Wyoming: A popular governor gets mysterious

Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal isn’t running for a third term, despite his belief that he could successfully challenge Wyoming’s term-limits law in court and translate his high approval ratings into another win in the ballot boxes. And he’s apparently decided that it’s no longer crucial to have a Democrat in the governor’s office as a […]

Washington is a coffee-drinking state; Starbucks is only one of the many java peddlers rooted in Seattle. Tea, however, at least of the political sort, is not catching on. So the fact that some of this year’s races appear to be ramped up on caffeine can probably be blamed on roasted, ground-up beans. HCN’s Guide […]

Utah’s most important election this year was held in the springtime, when angry right-wingers overthrew three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett in the Republican primary. Mike Lee, a lawyer who pushes high-profile Sagebrush Rebel cases, is now the Republican candidate for Senate. And given Utah’s history, Lee will almost certainly crush Democrat Sam Granato to win […]

It’s hard to imagine, in these Tea Party times, a guy with a political history like John Kitzhaber’s having a chance to win a major elected office. As a Democratic state senator in the ’80s, he authored Oregon’s government-funded health plan; later, as governor from 1995 to 2003, he expanded the plan, got more funding […]

“Nothing is more attractive to a wolf than the sound of a crying baby,” said then-Rep. Steve Pearce, R, during a 2007 debate over one of his bills, which sought to kill funding for the federal Mexican wolf reintroduction program in southern New Mexico, Pearce’s district. More recently, Pearce expressed his views of land protection […]

Two years ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid must have felt on top of the world. He stood at the helm of a Democratically controlled Congress, and he and his state had just helped put a Democrat in the White House. Reid and his cohorts immediately set to work: They scotched the plan to bury […]

When Democrat Dennis McDonald first decided to try to knock Denny Rehberg out of Montana’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, his chances appeared good. Montana’s Democrats had been on a roll since 2004, winning a Senate seat, the governor’s mansion and four other statewide offices. McDonald has a background in ranching — an […]

It’s not the Old West — it’s our guide to this year’s Western elections

Congressman John Salazar has a tough job. His constituents are scattered across a huge swath of Colorado’s rural Western Slope, over a political and demographic spectrum that ranges from oil and gas roughnecks in conservative Grand Junction to creative-class telecommuters in liberal Telluride. But most of Salazar’s constituents lie somewhere in between and share a […]

California’s ballot is sizzling hot. Top of the list is Proposition 23, which would emasculate or kill California’s pace-setting 2006 climate change law, Assembly Bill 32. That law takes a multi-pronged approach, including statewide cap-and-trade and more rooftop solar, to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Prop. 23 would put […]

Is President Obama to blame for the Democrats’ troubles? In the West as a whole, maybe. In Arizona? Definitely. When Obama picked Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano to run his Homeland Security Department, he inadvertently surrendered the state to an ultra-conservative agenda. The Republican Legislature forged ahead with bills closing state parks and selling off […]

When the votes are counted election night, it might surprise some national pundits if Idaho’s 1st Congressional District goes blue. But Democrat Walt Minnick was a pretty good bet when he wrested the seat from 14 years of Republican ownership in 2008. And since then, Minnick has positioned himself to appeal even more to Idaho’s […]