Tuesday’s Republican primary saw Harriet Hageman defeat Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, giving Donald Trump his most coveted victory in his protracted battle to rid the Republican Party of his rivals.
In her contest with Cheney, a former member of the House Republican leadership and the daughter of a former vice president, Hageman, a Cheyenne attorney, benefited from Trump’s support. Immediately after The Associated Press declared the winner, Cheney accepted defeat. Liz Cheney’s loss was both foreseen and significant. Next year, the leading Republican critic of Trump and vice chair of the committee looking into the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 will no longer have her seat in Congress from which to fight a man she sees as a serious threat to US democracy.
Harriet Hageman Defeated Liz Cheney
The Republican primary voters’ rejection of Cheney also makes it obvious that they will not support anyone for public office who publicly criticize Trump, despite the fact that the former president is still under investigation by numerous agencies. Only two of the ten House Republicans who supported Trump’s impeachment last year will run in the fall’s general election. However, none of those 10 individuals possessed Cheney’s stature, who is the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney.
Liz Cheney’s fall, which came two months after George P. Bush was soundly defeated in his race for Texas attorney general, symbolizes the GOP’s complete and maybe definitive shift from the conventional conservatism of the Bush-Cheney period to the complaint-driven populism of Trump.
The depth of that transition would be seen in other competitions staged on Tuesday. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican running for reelection in Alaska against a race headed by Kelly Tshibaka, a Rep and previous state official whom Trump endorsed, is another daughter of local political aristocracy and one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump of inciting insurrection.
