Rep. Liz Cheney went down in flames Tuesday evening after being trounced in Wyoming’s GOP primary by Harriet Hageman, a lawyer whose candidacy was backed early on by former President Donald Trump.
However, during her concession speech, it certainly appeared as though Cheney does not believe her political career is over. In fact, she sounded an awful lot like she is considering a run for the White House.
She talked about how she won her last election by a 73-point margin, adding, “I could easily have done the same again.”
“The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic,” she said.
“That was a path I could not and would not take,” she noted further.
Cheney went on to compare herself to the country’s first Republican president and the man who preserved the Union.
“The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all,” she said to a handful of supporters in Jackson, Wyoming. “Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.”
“Speaking at Gettysburg of the great task remaining before us, Lincoln said, ‘We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this earth.’ As we meet here tonight, that remains our greatest and most important task,” Cheney said.
Next, she gave some insight into her future plans.
“Freedom must not, cannot, and will not die here,” she said. “We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face, and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6th, that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it.”
Last week, Cheney also hinted that she isn’t done yet in politics and that her primary objective would be to prevent Trump from winning the presidency again.
“America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country,” she said in a final campaign video to Wyoming voters, according to Fox News. “It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.”
The outlet added:
Cheney was the most senior of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the then-president on a charge of inciting the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. The attack was waged by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.
Public opinion polls indicate Cheney will likely get trounced on Tuesday in the Republican primary for Wyoming’s statewide congressional district. She badly trails Harriet Hageman, a lawyer and politician who has been endorsed and heavily supported by Trump as the former president aims to oust Cheney from her House seat in a state where he won a whopping 70% of the vote in 2020.
“I am working hard to earn every single vote,” Cheney said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” late last month. But, she added: “Given the choice between maintaining my seat in the House of Representatives on the one hand or ensuring the survival of our constitutional republic and ensuring the American people know the truth about Donald Trump, I will choose the Constitution and the truth every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
