Degenfelder sets sights on long-held ambition to lead Wyoming

CASPER—Liz Masterson has been a high school journalism teacher long enough that some of her current students have parents who also took her classes. 

A lot of things have changed in the course of the almost two decades since Masterson began her career. But she still remembers Megan Degenfelder’s drive, especially compared to other students.  

“She said she wanted to be the first woman to be president of the United States,” Masterson recalled. 

Upon graduation, Degenfelder forged a path she now says sets her apart from other Republicans in the race to be Wyoming’s next governor — and potentially the first woman to hold the office since Nellie Tayloe Ross a century ago.

Degenfelder’s resume looks like one drawn up to check every box for an ideal Wyoming politician. She attended the University of Wyoming and then studied economics in Beijing, where she wrote a master’s thesis on coal and natural gas. She then spent about a decade in the energy industry. She also worked for U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis in D.C. and served under former Superintendent Jillian Balow in Cheyenne. In 2022, when voters elected Degenfelder as superintendent of public instruction, she became one of the youngest statewide officials in Wyoming history. 

“Now here we are,” Masterson told WyoFile at a Tuesday night campaign event in Degenfelder’s hometown. 

In a capacious, modern outbuilding dubbed “The Barn” by its affluent owners, Tiffany and Blake Gamble, on the Oil City’s eastern outskirts, dozens of Degenfelder’s family members, friends and supporters gathered. 

Wearing a red jacket and skirt with a turquoise squash blossom necklace, Degenfelder moved easily from one conversation to another, shaking hands, laughing and smiling. Her long blonde waves curled away from her face. 

The crowd leaned younger, closer to Degenfelder’s age of 37, and was a contrast to the typical older turnout at GOP events in Wyoming. A gaggle of children ran around in red campaign T-shirts while parents and other attendees munched on Domino’s pizza. For many of those in the room, Degenfelder’s bid for governor felt both inevitable and thrilling. 

“I’m fired up,” Tiffany Gamble told WyoFile before her opening remarks. 

Standing in the truck bed of a blue, cherry-condition, vintage Ford, Gamble spoke into a microphone about her time with Degenfelder at Natrona County High School. Together they served as student body president and vice president. 

“Of course, Megan, she was president,” Gamble said. But the evening was not strictly about friendship, she added.

“We have a clear choice to make,” she said. “Do we drift toward middle-of-the-road politics, trying to please everyone, borrowing liberal ideas that don’t fit who we are? Or, do we stand firm in our conservative values?”

“I can tell you, my family is choosing the latter,” Gamble said. 

As superintendent, Degenfelder has not shied away from aligning with the right flank of the party. She backed legislation to authorize charter schools and a voucher program to make public funds available for private tuition. (The latter remains in limbo after it was challenged in court as unconstitutional.) She also supported legislation limiting transgender students’ participation in school sports and bathroom accessibility, and cheered the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. 

Still, the Wyoming Republican Party has not always backed Degenfelder. 

In 2022, when Balow resigned from her superintendent post to take a job in Virginia, the party voted to nominate three other finalists over Degenfelder, even though she had served in a key leadership position at the state’s education department. More recently, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of Republican lawmakers that’s gained a significant foothold in the party, has been mum about her gubernatorial bid while weighing in on other statewide races, and taking aim at Degenfelder’s most evenly matched opponent, Sen. Eric Barlow of Gillette. 

But Degenfelder has something now she didn’t have in years past. This time, the most powerful person in the country is backing her campaign. Four days before she announced her plans, President Donald Trump gave his endorsement. 

“Should she decide to enter this Race, ‘MAGA’ Megan Degenfelder has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump posted online. “RUN, MEGAN, RUN!”

Although Degenfelder defeated Trump-endorsed incumbent candidate Brian Schroeder in 2022, Trump’s endorsement counts for a lot in Wyoming, where 75% of voters supported him in 2024. Her campaign Facebook page includes a photo of him next to an image of her. 

Bryan Dugas, Degenfelder’s husband of about a decade, introduced her Tuesday night. 

“I’m a better Christian, a better husband, better physician, a better man because of Megan,” Dugas said. “And we have the opportunity to support her and her aspiration to better this entire state, its people and its future.”

After Degenfelder stepped into the truck bed, she began by thanking her hometown supporters and her mom, Cheryl, who died in 2024. 

“She hated politics, but she’s with us, and I’m very grateful for that,” Degenfelder said. 

From there, Degenfelder asked the crowd to go back in time with her to the mid-1800s, “when a group of people on the East Coast of the United States of America heard about the promise of a better life out west.”

