Is the January 6 Committee Cheney’s Last Stand?

R epublican Liz Cheney has become best-known in recent months for her public opposition to former president Donald Trump — and it’s no secret that this stance may cost the Wyoming representative her seat.

This possibility has only become more evident given the hearings she’s helping organize as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot. The first hearing, in which Cheney played a starring role, drew an audience of 20 million viewers on twelve different television networks. The second hearing, held on June 13, captured an audience half that size, perhaps indicating lagging interest among the public. This was despite the fact that Fox News, which stayed with its primetime lineup instead of airing the first hearing, aired the second hearing in its entirety.

But as far as primaries are concerned, the adage that any publicity is good publicity does not seem to ring true for Cheney. She is being trounced in the polls by her Trump-backed primary challenger Harriet Hageman. Two recent surveys (which were funded by groups supporting Hageman) indicated Hageman has a significant lead over Cheney. Club for Growth’s poll, conducted from May 24-25, found Cheney trailing Hageman by 30 points. And a poll conducted by the Hageman-supporting super PAC Wyoming Values on June 6 found Hageman to have a 28-point lead over Cheney. Considering that these polls were conducted before the January 6 committee hearings began in a state that voted 70 percent for Trump in 2020, the numbers do not bode well for Cheney. The hearings, however noble the representative considers their purpose to be, serve as a constant reminder among the Republican base in Wyoming of Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump and her focus on the Capitol riot as opposed to other kitchen-table issues.

However, an ally of Cheney insisted to National Review that her political team isn’t worried about the polls. It is difficult to poll in Wyoming since it is a heavily rural state; further, in Wyoming, Democrats and Republicans can switch parties to vote in the other party’s primaries, in what is known as “crossover voting.” This year, allies of Trump unsuccessfully lobbied Wyoming legislators to ban crossover voting, presumably in an effort to hurt Cheney’s chances of reelection. According to Wyoming law, voters must be affiliated with the political party to vote in that party’s primary. However, a voter can change affiliation even on the day of the primary. Currently, there are 197,868 registered Republicans in the state of Wyoming, 44,643 registered Democrats, and 35,324 registered independents. To win the Wyoming congressional primary, a candidate only needs to win a plurality of the vote. If non-Republican voters switch to Republican to vote in the primary, they may give Cheney a boost on August 16.

A conservative Republican, Cheney voted with Trump 92.9 percent of the time, making her departure from the Trump wing of the party all the more noteworthy. The Wyoming representative also holds a 77 percent score with Heritage Action for America. Cheney is running on energy, state land, and other policies that matter to voters, according to the Cheney ally, who claims that the representative’s reelection prospects do not factor into what she believes is her constitutional duty to serve on the committee.

Yet she faces institutional headwinds as well. In November of 2021, the Wyoming Republican Party voted to no longer recognize Cheney as a member of the party because of her vote to impeach Trump and her criticism of the former president. The Cheney ally told NR that this move says more about the state party than it does about Cheney. The lawmaker has cited claims that the party chairman, Frank Eathorne, is tied to the Oath Keepers; according to the Casper Star-Tribune, Eathorne was near the Capitol during the riots on January 6. The chairman also talked about Wyoming seceding from the United States after Cheney voted in favor of impeaching Trump.

Cheney adamantly maintains her stance against Trump, no matter the consequences. In a recent campaign video, Cheney alluded to Trump’s unfounded election-fraud claims, proclaiming:

If our generation does not stand for truth, the rule of law, and our Constitution, if we set aside our founding principles for the politics of the moment, the miracle of our constitutional republic will slip away. . . . I’m asking you to join me, to reject the lies, to rise above the toxic politics, to defend our freedom, to do what we all know is right.

To be part of Democrats’ effort to use the January 6 committee to tar Republicans generally as insurrectionists and their leadership specifically for providing cover for white supremacists, as Cheney has claimed, may earn her a ticket to retirement. But Cheney’s stand is a principled one — of that there can be no doubt, considering the clear political cost it might entail.