Wyoming House Speaker Albert Sommers, who was first elected to the Wyoming Legislature a dozen years ago, lost to Kemmerer resident Laura Taliaferro Pearson, who entered politics during the pandemic because of concerns over pandemic masking mandates.
Pearson narrowly beat out Sommers, R-Pinedale, but trounced Bondurant’s Bill Winney in the newly opened primary seat in Senate District 14, which covers four counties: Sublette, Lincoln, Sweetwater and Uinta.
Shortly after polls closed, it had appeared Sommers had handily beat Pearson. But as results in Lincoln and Uinta trickled in, the upstart Pearson had collected a total of 2,168 votes to Sommers’ 2,012 and Winney’s 485.
“I wasn’t expecting it, but then again, over the last three months, I was going door to door” Pearson told Cowboy State Daily. “I visited a lot of people well into the evening, and didn’t get home until 11 or 2 a.m.”
Pearson said that she got involved in the race because she didn’t like state mandates on masking and workplace restrictions due to the pandemic.
“I didn’t like what was happening in the state and the coercion of the vaccine in our schools,” she said. “That’s what got me engaged. I was watching what the government was pushing down on us and the state not fighting back on it.”
The contenders had sought a post formerly held for eight years by State Sen. Fred Baldwin, R-Kemmerer, who opted to not run again.
Winney has now lost seven times in the last 14 years for the Wyoming Legislature.
Sommers was among one of the biggest fundraisers in the Senate primaries.
He raised $47,708 for his campaign, $7,000 of which came from himself. Sommers raised the second most campaign money in the state this election cycle.
