OPINION:
The Republican primary for Wyoming’s lone congressional seat is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes intra-party battles we’ve seen in a long time. Three-term incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney is being challenged by Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed conservative outsider.
Ms. Cheney has drawn this formidable opponent from the right because she sided with unhinged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by voting to impeach former President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol before an investigation was conducted to find out what happened. It was an irresponsible and foolish move by Ms. Cheney that completely ignored House precedent and the rule of law, and taints any future necessary impeachment inquiries. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am supporting Ms. Hageman’s candidacy now and was a supporter of Ms. Cheney in the past before Trump Derangement Syndrome got the best of her.
For the past year, Ms. Cheney has prioritized helping Mrs. Pelosi and the radical left-wing Democrats retain control of the House of Representatives in the next Congress so she can continue investigating Mr. Trump as co-chair of the Jan. 6 select committee — an illegitimate taxpayer-funded political witch hunt. Despite coming up completely empty to date, this sham committee appears determined to investigate Trump forever and ever.
At a time when our country desperately needs to remove Mrs. Pelosi from power so President Biden can no longer move his disastrous agenda that has caused an inflation crisis, border crisis and crime crisis, Ms. Cheney has chosen to look the other way in favor of trying to destroy Mr. Trump for selfish political purposes.
Ms. Cheney’s actions are unforgivable, and the evidence suggests her time abusing power in the U.S. House of Representatives will soon come to an end. By all indications, Ms. Hageman is shaping up to be an excellent candidate who is working hard in the state, raising money and being in a position to win the primary election on Aug. 16. In fact, one early survey showed Ms. Hageman leading Ms. Cheney by 20 points, 38% to 18%.
The only takeaway for a candidate with 100% name identification who garners just 18% of the vote among Republican primary voters in their home state is clear: The end is near.
Straw polls are providing a similar snapshot of Ms. Cheney’s plummeting support. A survey of Wyoming party activists recently gave 59 votes to Hageman and only 6 votes to Cheney, a daughter of a respected former vice president of the United States. The times are indeed changing for the Republican Party. In today’s divided America, where Democrats are actively attempting to fundamentally transform our country into the next failed socialist state, Ms. Cheney’s anti-Trump crusade is seen among Wyoming primary voters as the wrong thing to focus on at the worst possible time. It’s that simple.
Furthermore, the Wyoming State GOP’s vote to stop recognizing their only representative in Congress as a member of the Wyoming Republican Party along with the Republican National Committee’s unprecedented censure of Ms. Cheney for aiding Mrs. Pelosi in her quest to remain House speaker for two more years is proof positive that the conservative grassroots has had more than enough.
The biased corporate media is pointing to Cheney’s massive $6.7 million dollar war chest as a possible lifeline for her fading political fortunes, but any student of political campaigns knows that it’s virtually impossible to spend that amount of campaign cash in a sparsely populated state like Wyoming. But that enormous dollar figure comes with an eye-popping downside.
According to one recent analysis, “of the 3,313 individuals who gave Ms. Cheney at least $200 in the first three months of this year, 63 live in Wyoming. Of the 880 donors to Ms. Hageman, 264 are Wyomingites.” This embarrassing lack of financial support from her constituents — the people who supposedly know her best (or in Ms. Cheney’s case perhaps least) — tells us all we need to know. To make matters worse for Ms. Cheney, Ms. Hageman’s $1 million cash on hand number is an extremely impressive haul for any candidate for the U.S. House, much less a challenger not of the Washington establishment.
Now all eyes are on Wyoming’s rapidly approaching candidate filing period, which takes place between May 12 and May 27. The political world is waiting with bated breath to see if Ms. Cheney files to run in the Republican primary or opts out of the GOP race and instead seeks to qualify as an independent candidate over the summer. In typical Cheney fashion, she’s playing her cards close to the vest with a big assist from the anti-Trump liberal media that won’t dare pressure their darling of the moment to divulge her plans prematurely.
However, there could be a third option that Ms. Cheney is mulling. The nearly $7 million sitting in her campaign account could be a dead-ender’s way to try and start an anti-Trump presidential campaign. While the chances of defeating Mr. Trump in a primary campaign if he chooses to run are slim to none, it may be the only political move Ms. Cheney has left to play. And this would confirm what we’ve known all along: the Jan. 6 Committee that Ms. Cheney helps lead is just another anti-Trump political vendetta looking to damage him going into 2024.
• David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United and he served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.
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