Local primary contests for State House feature almost no competition
There is only one official candidate for each House primary race in Albany County, leaving local voters across parties and districts with eight presumptive nominees and little choice.
Albany County is home to four State House districts — and in each of them, there will likely be no meaningful primary contest on the ballots this year.
Between Republicans and Democrats and across the four House districts — 13, 14, 45 and 46 — there are eight primary races.
Your party affiliation and neighborhood will determine which one of those eight you get to vote in, but whether you’re a Democrat in House 13 or a Republican in House 46, you will find just one name printed on your ballot come this August.
Of course, there are other races on the ballot aside from the one determining your State House representation. Republicans have other primary contests, and city-dwelling voters of all stripes can take part in their Laramie City Council ward race.
But when it comes to the House contests, unless they’re prepared to write down an alternate, voters will have little choice.
Who’s running for a House seat?
House District 13:
Ken Chestek (Democrat)
Shane Swett (Republican)
House District 14:
Trey Sherwood (Democrat)
Joe Giustozzi (Republican)
House District 45:
Karlee Provenza (Democrat)
Paul Crouch (Republican)
House District 46:
Ocean Andrew (Republican)
Chris Lowry (Democrat)
Why so few candidates?
When candidate filing ended in May, it looked like there would be a primary contest, on the Republican side, for House 45. Eric Henderson had also filed to run in that race against Paul Crouch. But Henderson withdrew last month, according to the Albany County Clerk’s official list of primary candidates, leaving Crouch as the only name on the ballot.
With Henderson out of the running, Albany County lost its only potentially competitive House primary contest.
Mike Selmer, chair of the Albany County Democrats and now candidate for Senate District 10, said his party struggled to recruit candidates this year. Before filing officially began, Selmer and the Democratic search committee approached nearly two dozen prospective candidates who ultimately declined to run for various offices.
“And I would say half of those folks expressed an interest in running for office, but just not this cycle,” Selmer told the Laramie Reporter in April. “I think there’s an undertone of nervousness … about how this cycle is going to develop, given the animosity between the Trump camps and the Biden camps.”
Selmer said he doubts election-related violence will occur in Albany County, but also doesn’t think prospective candidates are being unreasonable by sitting this one out.
“I don’t think we’re going to have disruptions at the polling places, or anything like that,” Selmer said. “But even if we don’t have it here, if it occurs in other places — and especially in the lead up to the election — it’s going to make people nervous. I mean, how can you not be nervous looking at the way the dialogue is proceeding in our country?”
On the Republican side of the aisle, attention appears to be focused elsewhere. The GOP has two candidates competing for the nomination in Senate District 10 and four candidates competing for one open seat on the Albany County Commission. So while Republicans won’t have any interesting decisions to make when it comes to their House races, they will have important decisions to make for state senate and county commission.
And all voters — Republican, Democrat or other — will be tasked with whittling down the candidate pools for Laramie City Council. In all three council wards, there are more candidates who have filed to run than are allowed on the general election ballot. The primary serves to narrow these fields down to twice as many candidates as there are seats. These are nonpartisan races.
As always, voters are still free to write in other candidates whose names do not appear on the ballot, but the reality is that most voters will likely choose from among the printed names.
In 2022, a write-in candidate won the House 45 Republican nomination — much to the surprise of his wife, who won the Democratic nomination — but this was likely only possible because the Republicans had no official candidate for that House district, meaning Republican ballots featured not a single printed name.
Nate Martin, the Republican nominee and Rep. Karlee Provenza’s husband, won 32 votes. He declined the nomination.