After one term, Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., became the 11th U.S. senator to announce a retirement from office next year.
On Tuesday morning, as widely expected, Representative-at-large Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., declared for the open Senate seat.
Within hours of her announcement, stalwart conservative Hageman, 63, had lined up the endorsements of President Donald Trump and the Club for Growth political action committee.
Hailing Hageman as a "TOTAL WINNER!" Trump wrote on Truth Social of the congresswoman, "SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!"
Hageman became a nationwide heroine on the right in 2022 after unseating then-GOP Rep. Liz Cheney by a landslide.
Cheney had fallen out of favor with Trump during the House hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol, and Hageman, with the then-former president's endorsement, rolled up 66% of the primary vote.
"If Harriet runs, she will win [the Senate nomination]," Jack Mueller, onetime state legislator and past national chair of the Young Republicans, told Newsmax.
But Hageman's departure from her at-large seat points to a hard-fought primary battle between competing GOP factions.
The favorite of the MAGA faction is clearly Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray. Sources in the Cowboy State say he could possibly get Trump's blessing before the primary.
Also conservative but more aligned with party regulars than MAGA is attorney Matt Micheli, former state GOP chair and Wyoming chair of Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
"His father Ron Micheli was also a successful politician serving in the state House plus as the state agriculture secretary," Tom Sansonetti, another former state party chairman, told Newsmax.
"So the name 'Micheli' is well known in the state. It doesn't hurt that the family has a ranching background," he added.
Few doubt that the winner of the Republican primary will go on to win in November. Wyoming last elected a Democrat senator in 1970, and its last Democratic Party House member won in 1976.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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