Liz Cheney may lose Wyoming primary but says it’s the “beginning of a battle” that will go on

Tuesday’s Wyoming congressional primary may end Rep. Liz Cheney’s career in Congress, with the expectation by pollsters and strategists that she will be beaten by challenger Harriet Hageman, but she suggested she’s just getting started. Today is “certainly the beginning of a battle that is going to continue to go on. And as a country, we’re facing a moment where our democracy really is under attack and under threat,” Cheney told CBS News’ Robert Costa, soon after she had voted in Jackson, Wyo. “I feel very proud about all the work I’ve done together with the important people of Wyoming over the last six years and really understand and recognize there’s nothing more than the defense of our Constitution,” she said.

Former President Donald Trump backs Hageman and has been heavily involved in the effort against Cheney since she voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Since the attack, her high-profile rebuke of Trump and his allies β€” and her leadership role on the House Jan. 6 select committee β€” has only strengthen that animosity. “Liz Cheney has helped the radical Democrat party weaponize the national security state and law enforcement against MAGA and MAGA supporters, who are hard working and incredible people,” Trump said at a rally in Casper, Wyo., in May. “The phony narrative that Liz Cheney is pushing has been the radical left’s pretext for their all-out war on free speech. The persecution of the Jan. 6 political prisoners.” Hageman is a Wyoming native and longtime attorney who prides herself on her cases fighting against environmental regulations. In the past, Hageman made anti-Trump comments and supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president in the 2016 Republican primary. She placed third in the GOP primary for governor in 2018, and has previously supported Cheney and called her a friend. But she feels that Cheney “betrayed Wyoming” through her impeachment vote. Hageman’s anti-Trump comments in 2016 didn’t stop her from getting Trump’s endorsements on Sep. 9, 2021.

His presence in the primary has driven a hard shift against Cheney from the Wyoming Republican Party, which has censured and disavowed Cheney, a symbolic measure. On a national level, the Republican National Committee took a similar action against Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who also voted to impeach Trump and joined the House Jan. 6 committees. Seven of the House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment will not be returning to Congress. Four have retired: Kinzinger, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, John Katko of New York and Fred Upton of Michigan, and three lost their primaries: Tom Rice of South Carolina, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jamie Herrera-Beutler of Washington. Two advanced to the November general election: David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington. The former president’s antipathy towards Cheney also turned House Republican leadership and rank and file House Republicans against her. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who helped lead the effort to out Cheney from her role in House GOP leadership. The House Republican conference usually supports incumbents but took the unusual step of declining to support Cheney, instead held backing Hageman and even held a fundraiser for her this spring with over 50 House Republicans in attendance. Longtime Wyoming GOP activist April Poley, who worked with another primary candidate, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, said that she wishes Trump “would have kept his nose out of Wyoming’s race.” “We didn’t need him to come in here and tell everybody how to vote. To make it to where if you don’t vote like he tells you to then you somehow feel disloyal to him,” Poley said. While Hageman has acknowledged the support from Trump and McCarthy, her closing campaign ad the race is not all about them – nor is it about Cheney alone. “Our current representative is neither from Wyoming and is not represented in our interests. And I am here because I want to be accountable to you to address the issues that are important to you,” Hageman said at a Natrona County Republican Women event on Aug . 3.

She said at that same event that she believed the 2020 election was “rigged.” A poll by the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center at the University of Wyoming found that 48.6% of likely GOP primary voters believe there was “solid evidence” of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. In 2020, Cheney and Trump both received just under 70% of the vote. Multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 have failed in court, and there has been no credible evidence of election fraud that changed the results. Cheney has not shied away from her role on the committee or her fight against Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen in her campaign ads. In one ad, she focused on her primary opponents showing doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election during a debate. In another, her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who represented the state for 10 years in Congress, addressed the camera directly and said Trump is a “threat” to the country. He said Trump “tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters rejected him.” In her closing message, Liz Cheney made it clear that her focus remains squarely on Trump: “The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.” “I don’t think she’s ever changed. I think the perception of her changed,” said Poley, who added that she’s never voted for Cheney.

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