U.S. House frontrunner Chuck Gray walked into a sparsely attended event Tuesday in Powell, but he didn't cut his appearance short due to the low turnout. Gray spent more than an hour talking directly to those who came to the Church of Christ about his plans if he wins the crowded race.

Gray didn't disappoint the crowd, spending a large amount of his time dogging Gov. Mark Gordon and his opponents in the race for the state's only House seat and highlighting the Trump administration's top priorities. Calling himself "America's strongest" Secretary of State, the controversial former legislator referred to Gordon as a "liberal" and called opponent Reid Rasner a "a very troubled individual."

"You can go to the Natrona County Courthouse and find all the stuff he's hiding about his ex-husband, the gag order and his divorce," Gray said, while responding to attack ads from the Rasner campaign.

Rasner recently told the Washington Examiner he expected political attacks, but attacks on his personal life were "beneath" Wyoming voters.

"There are people in my own party who cannot stand that a gay man is running as a conservative," Rasner said in the interview last week.

Gray was responding to televised attack ads calling him weak on China and questioning his Wyoming roots. Rasner has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads attacking the frontrunner, money Gray accused Rasner of getting from his mom.

"This individual sinks half a million dollars of his mom's money, attacking me. Crickets from the media exposing the truth, and you know why? That is because they love it. They want the true conservative to fail," he said.

Gov. Gordon was also heavily targeted by Gray as the two have had several previous controversial encounters in the past few years; this time calling Gordon "woke." 

"I don't back down," Gray said concerning attacks on him by more moderate conservatives.

Gray consistently pushes Trump administration talking points and said he took the strongest position, and said "no more" to data centers in the Cowboy State.

"Are we going to continue to grow around these core industries: Farming and ranching, tourism, soda ash, coal, oil and gas, or are we going to go down this woke data center, woke wind nightmare that Gordon has been pushing?" Gray asked those in attendance.

He also claims Gordon wants to sell public lands.

"As a member of the State Board of Land Commissioners, I've seen why they don't trust it. Sitting on that, the last three and a half years, every single meeting, Gordon is trying to take away access," he said while also saying he is against the sale of public lands. "I think public land should remain in public hands. I've seen this issue for a decade. The people of Wyoming have spoken time and time again, and they don't trust the state of Wyoming to manage these lands."

He also said national forests resources should be harvested to amp up the American sawmill and construction industries.

"We need to be able to timber our forests. We need true multiple use of our public lands," Gray stated.

Kill switch

Gray also spoke about kill switch mandates. According to auto industry publisher Kelley Blue Book, a growing "social media frenzy" suggests that the federal government will soon require a kill switch in new cars. In its most extreme form, the claim says it would let government officials deactivate all cars remotely.

"You know, having 20% of our workforce out of work and a massive kill switch on our vehicles. That's not a race I want to win. That's not a race. It's a nightmare," he said.

He also attacked Park County Clerk Colleen Renner for having previously deployed a drop box for absentee ballots in an election season, which he disapproves of, although the boxes were not out for the most recent election. He is a vocal proponent of the Trump administration's Save America Act, which deals with national election integrity issues.

"They will not give me the status of their drop boxes, and this is how chaotic it's gotten with them. I wanted all of them listed out, but, you know, we've been on them a lot," he said, adding "these baseline election integrity standards, we need to put them into federal law, and that's the Save America Act. I was actually asked to testify on the Save America Act back in January because in Wyoming we proved that this can be done."

Gray claimed the state has found illegal aliens, thousands of people who moved out of state and dead people on the voter rolls. 

"We have found illegal aliens that were on the voter rolls. We have active prosecutions going because of that work. We have found thousands of people who had moved out of state ... that were no longer qualified electors, and we're continuing that work as we speak. And we found dead people that were on the voter rolls, that's an issue I've worked on a lot."

Gray also railed against the repeal of the country of origin labeling, saying it is hurting Wyoming businesses.

"We need to bring back country of origin labeling. That was one of Obama's last wet kisses was the repeal of country of origin labeling," Gray said. "It's done a lot of damage to our producers, and we've seen with the screw worm outbreak. I mean, we have in Wyoming, in the United States of America, a superior product, and we should be able to note that with country of origin labeling.”

According to the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation, This action was in response to the World Trade Organization’s Dec. 7, 2015, ruling that Canada and Mexico could impose retaliatory tariffs on goods imported from the United States in an amount exceeding $1 billion. This retaliation was allowed because of the WTO’s earlier finding that U.S. country of origin labeling laws discriminated against producers from Canada and Mexico by treating imported meat less favorably than domestic meat.

Among other attacks, Gray said, despite the issue falling off of late, "Obamacare" must be repealed.

"We have to repeal Obamacare. It's another thing that you don't hear about much anymore. But think about where Wyoming's at in terms of our healthcare costs, where we have one provider on this so-called exchange," he said. "Obama designed this to fail. The woke nightmare of the left has always been the single payer, and they know that the people don't want it."

Gray was asked during the Q&A period who he was voting for in the state U.S. Senate and governor's race. He said he plans to vote for Cody's Brent Bien in the gubernatorial race — which seemed to gain some traction amongst attendees — and said he would vote for Harriet Hageman in her race for the U.S. Senate, which wasn't received as well by some of those in the comfy sanctuary chairs at his speech.

Speaking of sanctuary, Gray said the federal government should defund sanctuary cities like Denver, Los Angeles and "San Fransicko."

Gray came to the Powell church after an invitation by fellow GOP candidate Paul Hoeft, who is currently representing Powell in House District 25 and is a candidate for Senate District 19. Hoeft called the meet and greet a "last minute" event, in reference to the small, but vocal crowd.

Rasner, Frank Chapman, David Giralt, Jillian Balow, Keith B. Goodenough, Kevin Christensen, Richard Dodson and Steve Friess will vie with Gray for Wyoming Republicans’ vote for the office. Elena Del Real and Lisa Kinney are running in the Democratic primary.

The Wyoming primary is Aug. 18. Early voting started Monday.