Liz Cheney, the ‘anti-Trump’ Republican, loses the primaries for Congress in Wyoming

Liz Cheney’s defeat in the congressional primaries demonstrates the strong influence that Donald Trump still wields in the Republican Party.

The congresswoman, one of the former president’s biggest critics within her own political movement, lost the elections in her state to Harriet Hageman, the candidate backed by the former president, in an election to decide the only conservative member from Wyoming in the House of Representatives. Representatives.

Hageman won with 66.3% of the vote, compared to 28.9% for Cheney, according to the firm Edison Research. A resounding victory of more than 30 points for the woman who has echoed Trump’s false claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The fall of the legislator, who has held her seat in the Lower House since 2016, also marks the end of a political tradition. For the first time in 45 years, a member of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s family loses an election. And behind his defeat he recognizes that there is a clear culprit.

“Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. He could easily have done the same thing over again. The path was clear, but that would have required him to accept President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election,” Cheney said in admitting his results, which in turn mark a symbolic victory for the controversial former head of state.

Cheney’s departure from the next legislature would have been unthinkable just two years ago. Daughter of the former vice president of the George W. Bush Administration and a member of one of the most prominent political families in Wyoming, she was the number 3 Republican in the House of Representatives in Washington. She is an influential voice in Republican Party politics and leadership with an excellent conservative voting record.

But his direct confrontation with Trump takes its toll and he claims not to regret it.

“No House seat, no office in this country is more important than the principles we are all sworn to uphold. And I well understood the possible political consequences of doing my duty, ”he added in his speech, on the night of Tuesday, August 16, after hearing the results.

Cheney is as conservative as Trump, but after the false allegations of fraud in the elections two years ago in which Joe Biden won and the unprecedented assault on Capitol Hill by a mob of supporters of the then president, he became one of his strongest opponents.

The representative, who must leave her seat in January 2023, leads the Committee in the House of Representatives that investigates the former president for the January 6, 2021 assault on the heart of American democracy. An unprecedented case after which Trump became the only president to be twice subjected to a impeachmentalthough it came out unscathed.

Cheney targets the 2024 presidential election

Cheney will leave his current position, but he does not foresee a silent role in US politics, much less his retirement.

He will continue his role on the investigative panel into the attack on Capitol Hill and is also eyeing a possible candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, either as a Republican or an independent, after promising to do everything in his power to fight Trump’s influence. in your party.

“I have said since January 6 that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is nowhere near the Oval Office again, and I mean that,” he said to applause from supporters.

Cheney described his defeat as the beginning of a new chapter in his political career as he addressed a small group of supporters, including his father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“Our work is far from over,” he said, evoking former President Abraham Lincoln, who also lost congressional elections before ascending to the presidency.

The path will not be easy. Not at least to obtain the three electoral votes that Wyoming grants, given the notorious influence of Trump in the followers of the conservative party.

“We like Trump. She tried to impeach Trump (…) I don’t trust Liz Cheney,” said voter Chester Barkell, in Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming.

In the town of Jackson, in the same state, Republican voter Dan Winder claimed to feel “betrayed” by his congressman.

“More than 70% of the state of Wyoming voted Republican in the last presidential election and she turned around and voted against (…) She was our representative, not herself,” he said.

Donald Trump’s revenge

Cheney’s ouster is the latest sign of Trump’s enduring dominance of the GOP, but there is more.

With the loss of Cheney, the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are dying out.

In all, seven Republican senators and 10 conservative House representatives backed impeachment against the former president in the days after the storming of Congress as lawmakers tried to certify Biden’s victory.

Only two of those 10 members of the House of Representatives won the primaries this year.

After two withdrawals from the Senate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only Senate Republican on this year’s ticket.

Cheney’s defeat offers Trump relief amid his mounting legal entanglements. Just a week ago, federal agents executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence recovered 11 boxes of classified documents.

Meanwhile, Republican leaders are expected to dissolve the case against the former president for the assault on January 6, 2021, if they win control of the lower house in the midterm elections next November. Representatives in the new Congress will take their seats in January.

For now, the GOP primary results are a powerful reminder of the conservative movement’s rapid swing to the extreme right.

A party once dominated by pro-business, national-security-oriented conservatives like Dick Cheney now leans more toward Trump, buoyed by his populist appeal and, above all, by his denial of defeat in the election. of 2020.

With Reuters, AP and local media