LUSK, Wyoming. — In some corners of rural America, Democrats are flirting with extinction. In Niobrara County, Wyoming, the least populous county in the least populous state, Becky Blackburn is one of 32 left.
Her neighbors call her “the crazy Democrat,” although that is more of an affectionate term than a derogatory one.
Some less populous counties have fewer. There are 21 Democrats in Clark County, Idaho, and 20 in Blaine County, Nebraska. But Niobrara County’s Democrats, who make up just 2.6% of registered voters, are outnumbered by Republicans the most in the 30 states that track local party affiliation, according to Associated Press election data.
In Wyoming, the state that voted for Donald Trump by a larger margin than any other state, the overwhelming Republican dominance may be even stronger now that the state has passed a law making it much harder to change party affiliation.
Tuesday’s primaries are the first elections since the law took effect.
In the grasslands and pine-clad hills of Niobrara County, bordering Nebraska and South Dakota, it’s not easy being blue.
Blackburn is a paralegal for the Republican district attorney and hears many right-wing views in town.
“I normally just roll my eyes and walk away because I’m fighting a losing battle and I’m fully aware of it,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I’m so loved, because I keep my mouth shut 10 times more than I want to.”
Not that she’s politically shy. She flies an LGBTQ+ flag in support of her lesbian daughter outside her home in Lusk, a ranch town of 1,500 and the seat of Niobrara County.
In the political season, Blackburn is stockpiling Democratic political signs to replace those that are stolen. She speaks approvingly about police reform, government taxes and transgender social media celebrity Dylan Mulvaney.
Perhaps it is because she speaks openly about her views – and is far too much in the minority to put them into practice – that Blackburn seems genuinely well-liked in Lusk, where she recently served on the council for nine years.
“I won two elections here. Even though it was nonpartisan, people still knew I had left-wing values,” she said.
Nationally, Democrats represent less than 3% of voters in three districts this year, up from one district in 2020 but down from seven in 2016. There were no districts with such low Democratic registration rates in the 2012, 2008 and 2004 presidential election years, according to the AP data.
The most Republican counties in recent years have been concentrated in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. The most Democratic areas, on the other hand, are much less one-party dominant.
The District of Columbia, where 77% of voters are Democrats, comes in second in Democratic dominance. First is Breathitt County, Kentucky, which traditionally is 79% Democratic, but not to the core. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has family there, and in 2020 the county went 75% for former President Donald Trump.
Niobrara County wasn’t always so Republican. In 2012, there were more than twice as many Democrats, at 83, and in 2004 there were more than four times as many, at 139.
The Democrats’ struggle in Wyoming is a reflection of the challenges the party faces in rural America, where the party has been losing ground for years.
It wasn’t always this way. Seventy years ago, Democrats were a political force in southern Wyoming, where union jobs in mining and railroads were plentiful. Now the party’s only strongholds are the college town of Laramie and the seaside resort of Jackson.
Meanwhile, Wyoming Democrats have struggled to find qualified candidates at all levels, prompting many Democrats to shift their registration to vote in the more competitive Republican primaries, only to return to the general election.
“You feel dirty and icky when you do it, but you do it anyway and you change it back as quickly as possible because you don’t want to get the Republican mail,” Blackburn said.
Republicans decided they had had enough. The Wyoming Legislature, where the GOP controls more than 90% of seats, passed legislation last year that bans voters from changing their party registration in the three months leading up to the August primary.
Wyoming’s Republican Secretary of State Chuck Gray said in an endorsement statement that the party switch “undermined the sanctity of Wyoming’s primary process.”
Wyoming’s Republican and Democratic primaries on Tuesday are the first in modern history where voters cannot switch parties at the ballot box.
For Democrats, it will be a slim picking. Statewide, obscure candidates who have campaigned little are unchallenged for the Democratic nomination for the House and Senate.
There are no Democrats running in Niobrara County. They are not running for a seat in the Wyoming House of Representatives or an open seat on the county commission, the two at-large races, or even for local party positions.
Yet not long ago, the area had a Democratic state representative: Ross Diercks, who is recognized and greeted warmly at the Outpost Cafe, a cozy breakfast and lunch spot in Lusk.
Diercks, a former high school English teacher, was a Republican before deciding the GOP wasn’t doing enough to support public education. He defeated a Republican incumbent in 1992, beginning an 18-year race in the Legislature.
By knowing voters personally and staying informed on issues, he was able to stay in office. For example, when he got a C-minus on a National Rifle Association questionnaire, he decided to do better. In subsequent elections, he scored A’s on the survey.
Many Republican legislators are friends. When one from down the road died, he sang at his funeral.
In 2022, Diercks temporarily switched parties to vote in the GOP primary against Harriet Hageman, who was challenging then-Rep. Liz Cheney for the state’s lone House seat. It’s hard to count how many other Democrats did the same, but Diercks was far from alone. Hageman, the daughter of the lawmaker Diercks lost to when he first won his state legislature seat, still won the race by a wide margin.
The new law that prevents Diercks and others from changing their registration so easily has irked the GOP.
“How far will they go to restrict someone’s right to vote? If it really comes down to purifying the party, from the voting level all the way down to the elected officials, soon there will be no one left who is pure enough to be in the party,” Diercks said.
Truck driver Pat Jordan supports many left-leaning causes, including universal health care, but he says he only registers as a Republican.
“The best way to engage in meaningful change is to try to influence the dominant party,” said Jordan, who lives in Niobrara County. “You know, we need a government that serves the people, all of them, not just Republicans and not just rural and not just urban and not just Democrats — and certainly not just the rich and the affluent.”
Last winter, dozens of locals gathered outside to honk and cheer as a Democrat left town. But they didn’t cheer when Ed Fullmer left for good.
Fullmer was on the bus for the high school boys basketball team as they headed off for the state championship. They lost, but Fullmer coached the Tigers to their best record in a decade, 20-8.
He said people know his views, but they rarely hold him accountable when it comes to politics.
“Most people don’t want to get into those kinds of discussions,” he said. “They respect you for what you do, how you work.”
Blackburn wants to maintain her political position, even as it shrinks around her.
“I am who I am, and I have the views that I have,” she said. “And I don’t care if it bothers people or not.”
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