Chuck Gray (born February 3, 1990) is an American politician serving as the 24th and current Secretary of State of Wyoming since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023, representing the 57th district. Gray is the Republican nominee for Wyoming's at-large congressional district in 2026.
Early life and education Gray identified himself as being from La Crescenta, California, in author biographies accompanying multiple columns he wrote for The Daily Pennsylvanian while attending the University of Pennsylvania. As a child, he spent summers in Casper, Wyoming, with his father, Jan Charles Gray, who owned Mount Rushmore Broadcasting. Kim Walker, a longtime employee of Gray's father who knew Gray during those childhood visits, later recalled that Gray "didn't seem to like Wyoming in those years."
Gray graduated from high school in 2008 and enrolled at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in economics. During his time at Penn, Gray wrote a political column for The Daily Pennsylvanian. He subsequently moved to Wyoming full-time and began hosting a conservative talk radio program on KVOC-AM in Casper, a station owned by his father. Family and business career Gray is the son of Jan Charles Gray, an attorney, businessman and broadcasting executive. The elder Gray spent much of his professional career in Southern California, serving as senior vice president and general counsel of Ralphs Grocery Company in Los Angeles. Contemporary reporting frequently identified him as a spokesman for the company. In 1989, Gray represented Ralphs in a dispute concerning its supermarket at the Beverly Connection shopping center near Beverly Hills. After Los Angeles officials sought to restrict the store's operating hours in connection with liquor sales, Gray said Ralphs would seek permission to continue operating the supermarket 24 hours a day.
Chuck Gray identified himself as being from La Crescenta, California, in author biographies accompanying multiple columns he wrote while attending the University of Pennsylvania. Following his parents' divorce, Gray lived with his mother and spent summers with his father in Wyoming. Kim Walker, who worked for Jan Charles Gray for 12 years and sometimes chaperoned Chuck Gray during those childhood visits, later recalled that he "didn't seem to like Wyoming in those years."
Jan Charles Gray later became president and owner of Mount Rushmore Broadcasting. A 2002 Wyoming Supreme Court decision described him as the company's sole shareholder, sole director and sole officer. Broadcasting-industry records document the company's acquisition of multiple Wyoming radio stations, including KQLT-FM in Casper for $230,000, KVOC-AM for $105,000, and KRRR-FM for $300,000 paid in advance.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012, Chuck Gray went to work for his father's broadcasting company. Gray subsequently identified Mount Rushmore Broadcasting as his sole employment on his elected-official financial disclosure forms, first listing himself as a program director and later as operations manager. His campaign described him as having begun his career with the company in 2013 as a radio executive and host of a conservative radio program.
During Gray's 2022 campaign for Secretary of State, WyoFile reported that Mount Rushmore Broadcasting had been administratively dissolved by the Wyoming Secretary of State's office in 2003 for failing to file annual reports and pay state license fees and was no longer eligible for reinstatement. When WyoFile asked Gray to provide details about his professional responsibilities at the company and how his academic and professional experience qualified him for the office he was seeking, Gray did not provide the requested information. He also did not respond to a subsequent inquiry about his employer conducting business in Wyoming without a certificate of authority.
During the period in which Gray worked for Mount Rushmore Broadcasting, the company and his father were also the subjects of federal labor and broadcasting enforcement actions. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor obtained consent judgments against Jan Charles Gray individually and several affiliated businesses, including Mount Rushmore Broadcasting, requiring payment of $21,000 in back wages to ten former employees and compliance with federal minimum-wage, overtime, recordkeeping and anti-retaliation requirements. Mount Rushmore Broadcasting was also subject to a series of Federal Communications Commission enforcement proceedings concerning its radio stations, culminating in a 2016 consent decree and $25,000 civil penalty.
Jan Charles Gray has also provided substantial financial support to his son's political career. Federal Election Commission records show that he was the sole contributor to Protect Wyoming Values PAC, an independent-expenditure committee supporting Chuck Gray's congressional candidacy, contributing $200,000. He later contributed $500,000—approximately 95% of the money Gray had raised—to his son's 2022 campaign for Wyoming Secretary of State. Gray defended his father's financial support, saying that he was grateful for his family's assistance and that people involved in family businesses should be able to run for public office.
Career Wyoming House of Representatives (2017–2023) Gray first ran for the Wyoming House in 2014 but was defeated in the Republican primary by incumbent Thomas Lockhart. He successfully won the seat in 2016 and was re-elected in 2018 and 2020.
