November 5

1872  Ulysses S. Grant was re-elected President.

1879  U.S. Army establishes camp on the Snake River.

1889  Wyoming's Constitution approved by the electorate.

1912    Woodrow Wilson was elected President.

Wilson took 36% of the Wyoming vote that year, with Republican Taft taking 34%.  Progressive Bull Moose Candidate Theodore Roosevelt, backed by Governor Carey who had left the GOP with Roosevelt, took 22%.  Socialists Eugene Debs took 6.5%.  Wilson probably only took Wyoming's electoral votes due tot he split in the Republican Party that year.  It's interesting to note that the popular Roosevelt came behind Taft.  It's also interesting to note that the platforms of Wilson, Roosevelt and Debs were all reform platforms.

1935    Parker Brothers began marketing the board game "Monopoly."

1940  President Franklin Roosevelt wins a third term in office.  Wyoming's electoral votes went to the incumbent President.

1943  A United States Army Air Corps bomber crashed near Evanston.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1961  The Upper Green River Rendezvous Site designated a National Historic Landmark.

1968  Richard M. Nixon elected President of the United States.

Wyoming voted for Nixon, as it has for every Republican Presidential candidate after Lyndon Johnson.

1968  Republican John Wold elected as Congressman from Wyoming.  The Casper based oilman served one term as he gave up this seat to run unsuccessfully against incumbent Senator Gale McGee.

1994    George Foreman became boxing's oldest heavyweight champion at age 45 by knocking out Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas.

1996    President Bill Clinton won a second term.

50% of the Wyoming vote went to Republican challenger Bob Dole, with 12% going to 3d party candidate Ross Perot.

1996  Mike Enzi elected Senator from Wyoming.

The popular Enzi remains in Congress and was a central figure in recent efforts to effect a longterm solution to the ongoing American government's fiscal difficulties.  He faces a challenge this year from Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

2014:   After one of the most unusual election seasons in recent Wyoming history, the voters returned results that were actually fairly typical for Wyoming, going back over the last couple of decades.

Republican Governor Matt Mead easily defeated all of his opponents, including Democratic, Libertarian and independent challengers.  A late Tea Party effort revived for Dr. Taylor Haynes fell flat.

The Secretary of State's office went to Cheyenne businessman Ed Murray who likewise easily defeated all of his challengers, which did not include a Democratic challenger.  The inability of the Democrats to field a challenger to the office is perhaps emblematic of their basic collapse, as the office was occupied by a Democrat not all that many years ago.

The Secretary of Education slot went to Jillian Balow in a race that turned out to be surprisingly lopsided, as her Democratic challenger Ceballos was widely regarded as the best Democratic candidate for any office this year and he seemed to have a good deal of support.  Still, he also managed to run a serious campaign and secure over 60,000 votes in a year when the Democrats failed to field candidates for State Auditor, State Treasurer and Secretary of State.

Senator Enzi and Congresswoman Lumis easily defeated their opponents.

In what was perhaps the most surprising news, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed amendment to the State constitution which sought to allow for two trustees for the University of Wyoming to be picked from out of state residents.

In Casper, voters approved both the lodging tax and the renewal of the option 1 Cent sales tax.

Overall, this year would seem to take the recent trend of the complete collapse of the Democratic Party in the state out even further than prior election cycles.  The Democrats were able to field only a single candidate for office who was regarded as being a serious contender, and in the end he did not do as well as anticipated.  They didn't field candidates at all for three of the significant state offices, and none of the candidates for Congress were serious contenders. If the history of prior years hold, the Democrats will continue to fail to pick up the signals from the results, which clearly show that in the last 20 years the state's voters no longer trust the Democratic Party and the majority of active Wyoming Democrats of former years have grown inactive or quit the party entirely, leaving it in the hands of those who seemingly can't read the signs.  To some extent, libertarian third parties did better in performance this year than the Democrats did.

On the other hand, an election cycle that started off with a Tea Party insurgency inside of the GOP saw the voters completely reject that element twice.  Tea Party candidates within the GOP were defeated in the Primary, and Tea Party type elements outside of the GOP did badly in the general election.  Tea Party platforms locally, which seemed to have perhaps defeated the NSCD No. 1 bond earlier in the year, failed to make an impact on the optional 1 Cent tax and the Lodging Tax.  A Constitution Party candidate on the ballot for the Natrona County Commissioners received the least votes of any of the candidates, even when a long term County Commissioner (a Democrat) failed to receive enough votes for reelection.

2016:   Lex Anteinternet: Rally for Public Lands, Casper Wyoming, November 5, 2016