Wyoming · Senate
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · fundamentals only, no polls
Who is running?
James W. Byrd (Democratic), Harriet Hageman (Republican).
The race, in brief
Wyoming elects a U.S. senator on November 3, 2026 in an open seat: Republican senator Cynthia Lummis is not seeking a second term and has endorsed Harriet Hageman. The text notes that Democrats have not won a Senate race in Wyoming since 1970. The state profile records a median age of 38.8 and a Hispanic share of 0.1.
The Republican nominee is Harriet Hageman, U.S. representative for Wyoming's at-large district since 2023, who won the August 18 primary with 64.9% against former Kirby mayor Sam Mead at 27.8%. The Democratic nominee is James W. Byrd, a state representative from 2009 to 2019 and the 2018 nominee for secretary of state, who won with 79.3%. As of July 29, 2026 Hageman had raised $2,435,023 with $915,369 on hand; Byrd had raised $22,559 with $356 on hand.
All ten raters listed call the race R, including the Cook Political Report (September 23, 2026) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 22, 2026). The text has no general-election polls.
The facts carry no model forecast rows for this race.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Republican incumbent Cynthia Lummis is not seeking a second term.
Republican congresswoman Harriet Hageman and Democratic former state representative James W. Byrd are the nominees for their respective parties.
Republican congresswoman Harriet Hageman and Democratic former state representative James W. Byrd are the nominees for their respective parties.
*James Byrd, former state representative from the 44th district (2009–2019) and nominee for secretary of state in 2018
* Harriet Hageman, U.S. representative from Wyoming's at-large congressional district (2023–present) and candidate for governor in 2018
Democrats have not won a Senate race in Wyoming since 1970.
In the Republican primary, Hageman won the nomination with 64.9% of the vote against former Kirby mayor Sam Mead. Byrd won the Democratic nomination with 79.3% of the vote
The Cook Political Report R September 23, 2026
|Harriet Hageman (R) $2,435,023 $2,402,617 $915,369
* Cynthia Lummis, incumbent U.S. senator (2021–present) (endorsed Hageman)
Not in the source: No model forecast rows in the facts.; No general-election polls in the text.; The Democratic primary results table is garbled in the text; only Byrd's 79.3% comes from the lead.; No previous Senate or presidential vote shares are given.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 111ce36157a5; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
John Barrasso (Republican), in this chamber since 2007, 4 terms, class 1 (term ends 2031). Committees: Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; Senate Committee on Finance; Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Cynthia M. Lummis (Republican), in this chamber since 2021, 1 term, class 2 (term ends 2027). Committees: Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hageman, Harriet (REP) open seat | $2,435,023 | $915,369 | 21% | 0% | $1,010,685 | $0 |
| Lummis, Cynthia Marie Mrs. (REP) incumbent · not on our roster | $1,493,104 | $835,049 | 47% | 0% | $109,498 | $0 |
| Mead, Samuel (REP) challenger · not on our roster | $288,668 | $111,437 | 0% | 40% | $0 | $25,749 |
| Byrd, James Willard Mr. (DEM) challenger | $22,559 | $356 | 0% | 4% | $0 | $0 |
| Skovgard, Jimmy Mr (REP) open seat · not on our roster | $10,380 | $3,194 | 0% | 52% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through July 29, 2026; $1,145,932 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+51.4 | R+45.0 | R+47.0 |
A shift of 4.5 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 29.9% | 34.0% | -4.1 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 82.1% | 66.3% | +15.9 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 0.8% | 10.1% | -9.3 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 10.4% | 12.9% | -2.4 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 0.8% | 4.4% | -3.6 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 3.5% | 9.6% | -6.1 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 38.8 | 39.1 | -0.28 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $74,815 | $77,633 | $-2,818 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $285,100 | $314,132 | $-29,032 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 71.9% | 67.4% | +4.6 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 3.7% | 4.8% | -1.1 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 3.6% | 3.0% | +0.5 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 8.5% | 12.3% | -3.7 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 5.0% | 11.1% | -6.1 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 32.7% | 32.1% | +0.6 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 1.6% | 2.6% | -1.0 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 4.8% | 2.9% | +2.0 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.45 | 0.47 | -0.02 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 2.5% | 4.0% | -1.4 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | -0.3 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.2 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -0.4 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.3 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $86,477 | $70,662 | $+15,815 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 39.8% | 32.4% | +7.4 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 14.8% | 19.4% | -4.6 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 5.2% | 6.1% | -0.9 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 3.3% | 4.4% | -1.1 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 1.6% | 3.8% | -2.2 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.1% | 0.6% | -0.4 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.2% | 0.3% | -0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 1.0% | 0.9% | +0.1 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.7% | 1.5% | +0.2 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.4% | 1.2% | +0.3 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Has anyone polled it?
We hold no published poll of this general election. A search of aggregators, pollster releases, university polls and local news on 2 October found none (primary polls exist for some races and are not this contest). That is what we could find, not proof that no poll has been conducted. When one is published it enters the poll model and this page gains a nowcast.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Margins and probabilities are for James W. Byrd. With no polls, this is the fundamentals forecast alone: the state's own past results for this office and for president, its demographics, economy, religion and government employment, the candidates' incumbency, experience and money, and the national environment for this midterm.
How wide is the range?
In 8 of 10 simulations the margin falls between -55 and -21 points. The spread is the fundamentals model's own measured error (sd 13.4 points), not a guess: a forecast without polls is uncertain and is shown that way.
How accurate is a fundamentals-only forecast?
Tested on past races without letting it see them: across 175 Senate and governor races in 2016-2022 it missed the final margin by 8.3 points on average, and by 6.7 points across 35 races in 2024. Our poll-based forecast missed by 5.4 on the same races. Most races it is used for here are lopsided enough that an 8-point miss would not change the winner.
Where did every number come from?
Run c6cae716, single_race_latent/0.8.1, as of 2026-10-01 23:02 UTC, basis: ground-up prior only, no polls.