Democrats are praising Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for opposing former President Donald Trump while running for reelection in a state where Trump is very popular.
Trump won the state of Wyoming in 2020 with nearly 70 percent of the vote, yet Cheney has fixated on combatting Trump, which has been loudly lauded by Democrats.
“She knows who she is, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say she has remained true to her conservative ideology,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) praised Cheney in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s that so many in her party have moved away from conservatism to embrace Trumpism.”
Cheney, who is challenged by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, is well behind in the polls. The polling data suggests Cheney’s alliance with Democrats on the partisan January 6 Committee is hurting Cheney’s reelection hopes. Fifty-four percent of voters are less likely to support Cheney after she tangled with Trump on the committee.
Cheney defended her alliance with Democrats as “weird.” “I’m sure it’s as weird for them as it is for me,” Cheney told the Times.
One of the Democrats’ most prominent donors, film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has funded Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s former presidential campaigns, has praised the congresswoman for helping Democrats.
“She has done something that very, very few people in history have done, which is she’s put her country over party and politics to stand in defense of our Constitution,” Katzenberg said.
US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (L) speaks with Representative Liz Cheney at a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony honoring 17 recipients, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, July 7, 2022. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite Cheney’s applause from Democrats, CNN has reported Cheney’s popularity among Democrats may not help her win the GOP primary.
“We shouldn’t mistake adoring press coverage and bipartisan bona fides for popularity in the place where popularity matters most for Cheney: Wyoming,” CNN’s Harry Enten analyzed. “A look at the data reveals that Cheney should be regarded as the clear underdog in her efforts to retain her seat.”
Ed Kilgore at New York Magazine believes Cheney’s alliance with Democrats is almost certain to defeat her in the primary race.
“You could argue that Cheney’s reelection goose was cooked January 13, 2021, the day she voted for Trump’s second impeachment,” Kilgore wrote Monday. “But her descent from the House Republican leadership to almost certain defeat in an August 16 primary in Wyoming has had a number of dramatic moments.”
Brad Coker, managing director of the polling firm Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, stated Friday that Cheney will lose the August 16 primary against Hageman.
“The big story is Liz Cheney is going to get beat,” Coker reflected. “That’s a foregone conclusion,” Coker said before noting Cheney has failed to persuade voters that the race is more about Trump than Cheney’s obsession with attacking the former president. “This race is more about Liz Cheney than it is about Donald Trump,” he said.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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