Liz Cheney wins primary for father’s old House seat

Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, outspent opponents 10-1 to win the Republican nomination for Wyoming’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

After living the majority of her adult life in northern Virginia, Cheney moved back to America’s least inhabited state to seek the position her father held for five terms.

Three years ago, Cheney attempted to oust three-term incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., but dropped out months before the election over criticism for being a “carpetbagger.” But this time around, Cheney suffocated her opponents in the eight-way race to replace retiring Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. During her campaign, she raised $1.5 million dollars, 75 percent of which came from donors outside Wyoming, to drown out negative messages.

Her opponents painted her as a Washington insider, out of touch with the citizens in rural Wyoming, but Cheney turned the attacks into fodder.

“Regardless of whether our next president is a Democrat or Republican, the one and only voice we have in the U.S. House must be able to command their attention on a national stage to ensure our economic and national security needs are met,” Cheney said Tuesday. “The job is too big and too important to be trusted to someone who will take years to develop the seniority needed to get results.”

Before seeking elected office, Cheney worked in the State Department for President George W. Bush’s administration and then as a campaign operative in 2008.

Polls favor Cheney to win the House seat in November since Wyoming has not elected a Democrat since 1976 and registered Republicans outnumber other voters 3-1 in that state.

But because she is an unabashed Donald Trump supporter, even Cheney’s biggest fans have had to root for her behind the scenes.

Former presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush supported Cheney financially, but stayed on the periphery as both declined to endorse Trump. Her father broke with the Bushes in May and said he would support Trump, but earlier this year he could not hold back disparaging comments.

“I’ve said I’ll support the nominee of my party,” the former vice president said. “[But] if he operates the way he’s operating, sounding like a liberal Democrat, I don’t think he’ll get the nomination.”

Throughout Cheney’s campaign in Wyoming, her father and the Bushes kept a low profile.

But others decided to make more public stances.

Just days before the election, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has been a heavy critic of her father’s militaristic philosophy, endorsed one of Cheney’s opponents. Paul told Politico he disagreed with the former vice president’s record on war and government spending while telling Wyoming voters not to vote for his daughter, dreading she may follow his footsteps.

“I think there are big government Republicans who believe that they want sort of an imperial presidency that can take us to war anywhere and everywhere at any time,” Paul said. “And then there are those of us who believe that the Constitution was very explicit that the power to go to war was given to the legislature.”

Ryan Greene, an oilfield manager who has never held elected office, will be Cheney’s Democratic opponent in November and plans to argue she doesn’t have Wyoming’s best interests at heart.

“This just became Wyoming versus Washington. The Cheneys are Washington,” Greene said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’re going to continue to work hard, and we’re going to show the nation that our state’s not for sale.”