Cheney, a third-term Republican in Wyoming, is entering Tuesday’s primary in the Cowboy State defiantly embracing the very message that sparked the conservative backlash to oust her: Namely, that former President Trump, with his baseless claims of “stolen” elections, is an existential threat to the country’s democratic foundations and should be barred from holding future office. That argument, combined with Cheney’s national prominence, has made her both the public face of the anti-Trump movement and a pariah in the eyes of MAGA loyalists, including those in ruby-red Wyoming where the former president remains wildly popular. Some recent polls show Cheney’s opponent – a reluctance candidate named Harriet Hagman – leading by nearly 30 points. The Cheney name has been revered in Wyoming conservative circles for decades. the seat once held by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. And two years ago, the thought of him losing that position would have been laughed at by Laramie. Then came last year’s attack on Capitol Hill — an uprising aimed at overturning Trump’s election loss. Since then, Cheney has pursued the 45th president with crusading zeal, becoming one of only 10 House Republicans to support Trump’s second impeachment, which found him responsible for inciting the rebellion, and then joining the January 6 select committee. which explores exasperation. It was then, political experts say, that Cheney decided that fighting Trump and his campaign lies was more important than keeping her job in Congress. “It’s almost certainly toast,” said David Barker, a political scientist at American University. “I guess he knew the second he decided to actually join the January 6 committee and go after the president that way.” “He wasn’t just a passive member of the committee,” Barker added. “It’s really leading the class and doing it in the most challenging and high-profile ways.” Indeed, Cheney, as vice chairman of the select committee, has been the most visible figure in the eight public hearings the committee has held this summer. And heading into the final stretch of a doomed fourth-term campaign, Cheney isn’t shying away from the anti-Trump sentiment that has put her in hot water with Wyoming voters. It enhances it. “America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious — it preys on those who love their country,” Cheney said in a video released Thursday. “It is a door that Donald Trump has opened to manipulate Americans into abandoning their principles, sacrificing their freedom, justifying violence, ignoring the decisions of our courts and the rule of law. “This is Donald Trump’s legacy, but it cannot be our nation’s future.” Cheney is 56, and her own legacy — along with her political future — remains uncertain. But this much is clear: She has also bet on the idea that by challenging the most popular figure in her own party, she can prevent him from becoming president again. In this campaign, she’s essentially arguing that the GOP needs saving from itself — and she’ll either be the one to do it, or she’ll come down hard. “She faced a binary choice between doing what she thought was right and necessary, after January 6, and continuing her political career in the Republican Party,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “And unlike most politicians, he made a clean and honest choice. And she’s obviously ready to take the consequences.” In a last-ditch effort to gain ground in Tuesday’s primary contest, Cheney last week posted a public endorsement of her father. Appearing in a cowboy hat and questioning Trump’s masculinity, Dick Cheney called the former president a “coward” who “tried to steal the last election using lies and violence.” “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been a person who poses a greater threat to our democracy than Donald Trump,” the thin ad says. Still, 70 percent of Wyoming voters chose Trump in 2020 — the highest number of any state in the country. And even the pleas of a state institution like Dick Cheney aren’t expected to save his daughter in Tuesday’s race. Experts say the simple reason is that the GOP, as old-guard brokers like Dick Cheney knew it, no longer exists. “Donald Trump has executed a hostile and irreversible takeover of the Republican Party,” Galston said. “The Reagan party that captivated so many middle-aged or even elderly Republican conservatives in the 1980s and 90s is gone. He’s not coming back.” Cheney is not alone among GOP lawmakers suffering politically for publicly clashing with Trump over the Jan. 6 attack. Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year, only two are in line to return to the next Congress. Four others are retiring, while three others lost their primaries to Trump-backed conservatives who supported his false campaign claims. Cheney, out of 10, is the last outstanding race and the result looks certain. “Yes, he won — in the short term at least,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the retirees backing the impeachment, admitted to WGN-TV in Chicago last week. “There’s no point in pretending that I won some major victory and saved the party.” To Trump’s allies, the former president remains a heroic figure — the single most electrifying force in the GOP that launched the populist movement that ousted Hillary Clinton and continues to fuel expectations that Republicans will wrest control of the House in his midterm elections. November. In this light, Cheney, Kinzinger and other Trump critics are seen as renegades in the larger cause of winning power. In February, the Republican National Committee took the remarkable step of voting to censure both Cheney and Kinzinger for their involvement in the January 6 investigation. It said the two were “participating in a Democrat-led prosecution of ordinary citizens engaging in legitimate political speech.” Cheney’s possible defeat on Tuesday has raised much speculation about possible next steps, including the possibility of her running for president alone in 2024 — an idea she has not ruled out. But her success in such a contest will depend squarely on the collapse of Trump’s popularity within the party, which is likely to last, some experts said, longer than Cheney would prefer. The Hill’s Morning Report — Trump seeks big wins today against Cheney, Murkowski Trump surprises some Republicans with endorsements “My feeling is that if it is [her plan], it’s going to be a long wait,” Galston said. “I don’t think Donald Trump supporters will ever forgive her, nor do I think they will go away. “Where else would they go?” Caroline Vakil contributed.
