The third-term congresswoman and her allies were downbeat Tuesday about her prospects, knowing that Trump’s endorsement gave Harriet Hagman a significant boost in the state she won by the largest margin during the 2020 campaign. Cheney was already looking ahead to a political future beyond Capitol Hill, which could include a 2024 presidential run, potentially setting her on another collision course with Trump. On Wednesday, calling Trump “a very serious threat and danger to our democracy,” she told NBC that she believes defeating him will require “a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents — and that’s what I intend to be a part of.” » He declined to say whether he will run for president, but admitted it is “something I’m thinking about.” Cheney described her primary loss Tuesday night as the start of a new chapter in her political career as she addressed a small gathering of supporters, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, at the edge of a vast field flanked by mountains and football fields. . of hay. “Our work is far from done,” he said, referring to Abraham Lincoln, who also lost an election to Congress before rising to the presidency and preserving the union. The primary results — and the roughly 30-point margin — were a stark reminder of the GOP’s rapid shift to the right. A party once dominated by national security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like her father now belongs to Trump, buoyed by his populist appeal and, above all, by his denial of defeat in the 2020 election. Such lies, which have been rejected by federal and state election officials along with Trump’s attorney general and judges he has appointed, have turned Cheney from an occasional critic of the former president to the clearest voice within the GOP warning that he represents a threat to the Democratic rules. She is the top Republican on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, an attack she referred to as a nod to her political future. “I’ve said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never near the Oval Office again — and I mean it,” he said Tuesday. Four hundred miles (645 kilometers) east of Cheney’s concession speech, celebratory Hageman supporters gathered at a huge outdoor rodeo and western culture festival in Cheyenne, many wearing cowboy boots, hats and blue jeans. “Obviously we’re all very grateful to President Trump recognizing that Wyoming only has one congressional representative and we have to make it count,” said Hageman, a farm attorney who finished third in a previous run for governor. Echoing Trump’s conspiracy theories, he falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” as he panders to his campaigners. Trump and his team celebrated Cheney’s defeat, which may represent his biggest political victory in a season full of them. The former president called the results “a complete rebuke” of the January 6 panel. “Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted and her vicious, mean-spirited words and actions towards others,” he wrote on his social media platform. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I’m sure, she will be much happier than she is now. Thanks WYOMING!” The news provided a welcome break from Trump’s focus on his growing legal entanglements. Just eight days earlier, federal agents executing a search warrant discovered 11 sets of classified files from the former president’s Florida estate. Meanwhile, in Alaska, which also held an election Tuesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, another prominent GOP critic of Trump, advanced from her primary. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee and staunch Trump ally, was also bound for November’s general election in the race for Alaska’s only U.S. House seat. But most of the attention was on Cheney, whose defeat would have been unthinkable just two years ago. The daughter of a former vice president, she comes from one of the most prominent political families in Wyoming. And in Washington, she was the No. 3 House Republican, an influential voice in GOP politics and policy with an outstanding conservative voting record. Cheney will now be forced to leave Congress at the end of her third and final term in January. He is not expected to leave Capitol Hill quietly. She will continue her leadership role on the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack until it disbands at the end of the year. And she is actively considering a 2024 White House run — as a Republican or an independent — having vowed to do everything in her power to fight Trump’s influence in her party. With Cheney’s defeat, the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump disappear. In all, seven Republican senators and 10 Republican members of the House backed Trump’s impeachment in the days after his supporters stormed the US Capitol as Congress tried to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. Just two of those 10 House members won their primaries this year. After two Senate exits, Murkowski is the only such Senate Republican on this year’s ballot. Cheney was forced to enlist the help of the state’s tiny Democratic minority in her bid for a victory. But Democrats across America, including major donors, took note. She raised at least $15 million for her election, a staggering figure for a Wyoming political contest. Voters responded to interest in the race. With just over half the votes counted, turnout was about 50 percent higher than in the 2018 Republican primary for governor. If Cheney ends up running for president — either as a Republican or as an independent — don’t expect her to win Wyoming’s three electoral votes. “We like Trump. He tried to impeach Trump,” Cheyenne constituent Chester Barkel said of Cheney on Tuesday. “I don’t trust Liz Cheney.” And in Jackson, Republican constituent Dan Winter said he felt betrayed by his congresswoman. “Over 70 percent of the state of Wyoming voted Republican in the last presidential election and she turned right and voted against us,” said Winter, a hotel manager. “He was our representative, not hers.”
People reported from New York. AP writers Thomas Peipert in Cheyenne and Jill Colvin in New York contributed.
