Caucus members and their allies for the future of the Republican Party — and by extension, the future of a state dominated by that party.
Wright said he wants to give voters in his district a different choice and won’t be going on the attack.
“I will never go negative on a campaign like this, so you’re never going to hear me say anything bad about [Andrew],” Wright said. “That’s just not how politics should be.”
By most measures, Wright is more of a political moderate than his opponent Ocean Andrew — staking out more centrist, less concrete stances on university curriculum, library materials and federal food nutrition programs. However, he’s no Democrat. If elected, he’s likely to clash with his liberal colleagues on a number of issues.
Wright said he wants to see abortion on the ballot, which Albany County Democrats oppose, and said he has no problem with permitted concealed carry on campus, a position that’s unpopular on campus itself.
On the signature issue of Andrew’s career thus far, the state’s new and embattled school voucher program, Wright takes a measured approach, saying he would support public tax dollars funding private schools so long as the courts deem that program constitutional.
The first part of this two-part feature broke down Wright’s background and his ongoing litigation against UW.
Below is a breakdown of Wright’s positions on a number of issues facing the Wyoming Legislature, and how those policy stances compare to Andrew’s own stances and voting record.
Andrew did not respond to interview requests.
The primary election is Aug. 18. Only Republicans residing within the boundaries of House District 46 may cast ballots in the race between Wright and Andrew.
University of Wyoming funding
During the 2026 Legislative Session, UW’s cut of the overall state budget took center stage when the Freedom Caucus made moves to dramatically slash its size. Caucus members aimed to reject about $20 million in special funding requests and cut UW’s standard budget by an additional $40 million, citing a variety of shifting reasons for that cut.
In the end, UW won all $61 million the Freedom Caucus had attempted to gut.
Wright said he would not have supported the caucus’ efforts.
“A cut in the budget of that size, just right off the top like that — that’s not an effective way to try to guide an organization into spending state resources more efficiently, or in a better way,” Wright said. “If they want to guide the university better, then they should take the time and effort to dig into the details and understand where there could be some efficiencies or inefficiencies, and make some recommendations. Meet with people. Come up with some mutual plans — not just take a sledgehammer to the budget like that.”
Throughout the session, Freedom Caucus members provided various justifications for the cuts, from needing to balance the budget, to sending a message about diversity, equity and inclusion programs, to allegations of administrative bloat or out-of-whack employee-to-student ratios.
Some of these justifications appeared made up on the spot. Representatives citing the employee-to-student ratio, for example, admitted to googling the number, then cited incorrect figures.
Several lawmakers who opposed the $61 million gutting said they would be willing to consider more targeted cuts with clearer goals. Wright said he could be among them.
“I think there are lots of places UW could be more efficient, and I think there are people in the administration that want to be more efficient,” he said. “I think every publicly funded organization should regularly take a hard look at how they’re organized, how they operate, how they’re funded, and try to do better at how they are spending the public funds.”
At the legislature’s insistence, UW is now reviewing its organizational structure and will present a savings plan to state appropriators in the fall.
University of Wyoming curriculum
UW’s programming and course curriculum has also attracted the ire of the Freedom Caucus and its allies in the Senate.
In 2024 and 2025, the state passed laws banning diversity programs and course curricula that allegedly “promote institutional discrimination.” Andrew supported these efforts.
In the wake of those new laws taking effect, a number of programs and summer camps, as well as an on-campus resource center, have been shuttered, and faculty have received guidance on conforming with the rules surrounding course curriculum.
The bringers of that legislation say they are not looking to limit speech, though many have openly complained about course content they want to cancel for failing to match “Wyoming values.”
UW has reiterated its stated commitment to free expression and academic freedom even as it says it’s complying with the new rules.
Some members of the Freedom Caucus are doubtful UW has complied (this doubt, in turn, powering the attacks on university funding detailed above) and further attention on the university’s course offerings is likely in future sessions.
Against this backdrop, Wright advocates a measured approach.
“It gets to be dangerous when a legislature tries to control individual curricula, but I know that DEI, as a sort of an area of emphasis, got a bad name for itself,” he said. “Whether it was warranted or not, it got a bad name for itself in the legislature and around the state … But I think that any university or any organization that’s funded by public money has to pay attention to the political winds, and it was clear that emphasizing DEI was not going to go well across the state.”
Wright said lawmakers “have to be very careful when they start trying to make curricular decisions,” and need “to drill down to the truth and find out what’s really going on.”
Gender studies, in particular, has been targeted by right-wing lawmakers year after year. After their several failed attempts to kill the gender studies program outright, UW chose to consolidate the program into its larger American Studies program, citing low enrollment in the embattled program. Gender studies courses are still available to students, but the gender studies major is not.
Would Wright support a ban on gender studies if the Freedom Caucus raises the prospect once more?
“I have a hard time saying, across the board, that we ban a particular topic area,” he said. “If you have a sufficient number of students that really want to major in a particular area, it’s hard to say that the only university in the state shouldn’t have an area to respond to that desire of the students.”
