Commissioner’s button expresses misgivings with Donald Trump

There’s little doubt that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will carry Wyoming in November’s general election, but there also appears to be continuing disillusionment with the real-estate mogul.

At Tuesday’s Park County Commission meeting, Commission Chairman Tim French wore a faux campaign button that read: “Vote Trump: F— it.”

French didn’t buy the uncensored button — it was a gift from fellow Commissioner Joe Tilden — but he indicated the main reason he’s voting for Trump is because he will not vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“My view is, out of 320 million people, that’s our two choices?” French said in a follow-up interview, adding, “It’s one thing to have a vigorous campaign, but he (Trump) was saying some pretty nasty stuff that I didn’t like. That kind of turned me off on him.”

French — who said he would still vote for Trump over Clinton “any day” — said most people he talks to have the same kind of attitude.

Park County Republican Party Vice Chairman David Northrup said he feels local Republicans are generally in two camps.

“There’s one group that says, ‘Oh hell yeah, we’ve got to have Trump.’ The other says, ‘He is our candidate and we’re going to vote Republican,’” Northrup said.

He isn’t sure which group is larger.

“The choice is either Hillary or (Trump), and so it’s hard to quantify the level of support for him, because, I mean, the choice (in Clinton) is not great,” Northrup said. He said the main thing he hears from Republicans is, “We don’t want Hillary.”

Wyoming Republicans generally backed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during the GOP’s presidential nomination process. (That’s who Northrup had leaned toward.)

Trump never came to the state, and he decried Wyoming’s complicated caucuses as being part of a “crooked” and “rigged” system controlled by political “bosses.”

“I don’t want to waste millions of dollars going out to Wyoming, many months before, to wine and dine and to essentially pay off all these people, because a lot of it’s a payoff,” Trump said in an April interview on “FOX and Friends.” “They treat them, they take them to dinner, they get them hotels. I mean the whole thing’s a big payoff. It has nothing to do with democracy.”

(His dissatisfaction with the caucus process was shared by many local Republicans, who are pushing to have Wyoming switch to a more straightforward primary.)

Despite the initial distrust and misgivings, the Trump campaign recently opened a campaign office in Casper, and there are indications that Wyoming could end up being the most pro-Trump state in the union.

An online poll conducted jointly by SurveyMonkey and the Washington Post surveyed 727 Wyomingites between Aug. 9 and Sept. 1. It found Trump to be the top pick among 57 percent of Equality State residents. (Trump got no more than 53 percent in any other state.) The Republican’s showing in Wyoming was more than double Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 21 percent, and Libertarian Gary Johnson’s 15 percent. Another 4 percent of respondents didn’t answer the question, while 3 percent favored Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

The political website FiveThirtyEight predicts that — based on polls, the economy and historical data — Trump will collect around 60 percent of the vote in Wyoming; they figure he has a 98.8 percent chance of winning here.

Park County Commissioner Bucky Hall said all five commissioners were given irreverent “Vote Trump” buttons like the one French sported on Tuesday.

“I apologize once again for not wearing my button today,” Hall joked during one of the meeting’s breaks.

“I do, too,” said Commissioner Tilden.

French said he normally wouldn’t wear a button “with that kind of language,” but did since it was a gift and the meeting agenda was brief.

“I won’t wear it downtown,” he laughed.

The buttons came from Ten Sleep-based musician Jalan Crossland, who’s also selling ones that read, “Vote Hillary: Just Get It Over With.” Crossland explains on his Facebook page that “No proceeds will go to the Republican or Democratic parties, but instead our own ‘After Party.’”

Editor's note: This version has been corrected to note that the first part of the button read “Vote Trump” rather than “Donald Trump.”