After defeating her old ally Liz Cheney in Wyoming’s Republican primary, Trump-backed House candidate Harriet Hageman addressed her supporters in Cheyenne on Tuesday night. “Today, Wyoming has spoken,” she said.
She described her victory as an attempt to “dislodge entrenched politicians” from the “uni-party” in Washington, D.C.—those Democrats and Republicans who don’t really care whether party is in power, as long as they are.
Hageman said that Wyoming had “put the elites on notice” and that if you wanted to represent the Cowboy State, “you darn well better live in Wyoming.”
Cheney made similarities to Abraham Lincoln, who lost many elections before gaining the presidency, in her concession address only moments before, suggesting that she may run for president in the future.
Lincoln lost the Senate and House elections before winning the presidential election, according to Cheney.
Cheney mentioned how she had won her primary by 73 points two years before.
The trail was open, so I could have done it again with ease, she remarked.
She said that all she had to do was promote former President Donald Trump’s false claims about election fraud and support his assaults on the democratic system.
Cheney said, “That is a road I could not and would not follow.” Cheney cautioned, “This is not a game.” Everyone of us ought to dedicate ourselves to the ongoing protection of this amazing experiment known as America, she continued.
Cheney was former President Donald Trump’s top target for 2022, and he delighted in her defeat. The former president praised the outcome, calling it “a magnificent conclusion for America and a total repudiation of the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs.”
The president said, “Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she behaved, and her hateful, sanctimonious comments and actions against others.” She may finally go into political obscurity, where I’m sure she’ll be much happy than she is now.
I’m grateful to Wyoming. Trump continued. Early reports from the very red state made it quite clear that Cheney was doomed.
She fell behind Hageman at first by nine points, then by 25. Cheney was as much 30 points behind Hageman when NBC News and other media began calling the race for Hageman.
At the beginning of her address, Cheney told her supporters that she had contacted Hageman to concede the election, emphasising the point that accepting election results “honourably” is a key component of American democracy.
She said, “This primary election is done.” But now the hard work starts.
We need to have a very clear understanding of the danger we are up against, she said. Additionally, she said, “I will do whatever it takes to make sure Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it.”
As Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show aired on giant TVs, Hageman’s supporters—many of whom were wearing cowboy hats—gathered around barrels adorned with cowhides and lassos, eating on charcuterie platters or waiting for drinks at the corner bar.
Another One Bites the Dust was playing loudly at one point.
When good results were shown on the TVs, the audience applauded.
Before Cheney had finished speaking, Hageman entered the room.
Hageman said, “Today we have accomplished what we set out to achieve — we have regained Wyoming’s only Congressional seat for Wyoming.”
She borrowed a phrase from the infamous Apprentice and praised Trump for his early support.
If we give you authority, you’ll be responsible and answer to us, she continued. And if you don’t, you’ll be fired.
Cheney took her well-known father, the late vice president Dick Cheney, to a voting station in Jackson earlier on Tuesday. He and Lynne Cheney watched her concession speech from the front row.
Before the vote, Cheney told CBS News, “We’re confronting a period when our democracy is genuinely under siege and under jeopardy.”
Trump is the threat, of course.
And all of us, including Republicans, Democrats, and independents, who have a strong commitment to freedom and who are concerned about the Constitution and the future of the nation, she said, “have a duty to put that above party.”
In addition, she said that “no matter what the result is,” the “battle is clearly going to continue,” implying that even if she lost the election on Tuesday, her political career was still alive.
‘I’m proud to have voted today. She subsequently wrote, “The difficulties we are facing deserve real leaders who will protect the Constitution and keep their word, no matter what.
A lone Democrat that DailyMail.com talked to on Tuesday outside Cheyenne’s historic Storey Gymnasium said he decided to stay with his party and not switch to help Cheney’s prospects. All Wyoming Republicans DailyMail.com spoke to had voted for Hageman.
On election day, Wyoming voters have the option to change their party affiliation. They must provide identification in order to vote at any polling location.
The reality is that she didn’t grow up in Wyoming, according to 58-year-old Cheyenne resident and insurance worker Roger Forystek. “Well first of all she should represent her constituents, and she’s not clearly doing that – because that’s why she’s getting voted out – but secondly here’s the reality, she didn’t grow up in Wyoming,” he said.
Cheney shared her time between Casper and Washington, D.C. because of her father’s political career.
And, in my view, she’s a bit of a spoilt brat. She acts like a spoilt brat. She’s so used to getting her way that she acts out when she doesn’t,’ Forystek said.
Even stronger criticism came from 77-year-old Cheyenne resident Tacy West.
She is a member of a criminal family. Her father was a prominent paedophile, which is generally known, West stated.
West’s assertion has no foundation in reality since Dick Cheney has never been charged with paedophilia.
“She behaves insane. She’s not there when you look into her eyes,” West said.
Because of his area of business, a local pastor who wished to remain unnamed told DailyMail.com that the main reason he voted for Hageman was “to punish Cheney.”
He said, “She’s going to the principal’s office.”
Cheney, who was appointed vice-chair of the House select committee on January 6, has emerged as the most prominent House Republican opponent of Trump.
She paid a price, losing her third-place leadership position in the House Republican Conference and being kicked out of the Wyoming Republican Party since the state’s people elected President Trump over Vice President Joe Biden by almost 43 points in the 2020 election.
