Liz Cheney (previously) won the 2020 GOP Primary in Wyoming with 73 percent of the vote. Then she turned against Trump, serving on the Jan 6 commission and criticizing his behaviour while in office. The result? Ignominious defeat in the 2022 GOP Primary race to one of his conspiracy theorist cronies, Harriet Hageman, who is now all but guaranteed the very safe seat in Congress.
Cheney's defeat was largely expected, given the partisan makeup of her seat and polling that showed her trailing Hageman. Trump won Wyoming in the last presidential election with some 70% of the vote. Still, Cheney's defeat marks Trump's biggest win in his revenge tour against intraparty detractors and a warning sign for other anti-Trump Republicans thinking of crossing him.
"Team Trump", Alex Isenstadt, has become good at snuffing out his opposition within the party, among whom Cheney is among the most prominent.
The episode illustrates Trump's all-encompassing role in the effort to oust Cheney, which culminated Tuesday in a lopsided primary defeat for the congresswoman. Hageman ran with Trump's support, was advised by Trump's lieutenants, and was funded by his donors. Trump aides vetted and interviewed Cheney's prospective challengers with a degree of care the operation didn't display in other big midterm races. Once they settled on their pick, they cleared the field of Hageman's primary rivals. Then, the team formed an outside group that was heavily funded by Trump's PAC, which ran TV ads starring the former president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
Democrats have become fans of Cheney lately, due to her criticism of Trump, but both candidates ran on similar right-wing platforms. Within the last decade, Liz Cheney publicly criticized her own sister for marrying another woman. Though she's since moderated her position on same-sex marriage, Cheney is bad news if you care about virtually anything beyond Trump, who is absolutely delighted at last night's outcome:
