Wyoming Congresswoman and new darling of the Lest, Liz Cheney is not likely to win her upcoming primary next week, according to most polling, so she has begun to focus on her next political chapter.
The Republican lawmaker, who is trailing Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by double digits, now says her most important political priority moving forward will be to keep the former president out of the White House.
“America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country,” she said in a final campaign video to Wyoming voters, according to Fox News. “It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.”
The outlet added:
Cheney was the most senior of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the then-president on a charge of inciting the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. The attack was waged by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.
Public opinion polls indicate Cheney will likely get trounced on Tuesday in the Republican primary for Wyoming’s statewide congressional district. She badly trails Harriet Hageman, a lawyer and politician who has been endorsed and heavily supported by Trump as the former president aims to oust Cheney from her House seat in a state where he won a whopping 70% of the vote in 2020.
In recent comments, Cheney appears to have accepted her defeat as a personal price paid in order to realize her ultimate objective of ensuring Trump never again wins the presidency.
“I am working hard to earn every single vote,” Cheney said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” late last month. However, she continued: “Given the choice between maintaining my seat in the House of Representatives on the one hand or ensuring the survival of our constitutional republic and ensuring the American people know the truth about Donald Trump, I will choose the Constitution and the truth every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
The three-term lawmaker’s father, former Vice President Dck Cheney, who had a lead role in her primary campaign’s closing ad last week, said that he and wife Lynne Cheney “are so proud of Liz for standing up for the truth, doing what is right, honoring her oath to the Constitution when so many in our own party are too scared to do so.
“Liz is fearless. She never backs down from a fight,” the elder Cheney said.
He went on to say that “there is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office. And she will succeed.”
Liz Cheney also took aim at Hageman for her strong support for Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “rigged.”
“Like many candidates across this country, my opponents in Wyoming have said that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. No one who understands our nation’s laws, no one with an honest, honorable, genuine commitment to our Constitution would say that. It is a cancer that threatens our great Republic,” Cheney said.
Those close to Cheney say that her effort to stop Trump will no doubt raise her national stature ahead of what some have suggested will be a GOP presidential primary run in 2024 — which will likely pit her against Trump.
On “Fox News Sunday” last month, she claimed that her focus “is on absolutely doing what is right and that is what’s guided me ever since last election” when asked whether she’ll launch a presidential bid herself.
“I’m going to continue to be guided by making sure I do my duty and making sure the American people understand the truth,” she said.
