Liz Cheney Skips Wyoming Campaign Event, Remains 1,716 Miles Away in Washington, D.C.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Tuesday remained in Washington, D.C., to take part in the partisan January 6 Committee, while Harriet Hageman met voters 1,716 miles away at the Central Wyoming Fair & PRCA Rodeo.

The Wyoming fair featured a “rodeo parade” in which Hageman participated, waving to constituents and shaking hands with potential voters. Yet Cheney did not attend the parade, instead opting to remain in Washington to conduct the partisan January 6 hearings with Democrats.

Local voters at the event took notice of Cheney’s absence. “She doesn’t live here, for starters. She doesn’t really represent us,” Sally O’Brien told Yahoo News of Cheney. “She says she’s a constitutionalist, but she doesn’t believe in justice for all, only for the Jan. 6 people.”

“I’m supporting [Hageman] because everything that I have read about her, she is a true Wyomingite,” O’Brien added. “She’s a real conservative.”

Bob Ide, a local businessman at the parade, also told the publication he believes Cheney has “betrayed” Wyoming by helping Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) committee in Washington. “She betrayed the voters of Wyoming with her Jan. 6 show trial,” Ide said.

Cheney’s decision to remain in Washington, over a thousand miles away from Wyoming, has some voters questioning Cheney’s mental state. Nancy Donovan, who has given over $35,000 to Cheney’s past campaigns, said Cheney has lost her mind.

“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, D.C., and now to have one of his own party do the same thing?”

Cheney’s absence from the Cowboy State has contributed to Hageman leading the race by 28 and 30 points. Hageman has 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 Times:

[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.

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.