Result
Rep. Laurie Bratten (R-Sheridan) won a second term in Wyoming House District 51 on Nov. 3 with no opponent on the ballot, making her one of the few Wyoming Freedom Caucus members or allies headed back to the House. August’s primary gutted the caucus, shrinking it from about 35 House members to about 10, Cowboy State Daily reported.
Her new two-year term begins in January. Bratten first won the seat in 2024, succeeding Republican Cyrus Western, and took 92.1% of the vote that year in a Republican primary where her only competition was write-in votes.
Candidates and Platforms
Bratten moved to Wyoming in 2019 after years in Colorado politics, where she worked for Republican Ken Buck when he was in Congress and ran a scorecard rating lawmakers on limited government, according to a 2024 Cowboy State Daily profile. She and her husband run an agricultural operation in the Big Goose Valley.
Her first campaign centered on property tax relief, defending Wyoming’s energy and agriculture industries, parents’ rights and school choice. After this year’s budget session, she highlighted more than $15 million in the state budget to renovate the Sheridan College Science Center, Sheridan Media reported.
District and Chamber
District 51 covers part of Sheridan County, where the primary also reshaped the local delegation. Dayton business owner Melissa Butcher beat a Freedom Caucus-aligned House member for the Republican nomination in Senate District 21.
Republicans will hold 55 of the House’s 62 seats after Democrats picked up one seat, in House District 11, according to a Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck election analysis. The Freedom Caucus, which controlled the House in 2025 and 2026, lost that majority in the primary.
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