WyoFile’s 2026 Election Guide claims to help Wyoming voters make informed decisions about candidates seeking public office. But its profile of Republican Senate District 15 candidate Tina Johnson contained biographical information and political answers that Johnson says she never provided—and which plainly describe someone else. What is unclear is how long the false profile had been on the website.
The Open Range Record sent the editor of Wyofile a request for comment Saturday Aug 1 at 10:41am. By the 2:00pm deadline given, Wyofile had not responded. They did, however, by 12:41pm, edit the profile of their website with a one-sentence explanation. The obvious problem is that voters would have to return to Wyofile’s Tina Johnson profile to find the correction.
According to Johnson, she never completed or returned a questionnaire to WyoFile. Nevertheless, WyoFile’s Tina Johnson profile published nine detailed responses under her name. The page claims the answers were solicited through a written questionnaire and are being presented “exactly as submitted.” According to Johnson, that is “absolutely not true.”
The profile said Johnson is 74 years old. She is actually 56. It says she lives in “the North Cheyenne area” and has lived in the same house for 26 years. Johnson is not from Cheyenne. She lives in Evanston and has spent most of her life in Uinta County. This is more than a minor geographical error. Cheyenne and Evanston are located on opposite sides of Wyoming and are approximately 350 miles apart. A pdf of Wyofile’s original “Tina Johnson” profile can be found here.
The Wyoming Secretary of State’s official candidate roster lists Johnson as an Evanston resident running in Senate District 15. The district represents Uinta County—not Cheyenne.
Answers Johnson Never Wrote
The false information did not end with Johnson’s age and hometown. The WyoFile profile attributes an extensive biography to her, claiming she is a retired general contractor who helped build southeastern Wyoming. It says she attended Colorado State University in 1973, is married to someone named Christine, and has five children and nine grandchildren.
Of the false profile, Tina Johnson told The Open Range Record,
"When I did not respond to [the] Wyofile voter guide, somehow they created a voter profile for me. I do not live in Cheyenne Wyoming, nor have I ever. The entire survey, while the answers to some of the questions are quite good, not a single one of them was answered by me. I have lived in Uinta County most of my life, I am 56 years old. The work experience is not mine. My husbands name is Jim, not Christine."The attributed responses also repeatedly speak from the perspective of an incumbent legislator. One answer states that the supposed candidate voted for higher teacher pay “in both of the last two sessions.” Another claims she voted for government transparency “at every opportunity.” Johnson is not an incumbent state legislator; she has never cast a single vote.
That contradiction should have immediately alerted anyone reviewing the guide that the responses did not belong to Tina Johnson. A basic comparison with the official candidate roster would also have shown that a Senate District 15 candidate from Evanston wouldn’t have submitted a biography centered on living in North Cheyenne and building projects throughout southeastern Wyoming.
WyoFile’s Own Disclaimer Makes the Problem Worse
WyoFile tells readers:
“The answers below were solicited from candidates via a written questionnaire created by WyoFile reporters and editors in June 2026.” It further says responses are presented “exactly as submitted” and that legislative candidates were contacted several times by email and telephone.
Evidently, Wyofile's fact-checking did not extend to their own work either. For Johnson, neither of those claims are true. WyoFile did not publish her unedited responses because she never responded. It published somebody else’s answers under her name while telling voters that they came directly from her.
The webpage’s underlying data provides additional evidence of a serious mistake. Johnson’s entry is marked as having no responses and no photograph, yet a complete set of detailed questionnaire answers appeared under her name. While this may be some sort of database issue, it is not a harmless error or typo.
This doesn’t mean that a WyoFile employee intentionally invented the statements. It does mean, however, that WyoFile published statements falsely attributed to Johnson without performing even basic verification. When questioned, they wiped the website and placed a one sentence correction on the same page.
Not a Harmless Error
Publishing the wrong age might be dismissed as careless data entry. Publishing the wrong hometown might be blamed on confusing candidates with similar names. Publishing an entire fictional biography and nine political answers under a candidate’s name is something much more serious.
Candidate questionnaires allow voters to compare positions on healthcare, public lands, property taxes, economic development and campaign finance. The answers influence how people vote. When a news organization publishes positions a candidate never expressed, it interferes with voters’ ability to make an informed choice. The false profile could almost certainly damage Johnson politically.
A Uinta County voter reading that Johnson lives in North Cheyenne could conclude that she has no connection to the district she wants to represent. A voter reading that she is 74 might make assumptions about her experience, energy, or ability to serve. Others could support or reject her because of policy statements she never made.
None of those voter decisions would be based on Tina Johnson. They would be based on a person WyoFile placed behind Tina Johnson’s name.
Furthermore, The Open Range Record reviewed Wyofile's website prior to publication of this article. The only notice of the error appears on Tina Johnson's now blank profile.
The Most Basic Facts Are Publicly Available
WyoFile did not need an investigative team to discover the problem. The Secretary of State’s roster identifies Johnson as a Republican candidate for Senate District 15 and gives her Evanston address. Uinta County’s own election records also list Tina Johnson at an Evanston address. An AARP Wyoming voter guide identifies her as a candidate in the Uinta County district.
Local reporting also places Johnson at an Evanston candidate forum and describes her employment background as including customer service, bookkeeping, accounting and management—not a decades-long career building southeastern Wyoming as a general contractor.
Even without contacting Johnson, those public records should have raised immediate questions about a supposed North Cheyenne biography. A simple confirmation email asking, “Are these your answers?” would likely have prevented the publication.
WyoFile Owes Johnson and Voters a Correction
Once alerted to the completely wrong website post, WyoFile did remove the false responses. But they should immediately issue a retraction and publish it prominently on their website.
Quietly changing the page is not sufficient. The profile has already been made available to voters during an active primary election. Anyone who previously read or shared it deserves to know that the information wasn’t only wrong, it wasn’t even about the same person.
WyoFile should publicly answer several questions:
- How did another person’s biography and political positions become attached to Johnson’s profile?
- Why was the discrepancy between Cheyenne and Senate District 15 not noticed?
- Why did no editor question answers claiming that a non-incumbent had cast legislative votes?
- Were Johnson’s contact details used before the guide was published?
- Have other candidate profiles been checked for similar errors?
These are not partisan questions. Every candidate, regardless of party or political philosophy, deserves to have his or her identity and positions reported accurately.
Journalism Requires Verification
WyoFile frequently presents itself as a news organization committed to accountability. That standard must apply to WyoFile itself.
The profile was so obviously inconsistent that even a minimal editorial review should have caught it.
Tina Johnson is 56, not 74. She is an Evanston resident with deep roots in Uinta County, not a North Cheyenne contractor. Most importantly, the words WyoFile placed beneath her name are not hers.
Wyoming voters deserve candidate information that is accurate. Tina Johnson deserves a prominent front-page correction. And WyoFile owes the public an explanation for how an election guide supposedly designed to inform voters instead published a candidate profile that was, in every meaningful respect, about someone else.