She described their journey as the greatest risk of their lives. And she spoke about her own family, who ultimately wound up west of Casper and would come to grow a life from half a section of land to over 8,000 acres. 

“They arrived at this place after this journey — if they survived — and they look around and nothing’s here,” Degenfelder said. 

There were, of course, people here. She did not mention the Indigenous people who inhabited the land going back at least 12,000 years, or the Plains Indians, whose pragmatic routes over mountain passes, along river corridors and across sagebrush basins were followed by early Euro-American immigrants and explorers. 

When her ancestors and other settlers arrived, Degenfelder said, “they started building something bigger than themselves. That’s who we are as Wyomingites.” 

Today people expect elected leaders to “get out of the way,” she said, “but to fight hard as hell for Wyoming when it matters most.”

The fight at Wyoming’s doorstep, as described by Degenfelder, includes: coastal elites and celebrities “trying to push a climate agenda” that hurts the state’s jobs and revenue, transgender athletes and “radical activists that are literally trying to redefine genders of children,” a lack of respect for the rule of law and for citizenship, assaults on ICE agents and law enforcement officers, child care fraud in Minnesota, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani “who literally hates everything that we stand for in America.” 

Degenfelder made a vow if elected governor.

“I will protect our conservative values and way of life because our rights, our freedoms, they come from God, not from the government, and they cannot be taken away,” she said. 

Many of those supporting Degenfelder’s gubernatorial campaign were by her side in 2022 when she ran for superintendent, including Kayleigh Clark. 

At the event, Clark told WyoFile she recalls working with “a bunch of other moms” to put together Degenfelder’s Casper Parade day float, and sharing an excitement with them about “where we live.”

Clark doesn’t think of herself as a political person, she said, but learned from seeing her parents review the Casper Star-Tribune’s voter guides over the years to be informed about her choices. Clark now has two children and said she wants to be a part of setting up the state for success. 

“Now feels like a different energy,” she said. Tiffany Gamble echoed that, telling WyoFile it feels like a “whole new generation” becoming more interested in politics. 

Gamble recently founded Powder River Prep, a private school in Casper, due to growing concern with “politics brought into the classroom,” she said.

The school is “rooted in conservative values and faith-based principles,” according to its website. Families need more choices, Gamble said, lamenting that her school cannot receive state funding and voicing her appreciation for Degenfelder’s support of school choice. 

As a member of the State Board of Land Commissioners, Degenfelder has opposed Prism Logistics’ development of a gravel mine at the base of Casper Mountain. Even so, Prism’s owner, Kyle True, was there Tuesday to support her campaign.   

“There are bigger issues than my little business,” True said, adding that he’s been impressed with her time in statewide office. 

In an interview with WyoFile at the event, Degenfelder answered questions about recent budget cuts supported by the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee. The panel sent shockwaves around Wyoming when it recommended major cuts to the University of Wyoming, the defunding of Wyoming Public Media and the elimination of the Wyoming Business Council.

“I support that the Joint Appropriations Committee is trying to get people’s attention. They are trying to make sure that people know what government is funding, and really to have that conversation about it,” Degenfelder said when asked about the committee’s proposal to cut roughly 11% of UW’s block grant. 

“Now, do I think that the $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming is the right move right now? No,” she said. “I think we can find where that sweet spot is.”

As a UW graduate, Degenfelder said she wants “the best” for the school, but that “doesn’t mean we just allow runaway spending.” 

Asked about her stance on the committee’s proposal to dismantle the Wyoming Business Council, Degenfelder said the state’s tax structure is at odds with the agency. 

“It’s very difficult for them to be successful,” she said, adding that economic development has a place in Wyoming. 

“But when we talk about economic diversification, it’s incredibly difficult to do,” Degenfelder said. 

Lastly, Degenfelder told WyoFile she wants “people to get excited about politics again” and “this new wave of Republican politics in the state of Wyoming and the next generation of leaders and the opportunity that we have.”

Before any of Tuesday night’s speeches, the lights and country music came down. People quieted their conversations and turned their attention to a large projector screen. A glossy campaign video played, casting a red glow over the darkened room.

There was Degenfelder. Coaching the UW women’s rugby team. A rifle slung over her shoulder in a sagebrush sea. Walking her rescue dogs across Laramie’s campus. Atop a horse. At War Memorial Stadium. In a classroom. On Fox News. 

Standing next to her husband at the event in Casper, Degenfelder watched the advertisement. She smiled at what she saw ahead of her. 

This story is among the first of in-depth features by WyoFile as part of its coverage of the 2026 election. To stay up to date, subscribe to our newsletter or download our mobile app.