Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has lost the confidence of many Wyoming Republican voters heading into the August 16 primary against Trump-endorsed challenger Harriet Hageman.
While Cheney has spent most of the campaign season in Washington, DC, with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) partisan January 6 committee, a former Cheney donor, Nancy Donovan, who has given over $35,000 to Cheney’s past campaigns, is now questioning Cheney’s mental state.
“I sit there watching the January 6 hearings and I think: ‘Have you lost your mind?’” she told the Financial Times. “This man [Trump] has every major institution going after him, from the media to the swamp in Washington, DC, and now to have one of his own party do the same thing?”
Cheney has also been criticized by leaders in the state. The chair of the Teton County Republican party, Mary Martin, echoed Donovan’s sentiments. “Liz has broken a lot of people’s trust and that is against the cowboy code,” she told the Times.
Hageman, who is leading the race by 28 and 30 points, has additionally pointed to Cheney’s participation in the January 6 committee as an act of betrayal. Cheney “does not represent us and she has betrayed us,” she told the publication. She said:
[Cheney] spends her time on the January 6 committee. She has stated very, very, very clearly that her priority is to block Donald Trump from ever being elected… People care about inflation and about the open border and about protection of our jobs and protection of our schools and protection of our kids. That’s not what she cares about right now.
On Sunday, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) warned that from his interaction with Wyoming voters, Cheney could lose her primary. “Now the election isn’t for another month,” Barrasso told Fox News. “The travel that I have done around the state, I think she has a lot of work to do if she hopes to win the primary.”
Barrasso also criticized Cheney’s alliance with Democrats on the January 6 committee. “Wyoming politics is very personal,” Barrasso said. “It’s face-to-face. It’s town to town, and as you know, Liz and I disagree. I voted against the impeachment of President Trump. She was for it. I voted against the partisan January 6 commission. She’s all in on that.”
Cheney has been in hot water with the Republican Party after opposing former President Donald Trump, voting to impeach him, and participating in the January 6 Committee, which has sought to investigate the January 6 Capitol incident without focusing on the alleged FBI informants there.
Cheney’s conduct has drawn condemnation from the Wyoming Republican Party and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. After the Wyoming GOP voted in November to no longer recognize her as a Republican, McCarthy announced in February his endorsement of Hageman to defeat Cheney, a rare move for a minority leader.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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