When Republican Rep. Liz Cheney went to cast her vote in the Wyoming primary on Tuesday in Jackson, she accompanied her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who is the most vocal opponent of former President Donald Trump in the House.
With Trump-backed Harriet Hageman leading Cheney by 29 points in the polls and University of Wyoming pollsters taking into consideration independents and Democrats who could switch parties to vote for the January 6 committee member, Cheney was only hours away from being likely ousted from Congress.
Outside the polling place, Cheney told CBS News, “We’re confronting a period when our democracy is actually under siege and under jeopardy.”
Trump is the danger, 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 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 polls close at MDT 7 pm.
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 widely known, West told DailyMail.com.
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 content, according to University of Wyoming student Abby Humble, 20, who supported Hageman, but Cheney’s approach.
Humble told DailyMail.com, “I don’t disagree with what she did; I think she was just trying to defend the Constitution.”
But on the other hand, a lot of Wyoming residents are, you know, Trump supporters, so I don’t really think that’s what they wanted.
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 appreciate, greatly appreciate what she’s doing for our country.”
However, he claimed that he participated in his own party’s primary voting.
“I chose 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 utilise her for sound bits,” often referring to her as a “Republican Liz Cheney” before launching into one of their dreadful anti-Republican, anti-country sound bites. It’s been a catastrophe,
The former president lamented that “she’s assisted and encouraged the extreme Democrat Party in their uncontrolled, chaotic and deadly witchhunt — a witchhunt that never stops.”
A “phoney” and “grotesquely untrue and contrived frenzied partisan narrative” about what transpired on January 6 was promoted, he said.
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 will decide on 2024 later.
This view is supported by her sparse campaign schedule in Wyoming, which is a result of security issues.
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.
About how she’ll spend election night, a spokesman could only confirm to DailyMail.com that she intended to speak.
There has been no word on whether she will vote in person.
Members are likely to be in their home states since the House is not in session.
Hageman has been engaging in more of the standard gritting and giggling that comes with winning an election.
Late in May, she participated in 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, following his remarks on the call, “You have been the best president in my lifetime in addressing the regulatory burden we deal with.”
This particular compliment stems from her career as a lawyer, where she frequently took on environmentalists and government regulations, earning her the moniker “the wicked witch of the west.”
According to a 2009 High Country News profile of Hageman, the name was derived from her propensity for donning all-black, gothic-style outfits.
The fact that Hageman has embraced Trump’s election lies goes beyond the clumsy compliment, as evidenced by the fact that he continued to talk about them on the Monday night call and claimed that Democrats oppose voter ID laws “because they want to cheat.”
Trump moaned, “Because that’s what they do.”
It’s a different Hageman from the one who strongly 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 said she had been duped when The New York Times publicised her involvement in the initiative in September 2021 because it had failed.
Liz Cheney told the newspaper, “I heard and believed the falsehoods the Democrats and Liz Cheney’s allies in the media were spreading at the time, but that is ancient history as I soon recognised that their charges against President Trump were baseless.”
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 provide him my full support today,” the House candidate said.