Trump chooses Cheney challenger in major test of political clout
Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman is preparing a primary challenge against GOP Rep. Liz Cheney. | (Mead Gruver/AP Photo)
Harriet Hageman, an attorney who lost a bid for governor in 2018, is set to get Trump's endorsement in the primary against Rep. Liz Cheney.
Two years later, she won her primary in the state, a sign she was accepted as a local. Trump, meanwhile, had just been handed one of his biggest defeats in the 2016 primary season when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the Cowboy State’s GOP caucus with 70 percent of the vote; Trump finished third, with 7 percent, behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
But in the two general elections to follow, Wyoming was the reddest of Trump states. He carried it by 43 percentage points, a bigger margin than any other state he won.
Cheney's fate?
Some Cheney backers point to Trump’s 2016 caucus defeat in the state as evidence that he might not have as iron a grip in Wyoming. Two years later, his 11th-hour support for billionaire Foster Friess wasn’t enough to put him across the finish line in the primary against now-Gov. Mark Gordon, the race in which Hageman came in third.
But unlike this congressional race, Trump paid relatively little attention to the 2018 gubernatorial race. His support for Friess was largely limited to an Election Day tweet endorsing him.
Cheney supporters like Boyd Wiggam, an attorney who ran for Cheyenne City Council, still hope that the congresswoman can overcome Trump’s endorsement of Hageman, noting that “Wyoming is the kind of place, historically, where people don’t like outsiders telling us what to do.”
And her decision to denounce Trump for his role inciting the Capitol riots — and her refusal to back down from calling out Trump for lying about the election results — could play well in a state with an independent streak, said Wiggam.
Still, Wiggam said, a matchup with Hageman would be tough for Cheney because the challenger is “very intelligent, unquestionably a Wyoming person. If you want to see a rough-and-tumble political battle, you would certainly see a sharp debate between Rep. Cheney and Hageman. They’re not going to pull punches.”
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