Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) nationwide favorability rating is underwater after she fixated on former President Donald Trump on the partisan January 6 Committee, a Wednesday Politico poll found.
Only 32 percent of voters view Cheney favorably, while 35 percent view her unfavorably. Eighteen percent had never heard of Cheney. Fifteen percent had no opinion of the representative. The poll surveyed 2006 voters from July 22-24 with a 2 point margin of error.
The poll comes after Cheney has spent the majority of the midterm campaign season in Washington, D.C. helping the committee. As vice chair, she has been in the spotlight during the regularly occurring hearings, speaking negatively about the defenseless former president.
“We have considerably more to do. We have far more evidence to share with the American people, and more to gather,” Cheney said on Thursday about Trump during the hearing.
Meanwhile, multiple polls show Cheney is well behind in her race to win reelection on August 16 against Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, who surged in second-quarter fundraising. Hageman is endorsed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
Hageman earned their support after Cheney was ousted from her conference chair position by the Republican House caucus by a vote of no confidence. Cheney had previously helped Democrats’ attempt to impeach Trump, along with reportedly orchestrating “unprecedented” Republican sabotage in the Washington Post. As a result, the Wyoming GOP no longer recognizes her as a Republican.
In an interview with the New York Times, Cheney alleged her obsession with Trump is not political but educational. “I don’t look at it through a political lens,” she claimed about her work on the January 6 committee. “I look at it through the angle of: People need to understand how dangerous he is and how unfit for office he is.”
The polling reveals Cheney may have politically miscalculated by obsessing over Trump, who won the state in 2020 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. Brad Coker, managing director of the polling firm Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, believes that Cheney will lose the August 16 primary against Hageman due to her alliance with Democrats on the committee.
“This race is more about Liz Cheney than it is about Donald Trump,” he said. “The big story is Liz Cheney is going to get beat,” Coker added. “That’s a foregone conclusion.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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