Tipsheet

WaPo Admits Liz Cheney Likely to Lose Her Primary, but Something Else Looms...

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  August 15, 2022 6:20 PM

Monday brings us to the eve of Rep. Liz Cheney's (R-WY) primary, where she is expected to lose against Harriet Hageman, her challenger backed by former President Donald Trump. Even The Washington Post expects to her to lose, but we can't get too excited when it comes to Paul Kane's Monday headline for the outlet," considering he wrote that "Liz Cheney’s political life is likely ending — and just beginning."

While the bulk of the piece is about Cheney's plans beyond the House, Kane does reference how Democrats are indeed switching their party registration so that they can vote for the incumbent, as Wyoming is an open partisan state with partisan registration. "Voters who are already affiliated with a political party- Republican, Democrat or minor party- can vote only in that party’s primary," according to Open Primaries.

This still takes up a significant chunk in Kane's piece, though in the final few paragraphs even he admits the numbers just aren't there. "If Cheney loses the usual Wyoming Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin, as polls suggest, she would need something along the lines of 40,000 Democrats and independents to cross over — an insanely high figure in a state where just 115,000 voted in the last midterm GOP primary," he writes. 

In other words, Cheney is, by all accounts, likely to lose her primary on Tuesday night, but that doesn't mean she's going away. Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media, who suddenly just adore the Republican congresswoman, as do RINOs and Never Trumpers, anticipate she'll run for president, something she hasn't ruled out when asked. 

While Cheney has said the decision to run will come later, it seems she's already thinking about it. She may, in fact, be using her current campaign ads as a launching pad to running for even higher office, as Kane begins his piece by suggesting. 

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Even if Cheney were not to win the presidential nomination, though, that still doesn't mean she'll go away. Far from it. For Kane later writes:

But Cheney is clear-eyed when it comes to her chances of actually winning the presidential nomination in a party that is still so loyal to former president Donald Trump, according to friends and advisers. She sees her future role similar to how she views the work of the Jan. 6 committee: Blocking any path for Trump back to the Oval Office.

“It’s about the danger that he poses to the country, and that he can’t be anywhere close to that power again,” she told a crowd of supporters in Cheyenne just before the committee hearings launched in early June.

Traditional conservatives opposed to Trump have already discussed the possibility of Cheney running for the White House. “That chatter was very strong even before that Dick Cheney commercial,” Dmitri Mehlhorn said, referring to a campaign ad that ran nationwide on Fox News and featured the former vice president denouncing Trump.

Mehlhorn advises several donors across the political spectrum who are opposed to Trump, including the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. He said he and the donors he works with would consider funding a Cheney presidential bid.

In that regard, Cheney will spend the months after the committee concludes its work later this year figuring out her next steps. That might be launching a political organization that focuses on Trump, or some think-tank work matched with media appearances.

But, for certain, Cheney and a small but influential bloc of anti-Trump Republicans have decided that there must be a 2024 candidate who will run as an unabashed opponent of both the ex-president and other contenders who spew his mistruths about the 2020 election.

This mention of billionaires like Reid Hoffman and other unnamed "donors" reminds that Cheney's support comes from those who may have a lot of money, but don't actually have ties to Wyoming. 

That may play out differently in 2024, but it's looking pretty bad for Tuesday's primary race. While Cheney raised a particularly high amount, far more of Hageman's donations came from in-state, as in the people whose votes will actually matter. 

Further, last-minute efforts from groups such as Principles First and the Republican Accountability Project seem to be backfiring against not only them, but Cheney and her ilk.