I respect few politicians. Liz Cheney is one who's bomber!

Ms. Cheney will likely lose her election because she did her party a great favor by helping to push Trump into the rearview mirror.

Finally a politician who puts their country before their own career! God bless you Liz!

Liz Cheney Goes All In on Jan. 6 Probe as GOP Primary Looms

Wyoming congresswoman’s criticism of Donald Trump alienates many Republicans, opens door for challenger Harriet Hageman

Rep. Liz Cheney criticized GOP politicians who remain aligned with Donald Trump in a speech Wednesday in California. MARK J. TERRILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Natalie Andrews, WSJ

Updated July 3, 2022 11:27 am ET

WILSON, Wyo.—Rep. Liz Cheney has cast herself as defending democracy from the impulses of Donald Trump. In the year’s most closely watched House primary, fellow Republicans in her home state could punish her for what they see as her disloyalty to the party and the former president.

On the national stage, the three-term congresswoman from Wyoming helps lead the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, using her perch as vice chairman to regularly criticize Mr. Trump and GOP politicians who remained aligned with him.

“We must not elect people who are more loyal to themselves or to power than they are to our Constitution,” Ms. Cheney said to applause on Wednesday at a speech at the Reagan Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, Calif. At a hearing last month in Washington, she told Republicans who claimed the election was stolen: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Back in the Cowboy State, Ms. Cheney faces a serious challenge to re-election for Wyoming’s sole House seat thanks in part to such comments. Many Republican voters here say they are fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump, and her stance has put her out of step with many constituents headed into the Aug. 16 primary. Mr. Trump took nearly 70% of the state’s vote in 2020, his largest percentage win in any state.

Harriet Hageman, who is running against Liz Cheney in the Wyoming GOP congressional primary, has received Donald Trump’s endorsement.

“She’s kind of a little leech,” said Verna Thatcher, 63 years old, of Kemmerer, Wyo., while picking up supplies at a Walmart in Evanston. “Why are we doing Jan. 6? It’s been over a year, who cares?”

The race serves as the marquee test of whether vocal anti-Trump lawmakers can survive in today’s Republican Party, pitting supporters of the former president against a persistent and unapologetic critic with little patience for Mr. Trump’s false claim the election was stolen.

State Rep. Landon Brown, a Republican who is backing Ms. Cheney for re-election, said she isn’t someone to back down on her beliefs. It was “not a surprise to me at all that she was willing to burn her political capital” to go after Mr. Trump, he said.

In an interview aired Sunday on ABC News, Ms. Cheney said, “The single most important thing is protecting the nation from Donald Trump, and I think that that matters to us as Americans more than anything else.”

Control of Congress is up for grabs and candidates are eager to sway voters heading into November. WSJ’s Joshua Jamerson explains how Republicans and Democrats are framing the debate around key issues like the economy, abortion, gun violence, immigration and student loan forgiveness.

Mr. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing related to Jan. 6, has made defeating Ms. Cheney a priority. He called her a “RINO and a warmonger” in a fundraising email Friday, using shorthand for Republicans in Name Only. He has endorsed lawyer Harriet Hageman, campaigning for her at a rally in May. Ms. Hageman has tied herself closely to the former president and is Ms. Cheney’s chief rival.

Ms. Cheney was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Mr. Trump for his role in the Capitol riot. He was acquitted in the Senate. Of those, four didn’t seek re-election, and one lost his primary. So far, just one, Rep. David Valadao (R., Calif.), has made it through to the general election.

Interviews across the state found many Republican voters backing away from Ms. Cheney.

“I’m thinking, this time, Harriet Hageman,” said Marge Glick, 79, a retiree in Teton County, home of the Jackson Hole tourism area. “Liz Cheney, even though she says she’s following the Constitution, feels to me like she’s moving somewhat to the left.”

Ms. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, with generations of ties to Wyoming, is now looking to court moderate Republicans living in the state’s urban areas such as Cheyenne, Laramie and Casper, as well as persuade Democrats and independents to change party affiliation to vote for her.

“I don’t typically vote in the Republican primary but I’m seriously considering changing my affiliation so I can vote for Liz…because she’s standing up for democracy,” said Ned Hutchinson, a 54-year-old apparel manufacturer who calls himself a Democrat by nature. He lives in Wilson, the mountain hamlet that Ms. Cheney also calls home.

Money is one source of strength for Ms. Cheney. As of the first quarter of 2022, she had raised $10.1 million, while Ms. Hageman had pulled in $2.1 million and other opponents had less, according to federal filings.

The shift from rising Republican star to an outsider was a fast one. Ms. Cheney was once discussed as a future speaker of the House. Last year she was ousted from her spot as conference chair by colleagues fed up with her continued criticism of Mr. Trump, who is considering another run for the White House in 2024.

She remains a staunch conservative and a dependable Republican vote in the House. But she rarely attends the weekly conference meeting she once led, and lawmakers who once called her a friend no longer speak to her, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) endorsing Ms. Hageman. Many Democrats now embrace her, despite starkly different positions on issues from fiscal policy to use of public lands.

“I know she is running all-out to win her race, but I get the sense from her that she thinks defending the Constitution must be the paramount objective right now,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), who serves on the Jan. 6 panel.

The Wyoming GOP voted last November to no longer recognize Ms. Cheney as a member of the party. The national Republican Party censured both her and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) for serving on the Jan. 6 committee. Mr. Kinzinger isn’t seeking re-election.

Her break with the former president has become the central issue in the Wyoming primary, whose winner is expected to cruise to victory in the deeply red state’s general election in November. Election fraud is also a point of contention, with Ms. Hageman questioning election integrity but stopping short of Mr. Trump’s claim that the election was stolen.

“What I think that you see in terms of the election integrity issues are what we’ve seen more on the national level that has a lot of people concerned, including me,” Ms. Hageman said at a debate on Thursday.

“She knows it wasn’t stolen,” Ms. Cheney said of Ms. Hageman. “I think that she can’t say that it wasn’t stolen because she’s completely beholden to Donald Trump.”

Ms. Hageman said Democrats were talking about Jan. 6 to distract from President Biden’s low approval rating and concerns about gas prices. Another candidate, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, called the Jan. 6 hearings a “kangaroo court.”

Spokesmen for Ms. Cheney and Ms. Hageman declined to make the candidates available for interviews.

Two polls by allies of Ms. Hageman found Ms. Cheney behind. When Wyomingites were surveyed in early June by pro-Hageman super PAC Wyoming Values, 56% said they would vote for Ms. Hageman, compared with 28% for Ms. Cheney, 8% for Mr. Bouchard and less than 1% for other candidates, and 7% undecided.

Similarly, a May poll by the conservative group Club for Growth, which backs Ms. Hageman, found her leading Ms. Cheney by 30 points.

A data analysis by FiveThirtyEight based on the voter turnout of the 2018 midterms concluded that even if Ms. Cheney gets help from Democratic crossover voters, she needs to poll higher with Republicans as there simply aren’t enough Democrats in the state.

“When you have a low turnout in a small state it does not take a lot of people to show up and swing a primary,” said Andrew Garner, professor of political science at the University of Wyoming.

Ms. Cheney has advertised few public events for her campaign in Wyoming. Much of her recent time has been focused on the Jan. 6 committee hearings, which are scheduled to pick up again in July.