- Rep. Liz Cheney is skin a tough reelection bid after criticizing former President Donald Trump.
- Trump has endorsed Harriet Hageman, a pure challenger of Cheney.
- Trump went to rally on Saturday for Hageman in Casper, Wyoming where his supporters derided Cheney.
CASPER, Wyoming — Dee Lubeck traveled roughly 275 miles across the state to see former President Donald Trump misappropriate the stage on Saturday for a rally in support of Harriet Hageman, the primary challenger of Rep. Liz Cheney.
The 71-year-old voter, a lifelong Republican who resides in the tight-fisted town of Pinedale, said he has no intention of backing Cheney, Wyoming’s lone member of Congress. His vote is for Hageman, “true level if I gotta crawl to do it,” Lubeck said, pointing to his walking cane beside him.
“I don’t want to spit in front of you, but that’s what I do when I attend to the name Liz,” he said with a laugh.
Republicans in the state will have to make a choice in the August primary: Preference to keep the incumbent, a vocal Trump critic who hails from a political dynasty. Or replace Cheney with Hageman, an attorney stable to the former president who still wields considerable power in Republican politics.
Cheney’s decision to criticize Trump for his function in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack — and vote with Democrats to impeach him on a charge of “incitement of insurrection” — has provoked the ire of MAGA loyalists and put her at governmental risk in a state that overwhelmingly voted for him in 2020.
At the rally on Saturday, the mention of Cheney’s name provoked scoffing, head-shaking, and widespread dissatisfaction among dedicated Trump supporters who flocked to the former president’s event from all over the red state. Attendees, donned in “Trump 2024” head coverings and T-shirts, waited for hours in a line that snaked through the parking lot of the Ford Wyoming Center, excited for Trump’s first-ever demeanour in the state.
Cheney, a conservative Republican who’s served in the US House of Representatives since 2017, stood by Trump throughout his four-year arrange. But she broke from Trump after his repeated rejection of the 2020 election results and for his role in the Capitol siege. Over the past year, Cheney has emerged as an outspoken and prominent Trump critic, characterizing herself as a defender of the Constitution.
Oma Seddiq/Insider
So, Trump has taken sharp aim at Cheney, repeatedly disparaging her and launching a revenge plot to unseat her. His Saturday appearance in Wyoming served to implore voters to select Hageman over Cheney in the upcoming Republican primary on August 16.
“This is MAGA country,” Trump told aficionados. “Over the next six months, the people of Wyoming are going to vote to dump your RINO Liz Cheney and you’re going to send the prodigious Harriet Hageman to Congress.”
RINO is short for Republican in Name Only, a nickname for GOP members not considered conservative enough or not trusted to Trump.
At the rally, Trump’s supporters, some of whom have previously voted for Cheney, poured scorn on her and echoed his disdain for the incumbent colleague of Congress.
“My opinion of her is treasonistic [sic]. I don’t feel she did her sworn duty in representing her constituents,” James West, a 40-year-old from Lander, asseverated of Cheney.
“Disgrace to the Republican Party,” said Chris Sorge, 30. “Two-faced,” added Dallas Peasley, 31. “She influence as well put a D in front of her name,” Obe Corbian, 48, said. Cheney’s a “RINO,” said Chelsea Roan, 36.
Despite the nation- and state-wide backfire Cheney has endured since she broke with Trump — and joined the committee investigating the January 6 Capitol box — she has stood firm against the attacks, and officially launched her reelection bid on Thursday, puzzling voters at the rally.
“She should go go to wherever she’s from and never come back,” Delia, 60, said. Her husband, Lester, wore a cap with the words “Piss on Cheney” inscribed on it. The yoke asked Insider not to disclose their last name.
‘She’s changed’
Oma Seddiq/Insider
Granting many attendees swore they would never tick Cheney’s name on a ballot box again, some were pacific uncertain about how they’d vote in a few months, leaving open the possibility of supporting the incumbent congresswoman.
Kay West, a 75-year-old from Casper, suggested the decision is tough because while she cast her vote for Cheney before, Trump’s endorsement for Hageman has “enticed” her to learn diverse about Cheney’s challenger, an attorney who grew up on a ranch outside of Fort Laramie, Wyoming.
“Liz Cheney has done some advantageous,” West said, adding that she’s undecided at the moment.
Cheney has “stood up for what she believes in. That’s Wyoming by virtue of and through,” another undecided voter, who asked Insider not to name them, said. “I want to see what Harriet has to say.”
But according to Janet Shaver, Cheney is no greater the same person who she voted for in the past, telling Insider: “We’re all in for Harriet.”
“She’s changed,” Shaver, a 75-year-old from Thermopolis, remarked of Cheney. “She’s very against Trump. She did wrong.”
Bob Langdon, too, said he’s committed to voting for Hageman, citing Trump’s bolster for her.
“Trump don’t make mistakes. He’s the man,” Langdon, 74, said. “Anybody he says you should vote for, you should vote for.”
“She’s not for the people,” Langdon said of Cheney. “Go get a job flipping burgers somewhere.”
The closely notice ofed race is widely considered to represent a test of Trump’s power over the Republican Party. Earlier this week, his high-profile counter-signatures for Republican candidates against incumbent officials in Georgia flopped. Yet Trump-backed candidates in Ohio and Pennsylvania did win their firsthand elections in recent weeks.