Leaders of the Park County Republican Party are denouncing state Senate candidate R. J. Kost for an ad that they saw as encouraging Democrats and others to change their affiliation and participate in the Republican primary election.

At a Thursday night meeting, the party’s central committee voted overwhelmingly to formally express “no confidence” in Kost’s campaign for Senate District 19.

For his part, Kost says his ad was only intended to inform voters of Wednesday’s 5 p.m. deadline to declare or change their political affiliation.

The ad and the critique

Kost — who is set to face off with state Rep. Paul Hoeft, R-Powell, in the primary — published the print advertisement in the April 16 edition of the Powell Tribune. It encouraged residents to vote for Kost and listed information about registering to vote.

The campaign message also described how to “change your party affiliation,” adding, “Be Aware: Many Primary Election ballots have only Republicans to consider, so your voting options are limited if you’re not a registered Republican.”

That wording upset some local Republicans, who oppose so-called "crossover voting."

At Thursday’s meeting, state Sen. Dan Laursen, R-Powell — who defeated Kost in 2022 and who Kost is now vying to replace — proposed the letter of no confidence. He called Kost’s ad “very concerning.”

“I don’t think it’s right. We don’t need to ask the Democrats to come up to our party and vote for our candidates,” Laursen said. “If you want to be a conservative Republican, be a conservative Republican. Don’t invite … the Democrats over to try to get a less conservative Republican.”

Park County Republican Party Chairman Vince Vanata added that he believed the text about changing party
affiliation and Kost’s statement about being “a proven conservative leader” were “kind of contradictory.”

The debate on the measure was short, as no one spoke against Laursen’s proposal. However, when it came time for the vote, there were a few audible “nays” among the more than 50 committee members present. Rep. Hoeft — who Laursen has endorsed over Kost — was among the GOP precinct committee members in attendance, but he abstained from the vote, explaining to the Tribune that, "I thought it wouldn't be proper as a candidate." 

The party’s letter, which Vanata drafted and signed, says that Kost’s ad encourages people to change their political affiliation and raises “serious concerns regarding the integrity of the electoral process, our Party’s election process, and the spirit of fair democratic participation.” 

“Elections should be decided by voters who authentically support a candidate’s platform, not by calculated efforts to manipulate participation across party lines,” Vanata wrote.

The letter also asks voters and party officials “to carefully consider whether this conduct, undermining Wyoming Republicans, aligns with the standards expected of someone seeking leadership as a republican.”

However, in a Friday interview, Kost said his ad wasn’t pushing for anyone to switch their affiliation. Rather, he said he wanted to highlight that the Legislature changed the law in 2023 and began requiring that voters set their affiliation the day before the candidate filing period opens. (Previously, voters could change their affiliation as late as Election Day, allowing them to effectively pick which ballot they wanted.) As of the start of the month, Park County had 14,443 registered Republicans,  1,274 unaffiliated voters, 976 Democrats and 292 minor party members. 

Kost said his ad referencing Wednesday’s deadline was similar to information he’s put out about the boundaries of Senate District 19, which covers the Powell area and northern Big Horn County.

“There was no intent of anything. It wasn’t, ‘OK, I’m going to go after Democrats.’ It was nothing like that,” Kost said. “I was just strictly putting the rules in [the ad]. That’s all it was about.”

A prior history

It’s not the first time that the Park County GOP has gone after Kost. In 2021, as the Legislature considered whether to push back on vaccine mandates, the central committee sent a letter asking the Wyoming attorney general and secretary of state to investigate Kost for what they saw as a “conflict of interest” between his then-role as a senator and his role on the Powell Valley Hospital Board of Trustees. The party asked for action “up to and including criminal prosecution,” but Kost said he’d been assured that his elected, unpaid position on the hospital board did not amount to a conflict with his legislative role. Nothing appears to have come of the Republican Party’s letter.

As for being a Republican candidate, Kost described himself as being “more concerned with the issues than saying I have to follow a platform.”

Kost mentioned wanting to help boost the economy, support agriculture and get more affordable housing.

“I’m trying to be honest, upright and say what I’m trying to do,” he said, “which is represent everybody and do the best I can for the people that I represent.”

Kept under wraps

While Vanata had informed the members of the central committee that they’d be considering a letter of no confidence at Thursday’s meeting, he had kept the subject under wraps.

Not long after the meeting got underway, precinct committeewoman and former Cody mayor Nancy Tia Brown suggested the party should have been more open.

“My concern is that unless it’s, by law, like an executive session that should be done privately, there should be … enough of an explanation on the agenda to at least give you an idea” of what’s being discussed,” Brown said.

Vanata acknowledged the item was “put out a bit vaguely,” but called it an “exceptional” circumstance.

In an email he sent to Brown, Vanata said that, “Discussing the person involved before the meeting in a public forum —  for instance, emails, leaks to the press, etc. — would not be proper unless first adopted by the central committee.”

If the letter was rejected by the body, “it’s a non-issue to begin with and so it shouldn’t be out in a public forum beforehand,” he argued.

The subject remained a mystery until roughly an hour into the meeting, when Sen. Laursen rose to present the no confidence vote while his wife and a friend distributed copies of Kost’s ad.

Approving a censure?

It wasn’t the only controversy of the night, either. Toward the end of the agenda, state committeeman Martin Kimmet said the party should “address the elephant in the room.”

“I’d like to make a motion to censure Troy Bray for his comments,” Kimmet said.

Kimmet didn’t specify which comments he was referring to, but Bray — who is both a precinct committeeman and a Powell city councilman — recently drew criticism for saying on Facebook that, “The only way Wyoming is going to have freedom is to start hanging bad judges.”

However, parliamentarian Andris Vaskis opined that Kimmet’s motion was out of order, alluding to a portion of Robert’s Rules that say, “One of the most important rules of debate is that the proposal, not the member, is the subject of debate.”

“In this case here, it’s criticizing a person,” Vanata said, and he ended the debate on the motion to censure Bray.

Seconds later, Committeeman Tim Lasseter called for the removal of one of the party’s officers “for cause,” and the body entered executive session to debate the motion. While Lasseter didn’t name the officer in the open meeting, the Tribune later learned he was attempting to remove Kimmet from the state committeeman position. That effort ultimately failed.

Hyperbolic speech and
inappropriate comments

Earlier in the meeting, Cody resident N.J. Pawley had come to Bray’s defense, arguing that “hyperbolic speech” is good at generating discussion.

“Anything that has been said on Facebook is old news compared to the crap slinging that they did back in 1775,” Pawley told the body, adding, “They shot at each other on the field, with guns. They beat on each other in the house of Congress with canes. So as things go today, we’re pretty civilized.”

Vanata later sought to expand on Pawley’s remarks, saying that “we are sometimes showered with gifts” during election season. Vanata told the body that the spouse of one unnamed candidate had been fired from her job and that an unnamed business owner was being threatened over a political position they had taken.

Vanata also said a “really inappropriate” comment had been posted about himself on the Cody Enterprise website.

In the comment — posted by a user known as Joe Whittaker — Vanata said he was accused of being a disgraced police officer, a liar and someone who has “destroyed the local Republican caucus and needs to fade away into oblivion.”

“To the credit of the Enterprise, when I brought this up, they pulled it off [the site] in five minutes,” Vanata told the audience. “So it’s really inappropriate with the attacks on personalities and people. Really, really inappropriate.”

The candidate filing period for partisan and municipal offices officially opens on Thursday and continues through May 29.