But there may be reasons to axe the offering, Wright added.
“On the other hand, we have an obligation to try to prepare students for a career [where] they can actually pay their bills and maybe buy a house and raise kids and all that,” he said. “Some of these very small, narrowly focused curricular areas may not provide a good career for these students. Are we misleading students to say that you can major in this and then have a viable career? I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s something I would definitely want to look into.”
Guns on campus
Concealed carry is fully permissible in most areas and buildings of UW’s Laramie campus following 2025 legislation.
Wright, a lifetime member of the NRA who taught marksmanship during his career in the military, said he has no issue with that law.
Wright also has no issue “in general” with this right extending to 18-year-olds, who were authorized to carry on campus by followup 2026 legislation that lowered the minimum age for obtaining a concealed carry permit from 21 to 18.
“If you want somebody who’s pro-gun, I’m kind of the poster boy for pro-gun,” Wright said. “But [in the military], we made sure that people were well-trained, understood what the weapons were capable of, and what the safe operation of them were. So I think that there should be, coupled with that [ability to carry], some sort of expectation about people. You know: are they checked out? Have they taken a weapon safety course? Have they taken some kind of proof that they know which end of the gun the bullet comes out of?”
That position puts him at odds with at least some in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, who endorsed a bill in 2026 that would have allowed permitless “constitutional” carry on campus. The bill failed, but could return in future sessions.
Ocean Andrew, the incumbent Wright hopes to unseat, voted to lower the permit age and voted in favor of the failed bill to allow permitless carry on campus.
School vouchers
Another hot button issue in education policy sees Wright and Andrew in close alignment.
In 2024, Wyoming adopted the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship — a statewide school voucher program that gives state money to parents homeschooling their children or sending their children to charter or private schools. In 2025, a follow-up bill expanded the program, dropping its income cap and boosting the payments.
Both the 2024 and 2025 bills were sponsored by Andrew, and Wright said he likes the idea behind them.
“I firmly believe people should be able to choose where and how their kids are educated,” he said. “But I also think there needs to be some sort of oversight or quality control of some kind to know how well are they being educated.”
Not everyone is so supportive of the voucher program. Wyoming’s teachers’ association is suing the state to halt it, arguing the vouchers will use taxpayer dollars to fund religious and other private schools that are legally allowed to turn away disabled and queer children. They allege the program will conflict with the state’s constitutionally required duty to provide adequate, equitable education for all students.
That case is currently being adjudicated in Laramie County District Court, which is set to decide the program’s constitutionality.
“I don’t have a problem with [the voucher program] as long as it’s proven to be within our constitution,” Wright said. “I know that the way they set it up is [that] it doesn’t pull money away from the public school budgets in order to fund this, and I think that’s important.”
The program has been backed by $50 million from the state, but it does not pull that funding from the School Foundation Program account, which is the fund that supports public K-12 education.
Wright said he would also like to see Hathaway Scholarships made available to trade school students, like those attending WyoTech. The idea has been floated in legislative committees.
Currently, the Hathaway — a state scholarship — is usable only by students attending public higher ed, like UW or any of the state’s two-year community colleges.
Andrew has supported efforts to expand the Hathaway for students at private institutions.
Abortion
Wright said he is a “pro-life kind of guy,” who wants to “respect and cherish life whenever it begins.” But he said the way the state has gone about outlawing abortion is flawed.
For years, lawmakers have passed bills aimed at banning, curbing or otherwise restricting abortion access. Some of these have been struck down by the courts, while others remain tied up in litigation.
The central issue is typically Wyoming’s Constitution, which guarantees the right of each Wyoming resident “to make his or her own health care decisions.”
Conservatives of all stripes have called for a constitutional amendment reworking that provision to pave the way for anti-abortion legislation.
To achieve this, the legislature would have to pass a bill putting that amendment on the ballot, the people of Wyoming would have to approve it, and then the legislature could get to work crafting new bills that actually target abortion.
So far, that first step has not happened. But Wright would like to see it.
“We’re not going to really settle this question until we actually put it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment and let the voters themselves decide how they want to deal with this issue,” he said. “I think that’s the only way that we can really put this issue to rest.”
Laramie’s Democrats oppose putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot, arguing abortion access, as healthcare, is a fundamental right that should not be infringed. All four local Democratic lawmakers have been consistent defenders of full abortion access.
Wright said there should probably be exceptions to any ban on abortion for danger to the mother, or in cases of rape or incest — but he’s not opposed to limiting abortion in general.
“To say that no, there absolutely cannot be any exceptions whatsoever — you know, that gives me pause,” he said. “You’ve got to look at those from a thinking point of view, rather than a feeling point of view. I know it’s a very emotional topic, so I can’t tell you that I’m just blanket saying, ‘No, no exceptions whatsoever.’ But then I’m not saying that you should have all these other exceptions. I think it’s something that really needs to be looked at, discussed carefully, and get the input from the people that it’s going to affect.”
