Today is “certainly the beginning of a battle that will continue. And as a country, we’re facing a moment where our democracy is really under attack and threatened,” Cheney told CBS News’ Robert Costa shortly. after he had voted in Jackson, Wyo.
“I feel very proud of all the work I’ve done with the people of Wyoming over the past six years, and I truly understand and recognize that there is nothing more important than defending our Constitution,” she said.
The Cheneys appear in the exclusive [email protected] pic.twitter.com/EY3qj1cLoE
— Robert Costa (@costareports) August 16, 2022
Former President Donald Trump supports Hageman and has been heavily involved in the drive against Cheney since he voted to impeach him after the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. After the attack, her high-profile rebuke of Trump and his allies — and her leading role in the Jan. 6 House Select Committee — heightened that animosity.
“Liz Cheney helped the radical Democratic 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 false narrative promoted by Liz Cheney was the radical left’s pretext for total war on free speech. The January 6th persecution of political prisoners.”
Hageman is a Wyoming native and longtime attorney who prides herself on her cases fighting against environmental regulations.
Hageman has previously made anti-Trump comments and endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president in the 2016 Republican primary. He finished third in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary and has previously endorsed Cheney and he called her a friend. But she feels Cheney “betrayed Wyoming” through her impeachment vote.
Hageman’s anti-Trump comments in 2016 did not prevent her from receiving Trump’s endorsement on September 9, 2021.
His presence in the primary led to a hard-line turn against Cheney by the Wyoming Republican Party, which has criticized and disowned Cheney, a symbolic measure. Nationally, the Republican National Committee took similar action against Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who also voted to impeach Trump and joined the House committee on Jan. 6.
Seven of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump will not return to Congress. Four have withdrawn: Kinzinger, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, John Katko of New York and Fred Upton of Michigan, and three have lost their primaries: Tom Rice of South Carolina, Peter Major of Michigan and Jamie Herrera-Beitler of Washington.
Two advanced to the November general election: David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington.
The former president’s dislike of Cheney also turned the House Republican leadership and turned House Republicans against her. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who helped lead the effort to oust Cheney from her role as House GOP leader. The House Republican conference usually supports incumbents, but it took the unusual step of refusing to endorse Cheney, instead endorsing Hageman and even holding a fundraiser for her this spring with more than 50 House Republicans in attendance.
Longtime Wyoming GOP activist April Poley, who worked with another candidate in the primary, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, said she wished Trump had “kept his nose out of the Wyoming race.” .
“We didn’t need him to come in here and tell everybody how to vote. To get to the point where if you don’t vote the way he tells you, then you kind of feel disloyal to him,” Polley said.
While Hageman has acknowledged support from Trump and McCarthy, her final campaign ad argued that the race is not just about them — nor is it just about Cheney.
“Our current representative isn’t even from Wyoming and he doesn’t represent our interests. And I’m here because I want to be accountable to you to address the issues that are important to you,” Hageman said at a Republican Women’s event in Natrona County in August. 3. He said at the same event that he believed the 2020 election was “fixed.”
A poll by the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center at the University of Wyoming found that 48.6 percent of likely GOP voters believe there is “substantial evidence” of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
In 2020, Cheney and Trump received just under 70% of the vote. Multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election have failed in court, and there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud that changed the election 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 took aim at her primary opponents who cast doubt on 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 was a “threat” to the country. He said Trump “tried to steal the last election by using lies and violence to stay in power after the voters rejected him.”
In her latest 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 traffics those who love their country. It’s 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.”
“I don’t think she’s ever changed. I think her perception has changed,” said Polley, who added that she never voted for Cheney.
Cheney has the fundraising advantage over Hageman, with over $15.1 million raised this cycle compared to Hageman’s $4.1 million. But spending by pro-Hageman groups such as the Wyoming Values PAC and the Club for Growth Action has kept pace with Cheney’s ad spending, according to data from AdImpact.
But while independent and internal polls have shown Hageman with a close to 30-point lead over Cheney, some say the result could be tighter than expected.
“I would expect him to get maybe 30% of the vote, maybe that’s an understatement, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Polley said.
Cheney took nearly 40 percent in her initial primary for the seat in 2016, when there were nine other Republicans on the ballot. There are five other candidates on the ballot this election, though Cheney and Hageman were the only ones consistently in double digits.
University of Wyoming professor Andrew Garner warned that polls in the state show an unpredictable race, in part because of Wyoming’s law that allows voters to switch parties on primary election day.
Garner and others say the quirk in state law hasn’t drastically affected primary outcomes in Wyoming in the past, but it was a law Trump and other Wyoming Republicans unsuccessfully pushed to change.
“Statewide contests are already difficult to poll accurately. Small-state primaries are even more difficult,” Garner said. “A lot depends heavily on how many Democrats turn out to vote for Cheney. If only a few turn out, Hageman will likely win by a huge margin. If more Democrats turn out than expected, the margins would be closer.”
Cheney’s campaign and other organizations have flagged this as an opportunity for Democrats and other non-Republican registered voters to switch parties and vote for her.
And it seems to work. According to Wyoming’s January and August voter registration numbers, there was an increase in registered Republicans by 11,495 voters and a decrease in registered Democrats by about 6,000 voters. That’s at a significantly higher rate of change compared to other midterm elections, according to the Casper-Star Tribune.
The number of registered voters as “unaffiliated” decreased by about 1,575, while the total number of registered voters increased by about 4,000.
Cheney, who had to have security with her after several death threats, has held several small, intimate campaign events at parties in the final weeks of the race.
Republican Natronal County Commissioner Joseph McGinley, a Cheney supporter, said the congresswoman didn’t actually mention Trump or the Jan. 6 committee during an event she hosted in Casper in July.
“If people ask, she’ll talk about Trump. And she’ll talk about the committee, but she doesn’t bury that in her speech,” McGinley said.
McGinley said while he doesn’t believe the polls that show Hageman is big and that he thinks the state’s more populous and moderate areas will turn out for Cheney, he acknowledged it’s a tough race for the congresswoman of the quarter.
“Her challenger is backed by Trump, [she] he gets a ton of support from the extremists within our state. [Hageman] he’s had a solid campaign here,” he said. “But again – looking at the number of crossover votes, this is different from previous elections.”
Cheney, whose national profile has risen throughout her crusade against the former president, has not closed the door on a presidential run in 2024. While some anti-Trump Republicans have acknowledged there is a path open for a Republican like Cheney in 2024, she was only measured at 2% in a recent Morning Consult poll of the 2024 primaries.
“I think it’s too early to know how the 2024 primaries will play out,” Garner said. “It might sound like a cop-out, but think about how much the political environment has changed in the last couple of months. Two years from now? It could be completely different in ways that no one can…