The former Republican vice president’s daughter has remained unwavering in her criticism, calling her party’s endorsement of Trump’s “great lie” — his baseless assertions that the 2020 election was stolen from him — a “disease” in a recent campaign commercial.
The falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, she claimed in the film, “is insidious.”
She continued by saying that Donald Trump used the false accusations as a “door to persuade Americans to surrender their ideals, to forfeit their freedom to justify murder, to disrespect the judgements of our courts and the rule of law.”
It’s not the substance, according to University of Wyoming student Abby Humble, 20, who supported Hageman, but Cheney’s style.
Humble told DailyMail.com, “I don’t disagree with what she did; I believe she was simply trying to preserve the Constitution.” But on the other hand, a lot of Wyoming residents are, you know, Trump fans, so I don’t really believe that’s what they intended.
Humble said, “I believe she’s speaking out for herself and her own political agenda.
Democrat and retiree Mike Lammers, 67, of Cheyenne said he valued Cheney’s willingness to take a risk.
Lammers told DailyMail.com, “I still like Liz very much and I admire, truly appreciate what she’s doing for our nation.”
However, he claimed that he participated in his own party’s primary voting.
“I choose to support Democrats. Despite the fact that I am aware that many people are switching to Liz Nevertheless, I’m confident that Liz would get my Republican vote, he continued.
Trump pledged to get retribution for Cheney’s criticism, vote in favour of his impeachment, and leadership position on the House Select Committee on January 6. He threw his whole support behind the campaign.
“The Fake News Media will do everything in their power to play it down and pretend that it wasn’t a referendum on the Unselects—that it was no big deal—if Liz Cheney loses tonight.” In fact, it would be one of the largest deals ever!’ he said on his Truth Social website on Tuesday, just before Wyoming’s voting closed.
On election night, Trump participated in a tele-rally in support of Hageman and referred to the contest as “one of the most significant primary races in our country’s history.”
The former president said that “the whole world is watching this one.”
He referred to Hageman as a “someone I’ve come to know very well” and a “friend” despite the fact that Hageman opposed Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and backed Sen. Ted Cruz.
After that, he focused on Cheney.
Trump added, “This is your opportunity to tell the RINOs and the fake news media, the extreme left lunatics, that we regrettably have too many in our nation, and you’re going to elect Harriet, and you’re going to tell warmonger Liz Cheney — so horrible, so nasty — Liz, you’re fired.”
Few members of Congress have ever directly harmed our nation more than Liz Cheney, according to Trump.
Trump said that the Democrats take advantage of Liz Cheney by using her as a vehicle for their horrible anti-Republican and anti-country soundbites. It’s been a catastrophe,
The former president lamented that “she’s aided and abetted the radical Democrat Party in their unhinged, lawless and dangerous witchhunt — a witchhunt that never ends.”
A “phoney” and “grotesquely false and fabricated hysterical partisan narrative” about what transpired on January 6 was promoted, he continued.
According to Cheney, who has consistently resisted, “no matter what the outcome is, is certainly the beginning of a battle that is going to continue, is going to go on,” was said to CBS on Tuesday.
That declaration fueled speculation that she might be running for president.
She said to CNN in late July that she would decide on 2024 later.
Her modest Wyoming campaign trail schedule – because to security risks – also factored into this assumption.
Cheney’s campaign activities are never made public, and media are only sometimes informed of them due to threats to her safety. In Cheney World, security is tight and paranoia is pervasive—and for good cause, according to author Mark Leibovich of This Town—who published his article in The Atlantic last week.
The New Yorker also stated that she is accompanied by an armed Capitol Police escort.
Hageman has been engaging in more of the standard gritting and giggling that comes with winning an election.
Late in May, she participated at a rally with Trump, and in June, she made an appearance with Donald Trump Jr. In Cheyenne, she’ll host an event on election night.
She told Trump, after his statements on the call, “You have been the finest president in my lifetime in handling the regulatory load we deal with.”
This particular compliment stems from her employment as a lawyer, when she often took on environmentalists and government restrictions, garnering her the moniker “the wicked witch of the west.”
According to a 2009 High Country News feature on Hageman, the name was derived from her propensity for donning all-black, gothic-style ensembles.
The fact that Hageman has accepted Trump’s election falsehoods goes beyond the clumsy compliment, as shown by the fact that he continued to talk about them on the Monday night call and claimed that Democrats oppose voter ID legislation “because they want to cheat.”
Trump moaned, “Because that’s what they do.”
It’s a different Hageman from the one who actively opposed Trump in 2016 and backed Cheney, who was running for the House for the first time.
As a Cruz delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Hageman was a member of a group of Republicans who sought to ‘unbind’ delegates as a last-ditch attempt to prevent Trump from winning the nomination.
Hageman claimed she had been duped when The New York Times highlighted her involvement in the effort in September 2021 because it had failed.
Liz Cheney told the newspaper, “I heard and believed the lies the Democrats and Liz Cheney’s friends in the media were telling at the time, but that is ancient history as I quickly realised that their allegations against President Trump were untrue.”
He was the best president I’ve ever known, and I’m glad I was able to renominate him for office in 2020. And I’m happy to lend him my full support today,” the House candidate continued.