 During the 2006 elections the national party conducted a fifty-state strategy under Chairman Howard Dean's leadership and invested large amounts of money in swing and red states.In 2005 the national committee started sending $10,000 per month for staff support and in 2006 it paid for field and communications directors and invested $100,000 into the party.In the 2006 House election Gary Trauner was narrowly defeated by Representative Barbara Cubin and was the closest the party had came to winning Wyoming's federal House seat since Teno Roncalio won reelection in 1976.