Liz Cheney braces for primary loss as focus shifts to 2024
CHEYENNE, WYO. » Three weeks before the most significant election of her political career, Liz Cheney was nowhere to be seen as thousands of voters gathered for a massive midsummer rodeo and cowboy festival in Wyoming’s largest city.
Instead, the three-term Republican congresswoman was 1,600 miles away in Washington presiding over a U.S. House committee comprised largely of Democrats intent on exposing former President Donald Trump’s attack on democracy during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. As the cowboy fest roared back home, Cheney railed against Trump’s failures.
“Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office,” she said during Thursday’s hearing.
Dean Finnerty, a rancher from Wheatland competing in the steer wrestling competition, was not moved.
“I tell you what: I voted for Cheney when she ran last time and I won’t vote for her ever again,” Finnerty said. “I don’t know if she’s representing the conservative Americans that voted her in.”
Cheney’s unrelenting criticism of Trump from a Capitol Hill committee room represents the centerpiece of an unconventional campaign strategy that may well lead to her political demise, at least in the short term. Many Cheney allies are prepared for — if not resigned to — a loss in Wyoming’s Aug. 16 Republican primary against Trumpbacked challenger Harriet Hageman.
But as primary day approaches, there is also a pervasive belief among Cheney’s team that her unorthodox strategy in 2022 may put her in a stronger position for the 2024 presidential contest. Cheney’s fierce anti-Trump message as vice chairman of the congressional committee investigating the insurrection has strengthened her national brand while expanding a national network of donors and Trump critics in both parties who could boost a prospective White House run.
Cheney has yet to finalize any decisions about 2024, but she has not ruled out a presidential run as a Republican or an independent.
“The single most important thing is protecting the nation from Donald Trump,” Cheney said in interview with ABC News that aired Friday. She said she would make a decision about a potential White House bid “down the road.”
Cheney’s supporters understand the political paradox she faces in Wyoming, the state where Trump scored his largest margin of victory, 43 points, less than two years ago.
“She knew that she was shooting herself in the foot politically (in Wyoming) and she was going to walk around with a limp for the rest of her life,” Landon Brown, a Wyoming state representative and Cheney ally, said of Cheney’s unwavering Trump criticism. “But I could see this blossoming into something larger.”
Cheney, the 55-year-old daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is perhaps the best known among a small group of socalled “Never Trump” Republicans weighing presidential bids for 2024. They include term-limited Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Cheney’s only Republican colleague on the Jan. 6 commission, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who opted not to seek reelection this fall.
Trump would likely dominate a large field of presidential primary opponents should he run again, as he has said he will. But there is also a notable group of Republican voters eager to move past Trump and his continued fight to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Still, few believe that an outspoken Trump critic could ultimately prevail in a Republican presidential primary. The vast majority of Republican voters still approve of Trump.