FOX NEWS: DAVID BOSSIE: What Liz Cheney's primary defeat tells us about Wyoming, Trump and her next political move
The results are now official in one of the most watched congressional primary elections in recent memory. Conservative challenger Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed candidate in the race soundly defeated Trump-hating Congresswoman Liz Cheney in the Republican primary for Wyoming’s At-Large congressional seat.
In a state that President Trump won by 43 points, Hageman is now on a glide path to be part of a new America first Republican majority in the U.S. House come January 2023. It also represents a stunning loss for Rep. Cheney, who received 69 percent of the vote in her 2020 general election victory just 21 months ago.
Hageman received an impressive 66 percent of the vote to Cheney’s underwhelming 29 percent. Cheney’s total includes votes from registered Democrats, who switched parties just to vote for Cheney out of their unhealthy hatred of Donald Trump.
The match-up centered on outgoing Rep. Cheney’s vote to impeach former President Trump in 2021 without affording him due process. The horrible un-American precedent Cheney set with her irresponsible vote has since continued in her role as ringleader of the January 6 Select Committee in the U.S. House.
Former President Trump’s popularity and strength among Republican primary voters across the country was no exception in the beautiful Mountain West state of Wyoming.
These returns make clear that Cheney never had a chance to win this election in a very conservative state as an anti-Trump candidate vying for votes in an enthusiastically pro-Trump electorate — and she knew it all along. Look no further than the $7.4 million Cheney has leftover in her campaign account as of the latest filing. That’s hardly a strategy to win the campaign you claim that you’re focused on.
Just as she used Wyoming as a stepping stone to help move herself up the political food chain, the entitled Cheney has been misusing her perch on the Trump-hating January 6 Committee to raise her profile for a potential presidential campaign. But that gloomy campaign — if it ever happens — will come up empty just like the January 6 Committee because Republican primary voters are getting the facts – and the facts aren’t on Liz Cheney’s side.
Here are some facts that Wyoming primary voters understand. On January 6, 2021, President Trump said “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Whether Cheney’s committee likes it or not, Trump said be peaceful. Furthermore, in the lead up to the rally, there’s evidence showing that President Trump the National Guard’s help. This is something you’ll never hear from Cheney’s one-sided inquisition. And last but not least, a Department of Justice indictment of an individual charged in connection with the riot tells a very different story than the one Liz Cheney has been telling on national television.
“All I see Trump doing is complaining,” the indictment states, “I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands.”
If the January 6 Committee was a real committee with minority representation this would already be common knowledge, but fact-finding isn’t Rep. Cheney’s modus operandi. Her true goal is to abuse taxpayer funds to try and stop Donald Trump from running for president in 2024 at all cost. The Constitution, rules, and precedent be damned.
Unfortunately for Liz Cheney, Donald Trump had a remarkably successful and consequential term in office Trump has every right to run for another term if he so chooses and President Biden is causing more and more buyer’s remorse every time he opens his mouth.
Let’s face it, Trump has an amazing record to run on — something that Cheney and the out of touch, Trump-deranged establishment can’t come to grips with.
He created a flourishing economy that paved the way for more hope, growth, and opportunity for all Americans; his innovative policies ushered in a time of American energy independence; and his peace through strength foreign policy kept the American people safe.
Juxtapose these accomplishments with the disaster that is Joe Biden. In less than 19 months in office, President Biden’s policies have created an inflation crisis, border crisis, and crime crisis that he has no real intention of trying to fix.
So, regardless of the anti-Trump January 6 Committee; regardless of the anti-Trump mainstream media; regardless of the anti-Trump political establishment; and regardless of the anti-Trump deep state, there’s no oxygen for a Cheney candidacy in the GOP presidential primary in 2024 because Republican primary voters will make these decisions, not career Washington politicians.
The bottom line is that Liz Cheney’s political career ended this week because she let her hatred of Donald Trump drive her decision-making instead of facts, evidence, and reality.
The people of Wyoming made the right choice.
David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United, a Fox News contributor, the 2016 deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump for President, and the former chief investigator for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight during the Clinton administration. He is the co-author with Corey Lewandowski of “Trump: America First: The President Succeeds Against All Odds,” along with “Let Trump Be Trump” and “Trump’s Enemies.”