Former President Donald Trump’s top critic in the House of Representatives – Rep. Liz Cheney – appears poised to lose her seat when voters head to the polls in Wyoming on Tuesday.
In a final poll ahead of Republican primary day, Cheney trailed Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by 29 points — with pollsters at the University of Wyoming even factoring in Democrats and independents who may switch parties to vote for her.
Trump has thrown his full weight behind the race – vowing revenge for Cheney’s criticism, his impeachment vote and his leading role on the House Select Committee on Jan. 6.
On election night, Trump called for a tele-rally for Hageman, calling the race “one of the most critical primaries in our country’s history.”
“The whole world is watching,” said the former president.
He called Hageman – who was critical of Trump during his 2016 election and supported Senator Ted Cruz – a “person I got to know very well” and a “friend”.
Then he turned his attention to Cheney.
“This is your chance to send a message to the RINOs and the fake news media, the radical left lunatics, that unfortunately we have too many in our country and that you will vote for Harriet and you will tell the warmonger Liz Cheney – so bad, so negative – Liz, you’re fired,” Trump said.
Trump said that “few congressmen in the history of our republic have personally done more harm than Liz Cheney.”
Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman (left) appears poised to unseat Rep. Liz Cheney (right) as Wyoming voters head to the polls Tuesday to vote in the state’s Republican primary. The winner of the race will almost certainly win November’s election in the ultra-red state
Former President Donald Trump (center) held a rally for Harriet Hageman (left) in late May and called for a tele-rally for her Monday night, railing against Rep. Liz Cheney
A hand-painted sign in Casper, Wyoming opposing the re-election of Rep. Liz Cheney, the most prominent GOP Trump critic in the House of Representatives
Another anti-Liz Cheney sign appeared on a billboard outside of Cheyenne. Polls last week showed Cheney trailing 29 points in the crucial primary race
“The Democrats use them for soundbites, they like to say ‘Republican Liz Cheney,’ and then they go into these horrible anti-Republican, anti-country soundbites,” Trump said. “It was a disaster.”
“She has supported and abetted the radical Democratic Party in its wayward, lawless and dangerous witch hunt – a witch hunt that never ends,” lamented the former president.
He added that Cheney had propagated a “false” and “grotesquely false and fabricated hysterical partisan narrative” about what happened on January 6th.
Cheney is one of only two Republicans to sit on the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 — and the only one running for re-election in a political atmosphere that hasn’t been hospitable to anti-Trump GOP candidates.
The daughter of the former Republican vice president has been staunch in her criticism, saying in a campaign ad last week that her party’s acceptance of Trump’s “big lie” — his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him — was a “cancer ” be. ‘
“The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious,” she said in the video.
A sign showing support for Rep. Liz Cheney in her re-election campaign appears on a trailer in Crowheart, Wyoming, just days before the crucial primary that Cheney is expected to lose
Harriet Hageman (right) campaigns alongside Donald Trump Jr. (left) in Jackson, Wyoming in June
Harriet Hageman (center) speaks to supporters at a campaign event in early March alongside Republican Senator Rand Paul (right).
She added that the false claims are a “door opened by Donald Trump to manipulate Americans into abandoning their principles, sacrificing their liberties to justify violence, ignoring the verdicts of our courts and the rule of law.”
Cheney was asked if she is doing this to run for President.
“I’ll make a decision later for 2024,” she told CNN in late July.
Her easy campaign plan in Wyoming – allegedly due to security threats – also plays into this theory.
“Due to threats to their security, Cheney’s campaign events are never released and reporters are only occasionally alerted. Security is high and paranoia runs deep in Cheney World, probably for good reason,” wrote Mark Leibovich, author of This Town, in The Atlantic last week.
The only details a spokeswoman could give about how she will spend election night was to confirm that she intended to give a speech.
No word on whether she’ll cast her vote in person.
The House of Representatives is out of session, so members are likely in their home states.
Hageman did the more typical grabs and grins associated with winning an election.
She held a rally with Trump in late May and appeared alongside Donald Trump Jr. in June. She’s going to be holding an election night event in Cheyenne.
“You’ve been the best president in my life when it comes to addressing the regulatory burden that we’re dealing with,” she told Trump after he made comments on the call Monday night.
This particular acclaim comes from her career as a lawyer, often battling government regulations and environmentalists – earning her the nickname “the Wicked Witch of the West.” A 2009 profile of Hageman in High Country News also pointed out that the nickname stems from her habit of wearing goth-like outfits all in black.
But beyond the shaky compliment, Hageman has also embraced Trump’s election lies, which he discussed further on Monday night’s conference call, saying that Democrats don’t want voter ID laws “because they want to cheat.”
“Because they do,” Trump grumbled.
It’s a different Hageman from the 2016 version, supporting Cheney – who was running for the House for the first time – and actively working against Trump.
Hageman went to the 2016 Cleveland Republican National Convention as a delegate for Cruz and was part of a group of Republicans who wanted to “dismiss” delegates in a bid to strip Trump of the nomination.
The effort didn’t work and when The New York Times highlighted Hageman’s participation in it in September 2021, she said she was duped.
“I heard and believed the lies that Democrat friends and Liz Cheney told in the media at the time, but that’s old history as I quickly realized their allegations against President Trump were false,” she told the paper.
“He was the greatest president of my life and I am proud to be able to nominate him again in 2020. And I’m proud to strongly support him today,” added the House hopeful.