Andrew takes a more stringent position. He has consistently voted to limit abortion, including voting for bills that make no exceptions for rape or incest.
Sun Bucks
During the 2026 Budget Session, right-wing lawmakers stripped funding for a summer childhood nutrition program known as SUN Bucks from the state budget. They did this by rejecting a $1.8 million request that would have kickstarted the program and brought $3.8 million in federal benefits to Wyoming every year thereafter.
Members of the Freedom Caucus defended that cut against repeated attempts to restore it, and Andrew voted twice to defend the cut and not fund the program.
Wright said he was uncertain whether he would support funding the program.
“I don’t know the exact details, so it’s hard to really come up with a hard and fast ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer to that,” Wright said. “I don’t believe that kids should be going hungry during the summer, and so, if there’s a reasonably effective way to do that with shared state money and federal money, then yeah, I think that’s something that we should definitely pursue.”
After the session ended, Gov. Mark Gordon launched the program anyway.
Public lands
On the topic of public lands, it’s not yet clear how Wright would differ from the incumbent he is challenging.
During the 2026 session, Andrew voted for both of the public lands bills he could, one voicing Wyoming’s support for public lands and the other codifying corner crossing protections. The first of these passed with overwhelming support; the latter ultimately fell apart in the Senate.
Wright said he wants to see public lands used “for a variety of purposes” including both recreation and commercial or extractive activities and is wary of “special interest groups that really try to push certain agendas that then are trying to limit what we can do.”
He’s also concerned about proposals to sell off federal land, which he views as short-sighted.
“I don’t think they see where it could then land, where some very wealthy individual could then come in and snap up a lot of what is now public land and turn it into their own private little area that nobody else can go near,” Wright said. “We don’t want that. I don’t think very many people, if any, in the state want that. So I think we need to keep our public lands public.”
Housing
Wright said he would like to see the state support local actions to address the housing shortage.
“One of my priorities is to try to help with the state economy and try to make it so that our kids can have good jobs and stay in the state and have futures, and so they don’t have to move out of Wyoming just to get a good job,” he said. “A linchpin of that is you’ve got to have housing in order to bring these companies in to then have those jobs.”
In Laramie, the housing crunch has hurt economic development, made the recruitment of teachers, nurses and other young professionals challenging, and has contributed to housing insecurity in general.
Wright said he’s supportive of the actions the city government has taken on this front, such as by reducing minimum lot sizes and parking requirements and by trying to get ahead on the infrastructure that’s needed for further development.
“We need to build the units themselves, but I think that the infrastructure holds back a lot of potential developers, too,” Wright said. “Where are the roads? Where are the sewer lines? Where are the water lines? … A developer often is not willing or able to take on all that themselves, just to do a development, and so I think that then falls to the city and the counties.”
But Wright said making development easier isn’t the only consideration.
“You’ve got to balance that with: How does that affect everybody else?” he said. “You don’t want to have your nice little house in the tree area and then have somebody come in and put in a 10-story apartment building next to you. So it all has to be balanced very carefully.”
When it comes to the actions Wright might be able to take as a legislator, the previous two sessions give some insight into the specific proposals that are likely to come up.
One recurring proposal, championed by Laramie Rep. Trey Sherwood, would establish a loan program that would back cities and counties making investments into housing.
Without coming down for or against the idea, Wright said this was “something I’d want to investigate,” since “the devil’s in the details.”
“I would not just write it off,” he said.
A bill establishing some version of this loan program has been filed twice, in 2025 and 2026. Rep. Andrew has yet to cast a vote on the issue because, in both cases, the proposals died early in the lawmaking process.
Other housing bills have made it to a vote.
From the perspective of housing advocates, Andrew’s voting record is a mixed bag. He has voted in favor of a successful bill fast-tracking the permit process and in favor of a failed bill to eliminate protest petitions, both of which are recommended by housing advocates.
But Andrew has also voted twice to kill affordable housing mitigation fees. These fees exist only in Jackson but they have been targeted by activists and Freedom Caucus lawmakers as infringements on a free housing market.
The proposal’s connection to this year’s Checkgate scandal sank the 2026 bill that would have banned these fees, but lawmakers intend to raise the issue again in 2027.
It’s not clear how Wright will vote on that bill if he gets the chance.
“I’d want to learn a lot more about it before I really said whether I’d support it or not,” he said. “But my initial impression that I’ve gotten just through reading the various news outlets about it is [it’s] an attempt to make a state level solution to a single county problem, and I’m, in general, not in favor of that kind of approach, regardless of what the problem is.”
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Not a tremendous amount of difference between Andrews and Wright other than the packaging of the positions. The choice appears to be someone who mindlessly votes Freeloader Caucus and someone who votes the same, but is willing to talk about it.
Neither of the candidates in the race are actually associated with the freedom caucus though, correct?