3 times elected Wyoming U.S Representative Liz Cheney was primaried out of her congressional seat by Trump endorsed Harriet Hageman by a 30 point margin. Liz Cheney, a Republican Royalty as some claim being the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, held multiple jobs in state department and was part of the administrative state for quite a few years since 2002. Her views of President Trump lines up with the permanent administrative state than constituents she represents. Her defeat was quite massive which shows that the Republican party clearly have had a split from the administrative Republican class and want them out of the party unlike Democrat Party who are tightly bound together.
From to Liz Cheney's website https://cheney.house.gov/, verbatim, "She was first elected in 2016, on a platform of pursuing conservative solutions to help create jobs, cut taxes and regulation, expand America’s energy, mining and ag industries and restoring America’s strength and power in the world. Cheney sits on the House Armed Services Committee and also serves as the Vice Chair for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol."
The people of Wyoming, clearly, did not remember any of her accomplishments mentioned on her website, but latched onto the Vice Chair on the Jan 6th and she voted to impeach President Trump. The liberal and main stream media contributed in ensuring this key aspect of her role was highlighted over anything else she may have accomplished. Her campaign ad's, especially, the one with her father Dick Cheney, cemented this Jan 6th fight. Another way to look at this result, is that the voters of Republican party away from Washington DC, don't care or have not bought into the emergency that the administrative state is portraying it to be. Wyoming is quite far away from DC as one can get and they did not care much for the role Jan 6th plays in their lives, let alone, caring and throwing their support behind the Vice-Chair of that committee.
President Trump won Wyoming by 50 points over President Biden with close to 200K votes. He got more voters to vote for him 2020 than in 2016, which means, he kept the people who voted for him from 2016 and then added more people in 2020. All the negative press, the 1st impeachment, the Russia Collusion during Trump's tenure as president, strangely he adds more votes. Secondly, Was Liz Cheney not aware of another fact, the whole state votes for her to stay or go, unlike Rep Cortez, Rep Pelosi where only a tiny part of a state does? And the citizens of Wyoming did decide to have her go. She was very popular as she won 2016,2018,2020 where she got 60% of the vote and beat her opponents by 40 points. She was well known and much liked even though she was not a native Wyoming, they accepted her. So what changed in 2022? Clearly, she was not able to persuade the population of what she perceived to be the threat to the republic and her self-proclaimed noble goal of saving the republic from Trump. The writing was on the wall in Jan,2020. It seemed like a suicide mission, and she strapped on this jacket of innuendo and main stream media talking points, jumped right into the middle of it by co-chairing the production if one sees how the primary vote went.
Like a major movie production, the Jan 6th committee was to launch its hearing on June 9th, 2022 on all main stream media networks. TV footage, news paper promotions of her work. The evidence of this is on Cheney's house website press releases https://cheney.house.gov/category/press_release/
Here did 2 things for Liz Cheney, she had enough air time so her constituents saw her while she was still in DC. She didn't have to do any local campaigning, no town halls, no local parades for her.
This air time gave her national recognition including in Wyoming. The grand plan, nearly 2 months of this coverage from June 9th to July 21st, should seal the deal for Rep. Cheney's victory. So what happened? Playing her up in the role as a folk hero, now after her sound defeat, seems this hero stature is limited to herself, the Democrats, people close to her, the people in the media like Yahoo's National correspondent Jon Ward, whose hype helped her buy into it and not the people of Wyoming.
As Liz Cheney, was holding her on TV trial in DC, Harriet Hageman, a Wyoming girl, was marching in the local parades meeting people, shaking hands. She was making rounds on the local radio doing interviews, like the one "Coffee Time with Hageman" on KOVE AM / 107.7 FM's community connected segment, during her stops across Wyoming. She campaigned like the Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin did, travelling around the state and meeting people, doing town halls. She had visited every county at least once and a lot of them more than a few times. In 2018, lost her Republican Wyoming Governor primary to Mike Gordon who got 33% by 11 points. So she was not a novice in politics. She has been an activist fighting the encroachment of the administrative state as a lawyer for years.
Harriet Hageman has been endorsed by Republican leaders such as Kevin McCarthy, House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, Rand Paul. Rand Paul also appears to have campaigned with her, She seems to value Rand Paul's endorsement because she feels she is cut off the same cloth. Same with President Trump's endorsement as she believes in the America First ideology.
While Liz Cheney had Senator Mitt Romney on her side by helping with fund raising, who campaigned for her along with her father Dick Cheney. Mitt Romney again, is not a winner maker.
Rep Cheney's past 3 election records show, she won with a great margins. Wyoming voter her in with 40 point margin. The simplistic summation would be they at least knew about her and most possibly liked voting for her until 2020.
With the amount of air time, the great news coverage of Liz Cheney, Republican Royalty status, still she lost so badly.
If the President Trump raid in Mar-a-Lago was to help, bowtie the 2 months work the Rep Liz Cheney was doing with the Jan 6th, Special committee, it could slated as a spectacular fail. The 2018 mid-term elections, only 128K Republican voters voted her in. In 2022 primary, 113K Republican voters came out to vote her out. The Republican voter enthusiasm could be off the charts, based on this one comparison.
If every Republican politician has to campaign as hard as Harriet Hageman or Glenn Youngkin to win, the days of the Republican's friendly to the administrative state are over. Worst yet, if the endorsement of the administrative state Republicans are not winning elections, could pose a huge problem for candidates who have spent their lifetime Government jobs to win the Republican primaries. A big "IF", only time will tell. Currently it looks like the Republican party is voting for candidates who are antagonistic to Washington DC and government lackeys, except in Georgia. Arizona, picked someone similar for the Governor race.
The Vice Chair of Jan 6th committee Liz Cheney, who vowed to keep Trump out of the white house again, having to lose in a primary to a Trump endorsed candidate could be a bitter pill to swallow for her, her team and her ardent supporters in the media. Looking at the numbers, floating the idea of a Pence-Cheney tickets, may be too premature by some of the main stream media pundits.
