World News | Trump foe Liz Cheney defeated in Wyoming GOP primary

CHEYENNE (U.S.), Aug. 17 (AP) — Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican opponent in Congress, was defeated in the Republican primary on Tuesday, in a campaign that strengthened his The race for control of Trump has fallen to rivals backed by the former president. Party base.

The third-term congresswoman and her allies are pessimistic about her prospects as they realize that Trump’s support gives Harriet Hagerman a sizable chunk of the state that Harriet Hagerman won by the most margins during the 2020 campaign. improvement. Cheney is already looking ahead to her political future beyond Capitol Hill, which could include a 2024 presidential race that could bring her into another conflict with Trump.

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Cheney described her loss as the beginning of a new chapter in her political career, when she addressed a small group of supporters, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as she stood in a field surrounded by mountains and The edge of a vast field surrounded by bales of hay.

“Our work is far from over,” she said.

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400 miles east, festive Hagman supporters, many in cowboy boots, hats and blue jeans, gathered for a massive outdoor rodeo and festival of western culture in Cheyenne.

The results are a powerful reminder of the GOP’s quick turn to the right. A party once dominated by national security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like Dick Cheney now belongs to Trump, whose populist appeal and, most importantly, his denial of losing the 2020 election, It energizes him.

Those lies, which were outright rejected by federal and state election officials, as well as by Trump’s own attorney general and the judges he appointed, turned Cheney from an occasional critic of the former president to the clearest voice within the Republican Party warning him of a threat to democratic norms.

Just two years ago, Cheney’s failure was unthinkable. The daughter of the former vice president, she comes from one of Wyoming’s most prominent political families. In Washington, she is the third Republican in the House, an influential voice in Republican politics and policy, and has an excellent conservative voting record.

But after a group of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Cheney voted to impeach Trump and will make ensuring he no longer serves in the Oval Office as her top priority. She pushed for rebukes and death threats from the GOP to lead a congressional panel investigating Trump’s role in the uprising.

Cheney will now be forced to leave Congress at the end of his third and final term in January. She is not expected to leave Capitol Hill quietly.

She will continue to lead the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 attacks until it disbands at the end of the year. She is actively considering a 2024 bid for the White House — as a Republican or an independent — vowing to do everything in her power to fight Trump’s influence in her party.

So far, it’s been a one-sided fight.

Tuesday’s primary in Wyoming and to a lesser extent in Alaska showcased Trump’s enduring strength and his brand of tough politics ahead of November’s midterm elections. So far, the former president has helped install loyalists who have parroted his conspiracy theories in election races from Pennsylvania to Arizona. Echoing Trump, ranch industry lawyer Hageman falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.”

In Alaska, another Trump ally, former Gov. Sarah Palin, is also hoping to be in the national spotlight on Tuesday.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee actually voted twice: one to complete former Rep. Don Young’s term in a special election and another for a two-year term in the House of Representatives that began in January.

On the other side of the Republican tent, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a regular Trump critic, has a chance at surviving the former president’s wrath, even after his second The same was true after he was voted guilty in an impeachment trial. Alaska’s top four Senate candidates, regardless of party affiliation, advance to November’s general election, where voters will rank them in order of preference.

With Cheney’s defeat, the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are going extinct.

In total, seven Republican senators and 10 Republican House members supported impeachment in the days after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress tried to prove President Joe Biden’s victory. This year, only two of those 10 House members won the primary. After two Senate retirements, Murkowski remains the only such Senate Republican on the ballot this year.

In Wyoming, Cheney was forced to seek help from the state’s minority Democrats. But Democrats across the U.S., among them major donors, are taking note. She raised at least $15 million for her election, a staggering number for a Wyoming political campaign.

But the makeup of Wyoming’s Republican electorate is simply too difficult to overcome. As of August 1, 2022, Wyoming had 285,000 registered voters, including 40,000 Democrats and 208,000 Republicans. Trump won nearly 70 percent of the vote in 2016 and 2020.

If Cheney ends up running for president as a Republican or an independent, don’t expect her to win Wyoming’s three electoral votes.

“We love Trump. She’s trying to impeach Trump,” Cheyenne voter Chester Buckle said of Cheney on Tuesday. “I don’t trust Liz Cheney.”

In Jackson, Republican voter Dan Wind said he felt betrayed by his congresswoman.

“In the last presidential election, more than 70 percent of Wyoming voted Republican, and she turned and voted no,” said Winder, the hotel manager. “She is our representative, not her own.”

There is no indication that the FBI’s recent raid on Trump’s Florida estate played any role in Tuesday’s election.

Just eight days ago, the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified records from Trump’s home. Some are marked as “sensitive segregated information,” a special category designed to protect the nation’s most important secrets. Republicans across the country initially backed the former president, although the reaction became a little more mixed as more details emerged.

Anti-Trump Republicans across the country cheered Cheney’s willingness to challenge Trump, even as they expressed disappointment in her loss.

“It’s worth noting that she never wavered in the face of almost certain failure,” said Sarah Longwell, executive director of the Republican Accountability Project. “We’ve been watching an American nation being shaped. It’s interesting how small this election — the Wyoming one — feels — because she feels bigger now than she does.” (The Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)