By STEVE PEOPLES and MEAD GRUVER
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican adversary in Congress, soundly misplaced a GOP major, falling to a rival backed by the previous president in a rout that strengthened his grip on the get together’s base.
The third-term congresswoman and her allies entered Tuesday downbeat about her prospects, conscious that Trump’s backing gave Harriet Hageman appreciable elevate within the state the place he received by the most important margin throughout the 2020 marketing campaign. Cheney was already waiting for a political future past Capitol Hill that would embrace a 2024 presidential run, probably placing her on one other collision course with Trump.
On Wednesday, calling Trump “a very grave threat and risk to our republic,” she instructed NBC that she thinks that defeating him would require “a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents — and that’s what I intend to be part of.” She declined to say if she would run for president however conceded it’s “something that I’m thinking about.”
Cheney described her major loss on Tuesday night time as the start of a brand new chapter in her political profession as she addressed a small assortment of supporters, together with her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, on the sting of an unlimited discipline flanked by mountains and bales of hay.
“Our work is far from over,” she mentioned, evoking Abraham Lincoln, who additionally misplaced congressional elections earlier than ascending to the presidency and preserving the union.
The major outcomes — and the roughly 30-point margin — had been a strong reminder of the GOP’s speedy shift to the best. A celebration as soon as dominated by nationwide security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like her father now belongs to Trump, animated by his populist enchantment and, above all, his denial of defeat within the 2020 election.
Such lies, which have been roundly rejected by federal and state election officers together with Trump’s personal lawyer common and judges he appointed, remodeled Cheney from an occasional critic of the previous president to the clearest voice contained in the GOP warning that he represents a menace to democratic norms. She’s the highest Republican on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, an assault she referenced in nodding to her political future.
“I have said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office — and I mean it,” she mentioned Tuesday.
Four hundred miles (645 kilometers) to the east of Cheney’s concession speech, festive Hageman supporters gathered at a sprawling outside rodeo and Western tradition competition in Cheyenne, many sporting cowboy boots, hats and blue denims.
“Obviously we’re all very grateful to President Trump, who recognizes that Wyoming has only one congressional representative and we have to make it count,” mentioned Hageman, a ranching trade lawyer who had completed third in a earlier bid for governor.
Echoing Trump’s conspiracy theories, she falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” as she courted his loyalists within the runup to the election.
Trump and his workforce celebrated Cheney’s loss, which can signify his greatest political victory in a major season stuffed with them. The former president referred to as the outcomes “a complete rebuke” of the Jan. 6 committee.
“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious 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 am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now. Thank you WYOMING!”
The information provided a welcome break from Trump’s deal with his rising authorized entanglements. Just eight days earlier, federal brokers executing a search warrant recovered 11 units of labeled data from the previous president’s Florida property.
Meanwhile in Alaska, which additionally held elections on Tuesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one other outstanding GOP critic of Trump, superior from her major. Sarah Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee and a staunch ally of Trump, was additionally sure for the November common election within the race for Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat.
But a lot of the consideration was on Cheney, whose defeat would have been unthinkable simply two years in the past. The daughter of a former vice chairman, she hails from probably the most outstanding political households in Wyoming. And in Washington, she was the No. 3 House Republican, an influential voice in GOP politics and coverage with a sterling conservative voting report.
Cheney will now be compelled from Congress on the finish of her third and ultimate time period in January. She is just not anticipated to go away Capitol Hill quietly.
She will proceed in her management position on the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 assault till it dissolves on the finish of the yr. And she is actively contemplating a 2024 White House bid — as a Republican or impartial — having vowed to do all the things in her energy to struggle Trump’s affect in her get together.
With Cheney’s loss, Republicans who voted to question Trump are going extinct.
In all, seven Republican senators and 10 Republican House members backed Trump’s impeachment within the days after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress tried to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. Just two of these 10 House members have received their primaries this yr. After two Senate retirements, Murkowski is the one such Senate Republican on this yr’s poll.
Cheney was compelled to hunt help from the state’s tiny Democratic minority in her bid to drag off a victory. But Democrats throughout America, main donors amongst them, took discover. She raised not less than $15 million for her election, a shocking determine for a Wyoming political contest.
Voters responded to the curiosity within the race. With somewhat greater than half of the vote counted, turnout ran about 50% greater than within the 2018 Republican major for governor.
If Cheney does in the end run for president — both as a Republican or an impartial — don’t anticipate her to win Wyoming’s three electoral votes.
“We like Trump. She tried to impeach Trump,” Cheyenne voter Chester Barkell mentioned of Cheney on Tuesday. “I don’t trust Liz Cheney.”
And in Jackson, Republican voter Dan Winder mentioned he felt betrayed by his congresswoman.
“Over 70% of the state of Wyoming voted Republican in the last presidential election and she turned right around and voted against us,” mentioned Winder, a resort supervisor. “She was our representative, not her own.”
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Peoples reported from New York. AP writers Thomas Peipert in Cheyenne and Jill Colvin in new York contributed.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”