Liz Cheney, third in the Republican Party hierarchy early last year, has convincingly lost the Wyoming primary. American media published projections of the results local time on Tuesday evening. When about 40 percent of the votes had been counted, her party colleague Harriet Hageman stood at 62 percent, Cheney at 33 percent. She called Hageman to admit her defeat. That means Cheney won’t be able to defend her House seat in the November midterm elections.
Cheney had twice as many votes as her Democratic rival in her 2020 re-election. Now she was beaten in the internal party election by a lawyer who so far had only one failed bid to become governor of the sparsely populated state. The difference: the support of former President Donald Trump who threw his weight into the fight for Hageman and sent numerous emails to his supporters not to vote for ‘Crazy Liz Cheney’, a “warmonger” according to Trump.
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Cheney inflicted Trump’s wrath on distancing himself from him after Jan. 6, 2021. That day, Trump supporters who felt empowered by the president stormed (“fight like hell,” he’d told them that morning) to block ratification of Joe Biden’s election victory. Initially, Trump was criticized by many Republican politicians for his role in the storming. Within days, the chorus of critics had shrunk to Liz Cheney and nine other Republican delegates. They voted to impeach Trump. Of those ten, only two have won their primary, the rest have lost or given up in advance.
Trump’s increased influence
The Wyoming primary was one of the last in this election cycle, and it can already be seen that Trump has increased his influence in the Republican Party. The candidates he supported have won roughly eight out of ten and are now running for the party in the general election. Cheney’s defeat was a symbolic seal of that seizure of power. With an element of revenge, as evidenced by a video that Donald Trump Jr. tweeted (his father has been banned from Twitter): “Bye bye Liz Cheney,” featuring a dancing Trump and a glum-looking Cheney.
Recently, there has been increasing speculation in the media and among political analysts about Cheney’s new move. She would like to use her campaign coffers – she had raised five times as much money for this election as in 2020 – to try to thwart Trump in the presidential election of 2024. Trump has not yet put himself forward as a candidate and neither has Cheney.