While serving in the Legislature, Gray became a founding member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. After the caucus gained control of the Wyoming House in 2025, Gray appeared at a press conference announcing its legislative agenda and said he felt emotional seeing the organization in power because he had been a founding member. He endorsed the caucus's agenda and used the appearance to advocate for additional voter-registration requirements and a ban on ballot drop boxes.
During his first year in the Legislature, Gray supported legislation requiring physicians performing abortions to inform patients that they could view an ultrasound and hear a fetal heartbeat. Gray argued that the requirement would ensure that a patient's decision was informed. He subsequently supported legislation requiring physicians to report information about patients receiving abortions, including their race and marital status. Discussing abortion-related legislation in 2019, Gray said that the broader objective was to reduce the number of abortions performed in Wyoming.
Gray sponsored Wyoming's 2021 voter identification law, arguing that it was necessary to maintain confidence in the state's elections. The legislation advanced despite testimony from the Wyoming Secretary of State's office and county election clerks that voter fraud was not a problem in Wyoming. Gray later echoed disproven claims that the 2020 presidential election had been "rigged" and affected by widespread voter fraud. In 2021, he visited the site of the partisan Maricopa County election audit in Arizona and proposed giving the Wyoming Legislature authority to conduct election audits. The proposal was rejected by lawmakers.
Gray also promoted screenings of 2000 Mules, a film alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. WyoFile reported that the film made no allegations concerning Wyoming's election and noted that former U.S. Attorney General William Barr had criticized the evidence presented in the film.
Gray served on the House Revenue, Judiciary, Agriculture and Management Audit committees.
2022 congressional and Secretary of State campaigns In 2021, Gray launched a Republican primary challenge against U.S. Representative Liz Cheney following her vote to impeach President Donald Trump after the January 6 United States Capitol attack. During the campaign, a political action committee supporting Gray received its entire $100,000 in funding from Gray's father, Jan Charles Gray, and spent more than $80,000 promoting his candidacy. Gray withdrew from the race after Trump endorsed Harriet Hageman and called on the other candidates to withdraw.
Gray subsequently ran for Wyoming Secretary of State in 2022. His campaign focused heavily on claims about election fraud and the security of elections. Gray maintained that the 2020 presidential election had been "clearly rigged" against Trump and advocated banning ballot drop boxes. His principal opponent, State Senator Tara Nethercott, rejected claims that the election had been stolen, saying there was no objective evidence supporting them. Gray received Trump's endorsement shortly before the primary and defeated Nethercott with 48.3% of the vote.
Days before the primary, Gray's campaign sent unsolicited text messages to Wyoming voters accusing Nethercott of being sued for "lying and slander", being investigated for campaign-finance violations, and voting to give herself a $30,000 taxpayer-funded raise. WyoFile investigated the three allegations and reported that all were false: Nethercott was not being sued, was not under a campaign-finance investigation, and the legislation she supported would have increased the salaries of Wyoming's five statewide elected officials rather than her own salary. Gray declined to answer WyoFile's questions about the accuracy of the messages, instead accusing Nethercott of distributing false information about him.
Gray ran unopposed in the general election and was elected Secretary of State.
2026 congressional campaign On December 29, 2025, Gray launched his campaign for Congress saying that he would "advance the Trump agenda" while pledging to lower costs for Wyoming families. He entered the race to succeed Harriet Hageman, who instead sought election to the United States Senate. Affordability subsequently became a prominent theme of Gray's campaign. In an August 2026 voter guide, Gray described "the affordability of daily life" as one of Wyoming's biggest challenges and said that lowering the cost of living was "very important", attributing higher costs to government regulation, federal debt and deficit spending, and declining real wages.
Affordability was also a prominent national political theme during the 2026 campaign cycle. Democratic congressional strategists encouraged candidates to campaign on an "affordability agenda", and the Democratic National Committee organized a nationwide series of events focused on affordability and the cost of living. President Donald Trump, whom Gray has strongly supported, had meanwhile dismissed concerns about affordability as a Democratic "hoax".
Gray entered the Republican primary with substantial support from politicians aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which he had helped found. In April 2026, the Wyoming Republican Party amended its bylaws to establish a process for vetting and endorsing candidates in contested Republican primaries. In July, the party made its first primary endorsements, selecting Gray for the U.S. House along with several candidates associated with the Freedom Caucus. The endorsements were controversial because Wyoming law prohibited political parties from spending money directly or indirectly to help candidates secure their party's nomination. Republican Party chairman Brian Miller said the party would not spend money promoting its endorsed candidates, while the party challenged the restriction in federal court.