Liz Cheney suffers impeachment vote blowback at home: ‘Couldn’t win a primary today for dog catcher’
Rep. Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach President Trump put her political future in jeopardy back home in Wyoming, revealed a state GOP official.
Doubts quickly surfaced about her viability in the 2022 GOP primary after she announced her support of impeachment and then led nine other House Republicans on Wednesday in voting to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“She couldn’t win a primary today for dog catcher,” said Martin Kimmet, chairman of the Republican Party in Park County, Wyoming.
Ms. Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican leader and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, went from a rising star into a political nosedive virtually overnight.
“I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls, more than you could count. I have not gotten one in support of what Liz Cheney did,” Mr. Kimmet said. “What she did was wrong. Period.”
He echoed other critics of the impeachment, saying it was rushed and Mr. Trump was denied due process.
Ms. Cheney has held Wyoming’s single House seat since 2017. She won her first reelection bid last year with 68.7% of the statewide vote.
The anger she now is weathering in Wyoming reflects the ongoing solid support for Mr. Trump among Republican voters nationwide.
An NBC News poll released Thursday showed only 8% of Republican voters supported impeachment, compared to 89% of Democrats and 45% of independents.
The blowback also hit Ms. Cheney in Washington, where fellow Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Matt Rosendale of Montana are circulating a petition to knock her off the leadership team.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, does not support the effort, as first reported by The Washington Examiner.
Ms. Cheney bucked her critics in the House Republican Conference.
”I’m not going anywhere. This is a vote of conscience. It’s one where there are different views in our conference. But our nation is facing an unprecedented — since the Civil War — constitutional crisis.” she told reporters at the Capitol.
After casting the impeachment vote, she told the Wyoming press corps that she was going to help lead Republicans back to a House majority in a post-Trump Washington.
“Once we get through this period, once we get through the inauguration, we will very much be focused on policy,” she said. “I’m laying out a positive agenda for the future, and it’ll be one that will allow us to get the majority back in two years. That’s what I’m focused on, and that’s what I look forward to our conference being able to accomplish.”
Mr. Kimmet wasn’t convinced.
“I don’t care how she spins it,” he said. “What she did was wrong.”
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