Best of Jackson Hole: How Voting Works & How to Win

A valley that runs on 90,000 votes and a free Guidebook, not a subscription paywall

Ninety thousand votes. That's roughly what Best of Jackson Hole pulled in 2025, across a valley whose year-round population is a small fraction of that number. More than 7,000 nominations fed the ballot before voting even opened. Those two figures alone say something most readers-choice contests can't: this one reaches well past whoever happens to be renting in Jackson that winter.

Buckrail.com runs the contest. Jackson Hole News & Guide co-runs the ballot as a participant, not a competitor, which matters because Wyoming's other major market, Casper, splits its readers-choice programs across three separate outlets that don't share a database at all. Jackson Hole's version keeps one shared ballot instead.

That gold-silver-bronze structure is worth sitting with for a second. Most statewide business ballots crown one winner and leave everyone else with nothing to say publicly. Jackson Hole names three per category, so a bronze finish in a crowded category still carries a real, citable line for a small shop competing against resort-scale chains. See the Wyoming contest hub for how this compares to the state's other fan-vote programs, including a very different one, Best of Wyoming, which runs statewide out of Casper instead of one valley.

Second-home owners and seasonal staff are voters too

Jackson doesn't behave like a typical small town online, and that's the whole reason the vote count runs this high. A meaningful chunk of the valley's economy is seasonal, ski-season staff who leave every spring, summer guides who leave every fall, plus a second-home-owner population that reads local news from Houston or Chicago most of the year and only shows up over holidays. All three groups can vote from anywhere.

The email list beats the storefront window

A downtown Jackson restaurant on Town Square gets walk-in visibility that a Wilson or Teton Village business doesn't. But foot traffic alone doesn't explain 90,000 votes in a valley this size. A business whose past guests, wedding clients, or ski-season regulars are on an email list can reach voters who never set foot in the valley that particular week, and that list often outperforms a prime location once the ballot opens.

No public split by town has been confirmed on the ballot itself, so a Wilson coffee shop and a downtown Jackson coffee shop most likely land in the same category and compete on one shared list. Category fit, not street address, decides who's actually in the running.

No archive of past cycles, so 2025 is the only number to quote

Buckrail has never posted a public record of vote totals from earlier Best of Jackson Hole cycles. That leaves the 2025 figures, roughly 90,000 votes and 7,000-plus nominations, as the only number worth quoting; a total attached to some other year on a reseller page or an old screenshot has nothing behind it on bestofjacksonhole.com and shouldn't be repeated as fact.

Before results post, a business has exactly two honest verbs available: "nominated" during the first stage, and "vote for us" once the ballot flips to voting. Neither one claims a placement Buckrail hasn't awarded yet, which matters in a 15-year-old contest where a rival down the street may already be citing a gold from three cycles back.

The nominate-then-vote structure Best of Jackson Hole runs on isn't unique to this valley; for how that two-stage mechanic plays out on ballots elsewhere, see how online contest votes work, and for the boundary between a legitimate reminder and a tactic that risks disqualification on a free readers-choice ballot like this one, see buying real votes versus fake ones.

Building a campaign around a valley, not a city

A restaurant or shop entering Best of Jackson Hole for the first time tends to underrate the nomination stage, treating it as a formality the way a single-stage local poll might allow. It isn't. Skip nominations and there's no shortlist slot to campaign for once voting opens, no matter how loyal the regular customer base.

A restaurant weighing how to pace those reminders across a multi-week window can pull specific timing ideas from the restaurant vote campaign guide, and any Jackson Hole business running a general award-style push can start from the broader award voting overview. A founder-facing outfitter or guide business, where a named principal drives most of the trust, may get more out of the business of the year campaign framework instead, since that guide leans on owner visibility rather than a storefront alone.